Halo: The Master Chief Collection Halo 3 PC Preview

July 19, 2020 at 2:06am
By Jason Stettner

This is the debut of Halo 3 on PC, and it absolutely delivers on the launch. This is truly an impressive effort bringing the legendary third main entry in the series to Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC.

With that comes a number of other improvements that affect both this iteration, and also the Xbox One version. Some fixes are present here including the correction of emblems on character models and greatly boosted audio sounds for weapons.

I note these as the PC builds are not only giving new players a chance to play these iconic titles, but the improvements are also being pushed back on the console version so that the collection as a whole is benefitting from the development. Perhaps the only really big change is the addition of a new skull to the game.

This is called the Acrophobia Skull, it grants the ability to essentially fly within the game. I actually did a fresh run through of the entire campaign with a friend using this, it shaved a ton of time off of our run.

It was lots of fun, and just generally hilarious to use. It takes some getting used to, but it’s a blast to reach places you could never hit before. While flying you will need to be careful of walls, and also bursting past checkpoints.

That whole end racing segment was particularly fast when you’re just soaring up in the air. With that, it brings laughs and fresh perspectives to how you view the various levels. When it comes to customization the models have been adjusted, and there’s now lots of armor freedom for Halo 3 which is excellent.

A final title specific upgrade has been the adjustment to visuals for certain cinematic backdrops, they’ve had a resolution touch-up and boost which is fantastic to see in action. That’s the just of what’s really new here, now to talk about seeing this game run on the PC platform. For context, I use a RTX 2080Ti paired with an I9 9900k.

The game ran beautifully with a smooth frame rate and gorgeous visuals the entire time through. It did seriously look impressive, with a higher sense of detail to all of the smaller details. The textures of random items, the ambience of the world and even the character models actually did seem better.

I do however wish that HDR was present on the PC side of things, it really does make a massive difference on the console version. That perhaps was the only thing to even note of being off here. The game plays incredibly well, it’s smooth the whole way through and continues the build-up for this masterful collection within the PC space.

It’s seriously amazing to play this game on the PC as I never actually thought it would ever happen. It’s been a long journey seeing this game grow over the years, come back within the package and now have it available on PC as well. I was seriously impressed by this effort. It was great to enjoy the campaign, and also the multiplayer in this way. I haven’t really dived into the Forge aspect as it’ll take time for creators to take advantage of the new options.

I suppose I should have mentioned this under new features as well, but they’ve upgraded and introduced Forge on PC. These upgrades include brand new items, vehicles and a far larger budget than previously available. There are also new snap and rotation options specifically for the Halo 3 version. It’s a massive change-up and should help produce some charming new creations from the community. With that, there’s not a whole lot to say.

This is basically a perfect port of one incredible game. If you’ve never played this game before, you’ve missed out and now is the time. If you’re wanting to see how it looks on PC after having played it on say Xbox 360, or Xbox One. Then you’re definitely in for one amazing great. Definitely an exciting set of releases for the Windows 10 PC platform, and one that I would have never expected just a few years prior. You can read our review of the core title below, or check out our hub for additional coverage below.

Read our Halo: MCC Review
View our Halo Hub