Halo 3 releases early on PC, MCC Season 2 patch notes now available

It only took 13 years, but Halo 3 is now available on PC, a little earlier than anticipated, as confirmed by 343 Industries. The game was expected to launch on Steam and Microsoft Store at 10AM PT but has already popped up on stores.

The development team acknowledged the early release, even though no details were provided about why that happened.

“Yep, Halo 3 PC and the MCC update are now live a bit early,” community director Brian Jarrard said on Twitter.

“It’s been nearly 13 years, we figure you’ve waited long enough,” even though “some services” might still be unlocking only upon the original launch time.

As Jarrard mentioned, there’s an update available now, too, which makes improvements and introduces functionalities across The Master Chief Collection.

The Forge has now been implemented in Halo Reach, Halo 2 Anniversary, and Halo 3, while challenges have been added into all of the games now available for PC (including Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary) and will grant the opportunity to have new special rewards as part of the Season 2.

The the full changelog is posted below. The audio issues found in Halo Reach and Halo 3 are said to have been finally fixed thanks to this patch.

• (PC) Forge is now available for Halo: Reach, Halo 2: Anniversary, and Halo 3.
• Halo 3 Forge has been updated with new features, including Object Physics, rotation, coordinate snap and precision edit tools.
• Halo 3 and Halo: Reach Forge pallets have been expanded with new objects and budget increases.
• Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Halo 2: Anniversary Forge tools have been updated with a new “Toggle Rotation Axes” feature adding toggleable rotation around World and Local axes. Note: This is planned to be added into Halo 4 at a later date.
• Updated season unlock flow to feature non-linear unlocks per page and added Season 2 featuring 30 new nameplates, 46 new H1 Weapon and 18 H1 Vehicle skins.
• Challenges are now available to complete across all available titles. Note: Campaign Challenges are currently not supported in Halo 4: Spartan Ops.
• New spartan customization 3D model viewer for Halo 3.
• Updated Skill Rank backend for Ranked Matchmaking. This resolved a long-standing rank reset issue and has required us reset all ranked playlists to 1.
• “Highest Lifetime” rank is now displayed for rotational hoppers that are no longer available.
• Halo: Reach & Halo 3 audio has been updated.
• New Acrophobia skull for Halo 3.
• “Dual Wield Inversion” has been added as a toggle for players who wish to disable the title from switching the “primary fire” weapon to your left-hand while dual wielding in Halo 2 or Halo 3.

A new game in the franchise, Halo Infinite, is about to get its first gameplay reveal on July 23 at the Xbox Games Showcase event.