343 Industries is letting its avid players have a taste of Halo 3 with releasing the game early this June to its Halo Insiders program members.
In a community update release, the devs have announced the “Halo 3 flighting” this early this month. It’ll give Halo Insiders the opportunity to witness a part of its gameplay before it gets officially launched as part of the Halo: Master Chief Collection.
“In the first half of next month, we are planning to flight a slice of Halo 3 to Halo Insiders on PC,” says community manager Tyler “Postums” Davis.
The community update release was quite long, but it did miss out on the specific date of its test run release. PC Gamer weighs in a safe assumable date, which is June 19. Accordingly, other days beyond that won’t be considered as “early in June.”
What to expect on this initial release?
The Halo 3 flight is said to come on Microsoft Store and Steam. Accordingly, the content to be released will likely change, so lucky players should expect that the details mentioned might be a little different once the flight officially begins.
Welcome to another Community Update here on Twitter! In this thread we'll cover all recent @Halo happenings. Let's take a look! pic.twitter.com/JBH5d0nuF2
— John Junyszek (@Unyshek) May 28, 2020
The flight will include the following campaign missions:
- Sierra 117
- The Storm
- The Ark
- The Covenant
- Halo
The following options will also be made available to the aforementioned campaign missions:
- All difficulty levels
- Single-player
- co-operative online play
Furthermore, Forge and Theater will be available during the flight. However, Theater will only be playable for PC players using Mouse & Keyboard.
For the challenges, players should enjoy the complete Challenge System, which includes the Challenge Hub screen.
Moreover, the availability of the Multiplayer options will include Custom Games, Competitive Games, and Social Games. the flight will also “support various maps and playlists for multiplayer,” which are:
- Social Games: 4v4, 8p FFA, 12p Infection, 8v8
- Competitive: H3 Team Hardcore (4v4), H3 Team Slayer (4v4) H3 Team Doubles (2v2)
- Halo 3 Multiplayer: Construct, Guardian, Last Resort, Narrows, Sandtrap, The Pit, Valhalla, Foundry, Standoff, Avalanche, Sandbox, and Heretic
In May's MCC Development Update, we touch on Halo 3 flighting, breakdown the life of a bug, provide a complete project update, and more. Check it out now! https://t.co/NohdJG7P3W pic.twitter.com/dzpCwVkZcx
— Halo (@Halo) May 29, 2020
The goal of the Halo 3 flight
Basically, the goal of the flight is for the devs over at 343 Industries to test their “distribution pipeline.” They will also ask feedback from the Halo Insiders as they play the contents mentioned above.
In general, it is to test that “all supporting systems are functioning properly” and be able to fix any issues that’ll emerge during this phase before the devs officially plug the Halo 3 title into the Master Chief Collection.
As for its official release to MCC, there’s still no exact date mentioned. Nevertheless, with the testing already rolling out, the public release won’t be that far along.
Eurogamer did note that Microsoft previously promised the launch of Halo 3: ODST (Campaign) and Halo 4 to MCC before 2020 ends.
Featured image courtesy of Halo