@@alexanderstormdahl2562 I agree, I think more along the lines of the difference in soundtrack of dragon quest with the orchestral score added changes the game for me 👍
@@Demanufactur3r Just a running joke from a little bit of awkwardness. Alex said "my friend and colleague" and John said "my colleague". They've played it up ever since.
They didn't mess with the spattered covenant blood going down the elevator in Guilty Spark classic did they? I'll never understand why that great piece of environmental storytelling was taken out in Anniversary. That and they made the corridors too brightly lit for that level in Anniversary. Tension gets sapped right out of the craziest part of the game as a result.
I think those were in the flight too! When Season 7 kicks off you should be able to see it. As for the colour tonemapping, a dash of reshade should be an interim solution for that.
gotta give 343i respect for fixing a old games gearbox port after all these years. Most people who play MCC probably didn't even know about or notice these issues. Its nice to know they care about us hardcore fans, and are now getting around to fixing it. better late than never.
@@alexsilva28 I really don't think the demo was that bad. Yeah there were some problems, but in the end, I'd rather see problems in a demo. Think of all the times a demo has looked flawless and it's come to bite them in the ass. Anthem, Division, and Cyberpunk are just a few. If I see flaws in a demo, that tells me that it's much closer to a real representation of the game and what I saw in July didn't really scare me. It looked fun to play even if there were some AI issues, Shadows missing, pop in, and phantom flight pathing issues. If that demo had been flawless and the game released in the state that we saw it in July, the backlash would have been astronomical. Here's to hoping for a good launch and a damn good Halo game.
Postums, one of the community managers at 343i posted this on Twitter asking everyone what they wanted to be fixed with Halo 2. He acknowledged several issues like hit reg, 60hz tick rate issues, other bugs and passed it along to the dev team. I expect we'll see Halo 2 get a similar patch. Hopefully it's even bigger and better.
@@SoulbentAnime Let's hope, cause I'm tired of not hearing The Elite Commander and the Monitor and Keys at the final level. And others where you have to be near them to even hear their communication dialogue.
It has and I'm thankful for these changes but damn would it have killed them to release the game not broken in 2014? Lol also modders fixed a bunch of these problems years ago. Not everything since they don't have devs tools but they did a pretty good job. The devs working on MCC are going to do halo 2 next so that's exciting.
Halo MCC has to be the most developed / updated game of all time. Seriously what is the number of development hours in it? It must be insane. I love Microsoft's dedication to Halo it's beautiful.
Lol. When I bought it in 2016 I swear the disc is useless, it downloads a completely different game. Of course I believe it was rushed out very unfinished to begin with.
The fuck? MCC launched and was a fucking mess - actually the worst launch mess i've seen, worse than no man's sky for SIX FUCKING YEARS it's insane that it was just in a dumpster for 6 years.
OK and? It's because with limited resources and funds from previous titles, they were forced to do it and were all hands on Halo 5's launch anyways. It wasn't until halo 5 got its last major updates that MCC finally got many fixes and updates which today, imo as a die hard halo fan, outweigh the negativity of the launch, especially since it's been over 4 years since MCC started getting new and never seen content being officially added. @@cowgoesmoo2
24:04 the issue seems to be the animation, MCC version reload anim starts after the recoil of the last shot VS Xbox anim starts once during the recoil of the last shot.
I'm really glad that you mentioned the color space, that's the main issue I always had with CE is that it always looked washout compared to the OG xbox. Thank you for bring it up, maybe 343 would take notes
I just wish they would give us the original game menus and loading screens. I would like to play Halo 1 as it was presented on Xbox, with the original splash screens, menus, music, loading screens. The way it is now, you just boot into a generic MCC client and play missions from the games. It doesn't feel right.
I never owned a Xbox and never played Halo until now I don't have a care in the world about og loading screens or main menu but those MCC menus sucks so much + I don't like being forced to have a shared launcher for all the games
Maybe a patch will come for Halo 2 later on. On PC there are no framedrops but loading Halo 2 campaign takes significantly more time than any other game in MCC.
It it’s even worse on the one x.. all anniversaries graphics don’t perform well and haven’t since halo reach was added to the mcc. They are aware just haven’t managed to bring performance back
I have participated in every Insider build testing and this along with H3 on PC were my favourite releases. I was very critical of their work on the port of H2 but it is commendable how 343 are trying to preserve all the aspects of the original games as well as adding features of this generation. Thank you for the upload DF.
@@Giru All of those features are nice-to-haves though, and they all need to be balanced against how much time and money will be spent trying to add them to the game. Local co-op might be a pain in the ass to add to MCC as it is now, while only a handful of players will actually use it.
@@samcooke343 I call BS on all of that. Local co-op was part of the original-game so it was something taken OUT. Not something that needed to be added in. Next, I think that the vast-majority of people that still enjoy the original Halo games would *prefer* local co-op.
@@D2Kprime It was part of the Xbox version, not the original PC version. So it wasn't taken out of the port. PC is an entirely different architecture so who knows what difficulty Gearbox had getting it in there, or whether it was even in their budget to add. After all PC has never been the platform that people have their buddies over to sit and play couch co-op - huddling around a monitor isn't exactly the market they were going for. I very much doubt it was worth it to them at the time and it certainly isn't now judging from the lack of support.
This is really good news. If they keep up the improvements I'm down for another playthrough. I still bought the collection and played it when it came to PC, but I was pretty disappointed with how many odd issues the game had. The audio in Reach, lack of true classic visuals for CE, etc. I thought Halo 3 was alright at launch, that's where I spent most of my time.
Just amazing. I wrote something about that Microsoft should step in and slap around gearbox and take care of their most iconic game ever and fix the port problems. But I never thought they would... Just awesome. It's classic mode for me and a replay for sure.
A video correction: All non-energy weapons ARE affected by the reload rate delay. Did you guys reference my Twitter? A ton of the examples (including the pistol reload issue) were the EXACT spots from my Twitter thread. :P I also had discovered the Pistol reload bug in that thread, which wasn't known before. There are still a TON of issues mechanically with the game, so let's hope 343 fixes the game to make it play properly as that matters a lot more than making the visual experience 1:1. :/
I'm so glad you guys are continuing to keep up to date on this! It definitely helps both raise awareness, as well as raise the profile of this good work when it's done!
The community has nothing to do with it... Have you played Halo? The shit is fucking Timeless. ..... To a degree. Online I can quickly get tired of the Spawns.... But that's only due to the Competitiveness. The single Player............. It's probably the one I play the most. Hell I still boot up the Xbox 360 to play the Anniversary in 3D. But hey I was just messing with you and just trying to give more credit to the game and designers. They made one fucking hell of a game!
@@cMARVEL360 Yeah yeah, many games like this died in history and many off games stood alive even thou they have really bad quality/combat/development (Batman Arkham Asylum and Morrowind are 2 examples) About Halo, they really have special aura. I dislike shooters also I hate space themed games, but hey, u love Halo CE :d
@@sertdemir7138 Well what meant by timeless is that the game and many elements have not aged at all. For example.... With a Focus on Legendary.... You have your two weapons, and nades. . .stack that on top of the incredibly smart AI, all the voice acting going on... I mean just the other day I realized how grateful I am that Halo is by far the Most Inclusive game (To a Degree) than many games even today. All the different ethic accents on the parts of the Human Crew is absolutely the most diverse. You can get a Spanish accent a couple of Spanish words, a British accent, an Australian accent, the generic white guy and Johnson... LOL! Being the only Black man, but it helps drive the point this is the Future, and this is the Human Species and all it's colors fighting. Sure the first game doesn't have female soliders but we know that isn't a knock on its diversity because it was following a norm. The game has it's MP Component and it's solid as hell! The game really feels like the start of the MP Shooter environment we grew to know now... Even when Battle Royal came up, everyone with Big Team Battle Experience looked at Halo and asked When. When will Halo get Battle Royal, because they know the styple of Shield and Health started by Halo works Perfectly for this new game play design. Freaking Timeless
@@jackburton307 As bad as Gearbox's port was, graphics wise, it was the only version with fully featured and working online multiplayer, hence why they used it for the MCC.
@@arnox4554 "fully featured" lol. The PC version of CE online multi-player used the system link as their netcode backbone. It was horrible. That surely can't be the reason they used the Gearbox PC port!
@@jackburton307 Fully featured as in, it had a server browser, direct connect to servers, that sort of thing. The net code itself was fine for the day. I would like to know though what your source is for them using the Xbox LAN netcode for the PC netcode.
Ive been playing the original Halo on the OG Xbox on my CRT TV lately and its still so damn good, the small details in that games lighting and textures for the time still awe me.
23:20 IIRC this is because the magnum in CE multiplayer is different to the campaign magnum on the Xbox version, but when they ported it over to PC they broke it and the multiplayer magnum is just the campaign magnum.
i've been waiting 17 years for this to be on pc properly....... so much so that half the reason i got an og xbox was to play the originals in original graphics effects (and coop)
I also started with Halo: CE on PC. Played through the whole series on the 360, but CE is still special to me. I never expected 343 to really fix anything, but here we are, so props to them. Definitely worth a replay when the update comes out. I still hope they fix the rest of the bugs, add specularity to Keyes' eyes, fix the firing rates and fix the sound. And then they'll have to undo the Halo 2 Vista mess, which was handled by someone else entirely back in '07.
thank you for making this video! when I heard Halo 1's graphics were getting fixed, literally my first thought was: "I hope digital foundry does a video on this"
The Xbox was considerably more powerful than PC's during the early OG Xbox, so Gearbox felt they needed to make a lot of tweaks to get it running better on PC.
yeah i love the red cross my favorite thing they did was collect millions and millions of dollars to help haiti and japan when they got hit by earthquakes and proceeded to do fuck all with the money.
Omg my boy Epos Vox!!! 😭 So proud to hear him on a DF video. I normally think of him as more on the hardware/productivity side of stuff, lovely to hear him talk about games.
So glad they are finally fixing Randy Pitchford's botched and broken PC port. Finally people will get to experience the true art and graphics that made this game so special 20 years ago.
im still blown away the pc port could have come out like that and NOBODY on the dev teams cared for YEARS edit: I am sure the dev teams cared but were stuck for time. i am just glad it became a big community problem to the point they are going to fix it now
Quality pc ports back then were pretty much ignored by devs and the general gaming crowd. Pretty much the first ports of RE4, Dark Souls, Arkham Knight and Saints Row 2 won't be brought up in any current conversation about bad pc ports.
But also actual props to Gearbox for introducing a working and good (the netcode on the CE PC port is still better than any online netcode in the MCC...) online multiplayer prior to even Xbox Live, in a very quick time with a game that's infamous for it's spaghetti code, especially as it relates to co-op.
I only wish they'd made a few changes to the remastered graphics to keep the tone in the campaign more consistent with the original, especially with the flood levels, because otherwise the HD graphics are pretty swell.
Kinda impossible, they'd have to do a whole diff remaster since it was also done by Gearbox alongside 343. And the remaster graphics dont match the actual sizes of the original CE shapes, so some trees will eat your rounds because you think its clear, but in classic, the real tree is much larger. Otherwise, mods on CE could fix this, but doubtfully. Plus the remaster graphics are a fallacy to the classic.
I think one of the reasons the MCC version has a different feel to it's color is because of the resolution. With a lower resolution you get less detail but also more intensity in color due to the lack of pixels to differentiate between smaller details in color changes.
As someone who's been playing CE on PC since childhood (26 now), and it literally being the only Halo game available to me since I've never had a console, these changes really excite me! Finally, I can experience one of my favorite "classic" games the way that it was originally meant to be experienced (at least according to everyone who's railed on the PC changes for literally 2 decades).
20 years later and the game is still amazing beat all the halo games 20 times and I still can replay them. The series is a masterpiece. Only a handful of games can continuesly play over 20 years.
For a game made in 2001, Halo CE has sure stood the test of time thanks to all these fixes. There are still issues with the AI being more difficult due to the higher tickrate though.
Given how Halo CE was generally many people's first introduction to FPS games at the time though (for a console audience anyway), and was balanced around that fact, I'd personally say the AI being more difficult helps the combat hold up more as the average player's reaction time, hand-eye coordination .etc are all going to be far better than they were in 2001 - and if the AI were 1:1 with the original, it'd be made more trivial by the speed you can zero in on targets with mouse & keyboard. If there are any missing behaviours & reactions they should definitely be patched in, but difficulty? CE on heroic & legendary in its current state is very well balanced in my opinion, particularly compared to Halo 2 (even OG Xbox version). Fully agreed on standing the test of time though. Overall the combat experience of fighting (Particularly CE's Elites) is in the same league as Half Life's Marines & the soldiers in F.E.A.R. Enemies feel intelligent in a way they haven't since in other Halo games. The way they push their advantage, or retreat, they flank, regroup. They behave according to a clear heirarchy, you can see their morale effected by how you're going about combat & in turn how that effects their behaviour because the feedback to the player is just *chef's kiss*. It's all fantastic.
@@InnuendoXP Halo 2's Heroic is pretty unbalanced with dual wielding Elites and Brutes. The game's difficulty wasn't designed with quicker enemy reactions thanks to Chief's paper thin shields. In fact the Brutes were intentionally designed to be hyper aggressive and spongy since Bungie ran out of time which are further enhanced with higher framerates. CE's elites also suffer the same problem which isn't to say you need to "Git Gud" but it's a design flaw which should be pointed out. Gearbox probably didn't care about the faster reaction times since the pc port was just serviceable. Having an enemy fire twice as fast isn't indicative of good enemy design. I can mod Half Life's marines to do one hit shots but that probably won't have been a fun game.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the glow from the plasma hitting the terrain. One of my favorite things to do with he plasma gun was to just shoot stuff as it really felt like it was melting things due to how hot it was. (easily seen at 20:30 as t they're talking frames).
This is great, but they also need to put work in on the net code and feel of the multiplayer. Online play is nowhere near the feel of the OG version and it is a shame.
While I've had issues with the map and gametype pools, and lack of server browsers (they're coming!) etc. the netcode is infinitely better than any Xbox 360 or older era Halo title, which are VERY rough to play online these days by comparison. I loved the originals, and wish the overall multiplayer experience was closer, but netcode specifically is one thing that is inherently far superior on MCC. Old netcode and P2P never holds up
@@EposVox H4 and Reach are great in terms of net code. H3 is acceptable, but CE and H2 are pretty damn bad. That is really what I am getting at. The older the game the worse it feels online as of right now.
When they are done updating MCC, Xbox should allow profiles and the SeriesX to be set up offline. Then do a new disc version of MCC that is fully updated and contained on disc.
I thought people were exaggerating the issues when comparing MCC/og PC to the og Xbox, but I played through the original Xbox version again late last year and at times I was astounded by how much better it looked, largely thanks to bump-mapping.
I wonder if the pistol differs because original Xbox release had a variant balanced for multiplayer specifically? The Gearbox and later MCC use the campaign variant in all game modes.
one thing that I noticed right away when mcc first launched was how light dark sections were in ce and halo 2… I’ll always remember it being pitch black and not being able to see without the flashlight in the original… but maybe its because we have hdr now why they’re not pitch black anymore…
Almost fixed. Some issues remain such as white sniper scope hashmarks instead of blue, missing gaussian distortion on the outside edge of all scopes, broken scripts in places (mostly on T&R). Plasma grenades still have the anniversary wind-up sound before they detonate, and we desperately need the Classic HUD.
The only other change to CE’s visuals is hope for is restoring the original HUD. Having the bold outlines was super helpful, especially on some of the brighter stages like assault on the control room or two betrayals. Other than that, it’s just so nice to see the game look the way it was meant to again.
They also changed the aspect ratio of the cutscenes. Camera angles are wider now and the black bars are back. They also fixed it so Cortana changes colors again.
I'll admit most of those things I never noticed because I keep assuming that's how it looked like in the original Xbox. Like that fog in the upper atmosphere, I just assumed it was always like that. These changes look great, by the way!
If my memory is correct, in incorrect fire rate in multiplayer is because in the original game when playing MP the game patches applies a balance patch that wasn't implemented in the PC port. The pistol's accuracy was also one of the things changed in that patch.
Wow! I played Halo on a very good gaming PC for it’s day and I had no idea that there were so many negative changes. Likewise Xbox one S was my first Xbox and I just assumed that the Anniversary Edition would be superior seeing as it’s a remake. Considering that Xbox used direct X I’m not really sure why Gearbox had to make so many visual changes to the PC port.
Honestly I had no idea that MCC had an inferior version of Halo CE. So it’s really cool to see how ahead of its time the original Halo CE is on the og Xbox especially the slower fire rate on the MCC
Theres alot of factors that contribute to how colors display both software and hardware wise An easy explanation would be CRTs compared to LED/LCD panels will display colors differently, god knows what the reference display settings bungie used back in development maybe, but a bit of personal tweaking on your monitor and/or game would fix this (Brightness/Contrast and Color Vibrance and Gamma)
The shield fix alone is a huge improvement. The gane tutorialised plasma weapons being best for shields subtley in the pillar of autumn. But only when they change to red. Without it, the tutorial's broken
I started out with Halo CE on PC too. I remember my dad getting it for our pc the year it came out and it looked sooo janky, I thought THIS is what everyone made such a huge fuss over? Didn’t realize until Halo 3 came out with legendary edition and that movie DVD that it wasn’t supposed to look that way. Honestly I’m surprised the red health cross is still freaking there because Red Cross REALLY hates video games it seems Guy saying Halo CE Anniversary coming out when he was in high school dates me so much. I remember when the game first came out originally on Xbox and Pc.. I was waiting for the German word for goodbye at the end where’d it go?
I think part 3 of the fixes for CEA hopefully will bring back the original HUD as a toggle and the gameplay fixes as well to the game (which probably need to be fixed still with the 30 FPS animations).
@@MichaelM28 for multiplayer play, in mcc shooting mechanics and shot reg feels just not right. I don't think it is because of frame rate but the games may look similar but they play and feel different.
@@MichaelM28 Halo CE was never designed to run at super high resolutions or fast framerates, it feels off. The assets don't hold up on a 4k display and look more dated than if you were playing the OG Xbox version on a CRT TV, 6th gen games just don't look good on modern displays even if you force them to run at native 4k. Sure you can argue that you prefer playing Halo CE on PC/Series X for xyz reasons, but if we're talking about game preservation and having the most authentic experience nothing beats playing the original Xbox version on a CRT TV, that is how everyone experienced the game back in the day.
Gotta say I disagree and I was there at the very beginning day one. 4K 120FPS 120 field of view on series X is absolutely awesome and is definitely the best way to play it now.
@@gamerbum9350 I was there too on day 1. Like I said you can prefer to play it at 4k 120 with higher FOV, that's great for you. But that's not authentic Halo CE to me and certainly not true to the original experience. I own every Xbox and I just don't enjoy playing Halo CE on the MCC nearly as much on my big 85 inch 4k/120hz tv. I rather play it on a 25 inch CRT on an OG Xbox, it just looks better to me and I know there are others who would agree 🤷♂️ 6th generation console games were designed for CRTs in mind and they exploited their strengths beautifully. As another commenter has mentioned, the game on the MCC just doesn't feel the same as the OG.
Awesome, I only played through the full Halo CE campaign on MCC on Seriex X last week (though I played some of it on a friend's original XBOX at the time) and I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I got to experience the corrected presentation as I wouldn't have knows what I was missing otherwise.
343 is finally getting Halo CE to a state it should've launched in for pc... The multiplayer still spawns you with the magnum when you're supposed to spawn with a plasma pistol and AR. The hud need to go back to the OG xbox version and the AI needs fixed but so far this is ALOT better, it's glad to see Halo 3 isn't the update's focus for once.
Haven't been impressed with graphics since halo ce and wreckless Yakuza missions on Xbox.. I think it's an older time where normal maps and specular shading was all the rage , then Skyrim came out and games chose texture resolution over shading
Game preservation is so important - I'm glad we're honoring the artists' original intent.
Biggest upside to remastered games is just the redone music it sounds so much better along with original graphics would be an ideal choice for me 👍
@@Busman142 Redone music should always be an option. The music in the remaster of FFX is horribad, but you can pick the OG music as well.
@@alexanderstormdahl2562 I agree, I think more along the lines of the difference in soundtrack of dragon quest with the orchestral score added changes the game for me 👍
the weird part for me is trying to figure out how to still look back at the history of the messed up port 😂 i still have my CEA Xbox 360 disk 😂
Now if they would also honor the original artists behind those games by adding the original credits back in that would be sweet.
I love the continuing emphasis on "friend AND colleague"
And lover.
What's the story behind this?
Not just a friend, but a colleague as well.
@@Demanufactur3r John had Alex over for a Thanksgiving video and said they were colleagues and a bunch of people felt he had snubbed Alex.
@@Demanufactur3r Just a running joke from a little bit of awkwardness. Alex said "my friend and colleague" and John said "my colleague". They've played it up ever since.
This is very cool to see. They still need to add in vines/lighting and fog effects missing in guilty spark though 👀
Fancy seeing you here, mister
I think it's already there. Or I just don't understand what are you talking about )
They didn't mess with the spattered covenant blood going down the elevator in Guilty Spark classic did they? I'll never understand why that great piece of environmental storytelling was taken out in Anniversary. That and they made the corridors too brightly lit for that level in Anniversary. Tension gets sapped right out of the craziest part of the game as a result.
Yeah this was fun.
I think those were in the flight too! When Season 7 kicks off you should be able to see it.
As for the colour tonemapping, a dash of reshade should be an interim solution for that.
Honestly I did not expect that CE would would be fixed. Oh boy I was So WRONG !!!
gotta give 343i respect for fixing a old games gearbox port after all these years. Most people who play MCC probably didn't even know about or notice these issues. Its nice to know they care about us hardcore fans, and are now getting around to fixing it. better late than never.
Yup. They've earned my trust again and I'm cautiously optimistic about Infinite even after the last demo
I notice since the pc port
@@alexsilva28 I really don't think the demo was that bad. Yeah there were some problems, but in the end, I'd rather see problems in a demo. Think of all the times a demo has looked flawless and it's come to bite them in the ass. Anthem, Division, and Cyberpunk are just a few. If I see flaws in a demo, that tells me that it's much closer to a real representation of the game and what I saw in July didn't really scare me. It looked fun to play even if there were some AI issues, Shadows missing, pop in, and phantom flight pathing issues. If that demo had been flawless and the game released in the state that we saw it in July, the backlash would have been astronomical. Here's to hoping for a good launch and a damn good Halo game.
@@sgtcoffman Same here man. If anything I'm happy they had the integrity to delay it.
I sure noticed that broken sky fog!
I like to think that when DF have a disagreement they sign off the email with "Thanks Colleague"
0:36 Adam Taylor Introduction
1:53 Season 7 update in relation to Halo: Combat Evolved Xbox version overview
3:17 Flight preview change comparison
3:30 Flight preview change comparison: Fog
4:35 Flight preview change comparison: Jackel shields
5:41 Flight preview change comparison: Other Covenant effects
5:58 Flight preview change comparison: Teleporter effects
7:17 Flight preview change comparison: “Plasma Lighting Effect” in assault on Control Room
7:51 Flight preview change comparison: Flickering lights
8:33 Flight preview change comparison: Fuel Rod Cannon sound effects
9:18 Flight preview change comparison: Other sound effects, audio
10:13 Flight preview change comparison: Textures/bump maps/specular highlights
12:30 Flight preview change comparison: Health packs pulsating red cross
13:23 Flight preview change comparison: Keyes model
14:02 Flight preview change comparison: First cutscene visual fixes/glass changes
15:09 Flight preview change comparison: Master Chief “popping”
15:34 Flight preview change comparison: Colour tone discrepancy
17:37 Flight preview change comparison: General frame rate & interpolation
19:50 Flight preview change comparison: Weapon frame rate
20:58 Flight preview change comparison: Misc frame rate discrepancies
21:40 Wrap up part 1
23:16 Flight preview change comparison: Pistol multiplayer fire rate issues
24:48 Wrap up part 2
Now they need to fix Halo 2’s original details and their dialogue audio issues.
Postums, one of the community managers at 343i posted this on Twitter asking everyone what they wanted to be fixed with Halo 2. He acknowledged several issues like hit reg, 60hz tick rate issues, other bugs and passed it along to the dev team. I expect we'll see Halo 2 get a similar patch. Hopefully it's even bigger and better.
@@SoulbentAnime Let's hope, cause I'm tired of not hearing The Elite Commander and the Monitor and Keys at the final level. And others where you have to be near them to even hear their communication dialogue.
@@CRAZYGREGFILMS oh yeah that's right they need to bring back the Xbox radio chatter calls. Same thing happens with Johnson on Outskirts I think.
Or how halo 2 crashes on some cutscene if you play coop, which is an issue since MCC launched on Xbox
@@Dorraj not only that but stupid campaign playlist bugs not counting
Halo MCC has come such a long way, really happy with the work 343i have done
It has and I'm thankful for these changes but damn would it have killed them to release the game not broken in 2014? Lol also modders fixed a bunch of these problems years ago. Not everything since they don't have devs tools but they did a pretty good job. The devs working on MCC are going to do halo 2 next so that's exciting.
Halo MCC has to be the most developed / updated game of all time. Seriously what is the number of development hours in it? It must be insane. I love Microsoft's dedication to Halo it's beautiful.
I wanted to agree with you and then I remembered Dwarf Fortress is a thing and that's been actively developed and updated for like 20-30 years
Lol. When I bought it in 2016 I swear the disc is useless, it downloads a completely different game. Of course I believe it was rushed out very unfinished to begin with.
The fuck? MCC launched and was a fucking mess - actually the worst launch mess i've seen, worse than no man's sky for SIX FUCKING YEARS
it's insane that it was just in a dumpster for 6 years.
Yet the game still had dots everywhere.
OK and? It's because with limited resources and funds from previous titles, they were forced to do it and were all hands on Halo 5's launch anyways. It wasn't until halo 5 got its last major updates that MCC finally got many fixes and updates which today, imo as a die hard halo fan, outweigh the negativity of the launch, especially since it's been over 4 years since MCC started getting new and never seen content being officially added. @@cowgoesmoo2
I never thought they'd actually do it. I'm glad they're fixing the PC visuals.
Ya I returned the game because i think it looked gross, so maybe I'll give it another go.
do you know if they have released the season 7 update on Steam yet??
@@CMONCMON007 just wait, the update will either come around e3 or on the 9th
but dots are still on everyones faces so still a way to go
I hope they bring back the original HUD in some form. I've never liked the Anniversary HUD. It always looked off.
That and the original sniper rifle reticle
The original HUD is back now
24:04 the issue seems to be the animation, MCC version reload anim starts after the recoil of the last shot VS Xbox anim starts once during the recoil of the last shot.
I found this bug, it's not linked to the animation. All non-energy weapons are affected differently by it.
I had no idea about the glowing health pack. That's cool.
I'm really glad that you mentioned the color space, that's the main issue I always had with CE is that it always looked washout compared to the OG xbox. Thank you for bring it up, maybe 343 would take notes
I just wish they would give us the original game menus and loading screens. I would like to play Halo 1 as it was presented on Xbox, with the original splash screens, menus, music, loading screens. The way it is now, you just boot into a generic MCC client and play missions from the games. It doesn't feel right.
I never owned a Xbox and never played Halo until now I don't have a care in the world about og loading screens or main menu but those MCC menus sucks so much + I don't like being forced to have a shared launcher for all the games
I get frame drops in Halo 2 quite a bit on the Series X. You would think that it would be buttery smooth.
Happens on my PC too. I get frame drops on Delta Halo mission. I have a rtx 2080S, i9-9900k,m.2ssd. Maybe something wrong somewhere with the game.
Maybe a patch will come for Halo 2 later on. On PC there are no framedrops but loading Halo 2 campaign takes significantly more time than any other game in MCC.
It it’s even worse on the one x.. all anniversaries graphics don’t perform well and haven’t since halo reach was added to the mcc. They are aware just haven’t managed to bring performance back
@@ScarthyUK Yeah i had a 1X before the Series X and it had big frame drops. Especially on the first game. Halo 4 is super smooth though as is Reach.
@@ScarthyUK I noticed the same on the 1X. Thankfully the series x version is much better
I have participated in every Insider build testing and this along with H3 on PC were my favourite releases. I was very critical of their work on the port of H2 but it is commendable how 343 are trying to preserve all the aspects of the original games as well as adding features of this generation. Thank you for the upload DF.
Hopefully H2 will get fixed up next!
@@EposVox Yes, they have been working on it, unfortunately the Vista version is a mess hehe.
I'm super unhappy that the PC MCC still doesn't include local co-op, which was the best way to experience these games back on the original Xbox
Oh, and I'm aware of NucleusCoop, but FFS, this shouldn't be required, it should just be a part of the game.
@@Giru All of those features are nice-to-haves though, and they all need to be balanced against how much time and money will be spent trying to add them to the game. Local co-op might be a pain in the ass to add to MCC as it is now, while only a handful of players will actually use it.
@@samcooke343 I call BS on all of that. Local co-op was part of the original-game so it was something taken OUT. Not something that needed to be added in. Next, I think that the vast-majority of people that still enjoy the original Halo games would *prefer* local co-op.
@@D2Kprime It was part of the Xbox version, not the original PC version. So it wasn't taken out of the port. PC is an entirely different architecture so who knows what difficulty Gearbox had getting it in there, or whether it was even in their budget to add. After all PC has never been the platform that people have their buddies over to sit and play couch co-op - huddling around a monitor isn't exactly the market they were going for. I very much doubt it was worth it to them at the time and it certainly isn't now judging from the lack of support.
I love the fact that we're X videos in and my "friend and colleague" joke has become a DF meme.
It's the end of 2023 and they still haven't fixed the refresh rate of many elements, ie: breaking glass, and it shows, a lot.
10:53 That's randy's grease smeared on the wall.
"How greasy is Randy? Randy's so greasy he managed to smear some on a space ring he's never visited!"
This is really good news. If they keep up the improvements I'm down for another playthrough. I still bought the collection and played it when it came to PC, but I was pretty disappointed with how many odd issues the game had. The audio in Reach, lack of true classic visuals for CE, etc. I thought Halo 3 was alright at launch, that's where I spent most of my time.
Just amazing. I wrote something about that Microsoft should step in and slap around gearbox and take care of their most iconic game ever and fix the port problems. But I never thought they would...
Just awesome. It's classic mode for me and a replay for sure.
Gearbox is the developer that brought us Aliens: Colonial Marines btw. But then again they also brought us Half-Life: Opposing Force... Strange
It me it me!
Dude, I never expected this collab, but it's great to see "friends and colleagues" coming together!
A video correction: All non-energy weapons ARE affected by the reload rate delay.
Did you guys reference my Twitter? A ton of the examples (including the pistol reload issue) were the EXACT spots from my Twitter thread. :P I also had discovered the Pistol reload bug in that thread, which wasn't known before.
There are still a TON of issues mechanically with the game, so let's hope 343 fixes the game to make it play properly as that matters a lot more than making the visual experience 1:1. :/
I'm so glad you guys are continuing to keep up to date on this! It definitely helps both raise awareness, as well as raise the profile of this good work when it's done!
When are we getting a DF Retro for Jurassic Park Trespasser?
I'm still amazing for this game community for making this game alive for almost 20 years for a console multiplayer games.
Lets hope halo infinite will be able to carry some of the magic forward.
The community has nothing to do with it... Have you played Halo? The shit is fucking Timeless. ..... To a degree. Online I can quickly get tired of the Spawns.... But that's only due to the Competitiveness.
The single Player............. It's probably the one I play the most. Hell I still boot up the Xbox 360 to play the Anniversary in 3D.
But hey I was just messing with you and just trying to give more credit to the game and designers. They made one fucking hell of a game!
@@cMARVEL360 Yeah yeah, many games like this died in history and many off games stood alive even thou they have really bad quality/combat/development (Batman Arkham Asylum and Morrowind are 2 examples)
About Halo, they really have special aura. I dislike shooters also I hate space themed games, but hey, u love Halo CE :d
@@sertdemir7138
Well what meant by timeless is that the game and many elements have not aged at all.
For example.... With a Focus on Legendary.... You have your two weapons, and nades. . .stack that on top of the incredibly smart AI, all the voice acting going on...
I mean just the other day I realized how grateful I am that Halo is by far the Most Inclusive game (To a Degree) than many games even today.
All the different ethic accents on the parts of the Human Crew is absolutely the most diverse.
You can get a Spanish accent a couple of Spanish words, a British accent, an Australian accent, the generic white guy and Johnson... LOL! Being the only Black man, but it helps drive the point this is the Future, and this is the Human Species and all it's colors fighting.
Sure the first game doesn't have female soliders but we know that isn't a knock on its diversity because it was following a norm.
The game has it's MP Component and it's solid as hell! The game really feels like the start of the MP Shooter environment we grew to know now... Even when Battle Royal came up, everyone with Big Team Battle Experience looked at Halo and asked When. When will Halo get Battle Royal, because they know the styple of Shield and Health started by Halo works Perfectly for this new game play design.
Freaking Timeless
Honestly blows my mind that it took them this long.
Better question is why in the hell did they use Gearbox's shitastic CE port for Anniversary, and thereby MCC!?
@@jackburton307 As bad as Gearbox's port was, graphics wise, it was the only version with fully featured and working online multiplayer, hence why they used it for the MCC.
@@arnox4554 "fully featured" lol. The PC version of CE online multi-player used the system link as their netcode backbone. It was horrible. That surely can't be the reason they used the Gearbox PC port!
@@jackburton307 Fully featured as in, it had a server browser, direct connect to servers, that sort of thing. The net code itself was fine for the day. I would like to know though what your source is for them using the Xbox LAN netcode for the PC netcode.
Ive been playing the original Halo on the OG Xbox on my CRT TV lately and its still so damn good, the small details in that games lighting and textures for the time still awe me.
6th gen graphics on CRTs look so damn good. Makes it look like HD compared to playing it through a HDTV even with RGB video
23:20 IIRC this is because the magnum in CE multiplayer is different to the campaign magnum on the Xbox version, but when they ported it over to PC they broke it and the multiplayer magnum is just the campaign magnum.
i've been waiting 17 years for this to be on pc properly....... so much so that half the reason i got an og xbox was to play the originals in original graphics effects (and coop)
I also started with Halo: CE on PC. Played through the whole series on the 360, but CE is still special to me. I never expected 343 to really fix anything, but here we are, so props to them. Definitely worth a replay when the update comes out.
I still hope they fix the rest of the bugs, add specularity to Keyes' eyes, fix the firing rates and fix the sound. And then they'll have to undo the Halo 2 Vista mess, which was handled by someone else entirely back in '07.
thank you for making this video! when I heard Halo 1's graphics were getting fixed, literally my first thought was: "I hope digital foundry does a video on this"
Its rare when an original xbox game has better shader properties as compared to a PC port
Gearbox was lazy, and did a poor job on the port.
That's Gearbox for you.
Eeeh, the PC space wasnt what it is today, and the gap in hardware and compatibility was enormous.
@@sean8102 Gearbox seem to have a trend of making weird decisions with visuals, their "HD" models for Half-Life are another example of this
The Xbox was considerably more powerful than PC's during the early OG Xbox, so Gearbox felt they needed to make a lot of tweaks to get it running better on PC.
Didn’t expect DF to cover this! Very nice!!
Always nice to see DF cover Halo
yeah i love the red cross my favorite thing they did was collect millions and millions of dollars to help haiti and japan when they got hit by earthquakes and proceeded to do fuck all with the money.
Omg my boy Epos Vox!!! 😭 So proud to hear him on a DF video. I normally think of him as more on the hardware/productivity side of stuff, lovely to hear him talk about games.
:D
So glad they are finally fixing Randy Pitchford's botched and broken PC port. Finally people will get to experience the true art and graphics that made this game so special 20 years ago.
im still blown away the pc port could have come out like that and NOBODY on the dev teams cared for YEARS
edit: I am sure the dev teams cared but were stuck for time. i am just glad it became a big community problem to the point they are going to fix it now
343 lol
@@ajpewding4058 I think gearbox handled the pc port. I could be wrong
Quality pc ports back then were pretty much ignored by devs and the general gaming crowd. Pretty much the first ports of RE4, Dark Souls, Arkham Knight and Saints Row 2 won't be brought up in any current conversation about bad pc ports.
@@Dafelle Gearbox made the botched PC port, which was then used as the anniversary edition, which was then used for the MCC version
@@ajpewding4058 Gearbox actually with the original PC port.
Props to Gearbox for doing a half-assed job at porting the games and ruining people's experience with the series on PC.
But also actual props to Gearbox for introducing a working and good (the netcode on the CE PC port is still better than any online netcode in the MCC...) online multiplayer prior to even Xbox Live, in a very quick time with a game that's infamous for it's spaghetti code, especially as it relates to co-op.
*Laughs in Randy Bitchfork*
Props to Gearbox for generally being a mixed bag.
To be fair, Gearbox was given a rough build for the PC port. They also did great with the multiplayer, as well as releasing mod tools.
Imagine being so spoiled that tiny bugs that most people never noticed ruins the game
I only wish they'd made a few changes to the remastered graphics to keep the tone in the campaign more consistent with the original, especially with the flood levels, because otherwise the HD graphics are pretty swell.
Kinda impossible, they'd have to do a whole diff remaster since it was also done by Gearbox alongside 343. And the remaster graphics dont match the actual sizes of the original CE shapes, so some trees will eat your rounds because you think its clear, but in classic, the real tree is much larger. Otherwise, mods on CE could fix this, but doubtfully. Plus the remaster graphics are a fallacy to the classic.
The "Friend and Colleague" meme is getting out of hand!!!
The word “meme” is getting out of hand!
Halo on pc was where I started and got a 360 in 08 and binged halo 3. Really happy to see this game finally getting treated right.
11:41 that jump scare got me smh 🤦🏻♂️
Really happy to see the version of Halo that I remember fondly come back
I think one of the reasons the MCC version has a different feel to it's color is because of the resolution.
With a lower resolution you get less detail but also more intensity in color due to the lack of pixels to differentiate between smaller details in color changes.
The original XBox version feels more vibrant. I turn my TV saturation up with MCC
I'm honestly so glad 343 are actually fixing these old graphical issues.
As someone who's been playing CE on PC since childhood (26 now), and it literally being the only Halo game available to me since I've never had a console, these changes really excite me! Finally, I can experience one of my favorite "classic" games the way that it was originally meant to be experienced (at least according to everyone who's railed on the PC changes for literally 2 decades).
20 years later and the game is still amazing beat all the halo games 20 times and I still can replay them. The series is a masterpiece. Only a handful of games can continuesly play over 20 years.
There must be someone at 343 as well that said they need to fix this, really wonderful that they did. This is great!!
It really does look so much better with bump-mapping.
For a game made in 2001, Halo CE has sure stood the test of time thanks to all these fixes. There are still issues with the AI being more difficult due to the higher tickrate though.
The AI isn’t good. It isn’t great. It’s flipping perfect.
@@craigthebrute8658
100%. Halo CE is truly a masterpiece. Still playing to this day almost 20years later.
@@craigthebrute8658 Its not faithful to the original and Halo 2 suffers the same problem.
Given how Halo CE was generally many people's first introduction to FPS games at the time though (for a console audience anyway), and was balanced around that fact, I'd personally say the AI being more difficult helps the combat hold up more as the average player's reaction time, hand-eye coordination .etc are all going to be far better than they were in 2001 - and if the AI were 1:1 with the original, it'd be made more trivial by the speed you can zero in on targets with mouse & keyboard.
If there are any missing behaviours & reactions they should definitely be patched in, but difficulty? CE on heroic & legendary in its current state is very well balanced in my opinion, particularly compared to Halo 2 (even OG Xbox version).
Fully agreed on standing the test of time though. Overall the combat experience of fighting (Particularly CE's Elites) is in the same league as Half Life's Marines & the soldiers in F.E.A.R. Enemies feel intelligent in a way they haven't since in other Halo games. The way they push their advantage, or retreat, they flank, regroup. They behave according to a clear heirarchy, you can see their morale effected by how you're going about combat & in turn how that effects their behaviour because the feedback to the player is just *chef's kiss*. It's all fantastic.
@@InnuendoXP Halo 2's Heroic is pretty unbalanced with dual wielding Elites and Brutes. The game's difficulty wasn't designed with quicker enemy reactions thanks to Chief's paper thin shields. In fact the Brutes were intentionally designed to be hyper aggressive and spongy since Bungie ran out of time which are further enhanced with higher framerates.
CE's elites also suffer the same problem which isn't to say you need to "Git Gud" but it's a design flaw which should be pointed out. Gearbox probably didn't care about the faster reaction times since the pc port was just serviceable. Having an enemy fire twice as fast isn't indicative of good enemy design. I can mod Half Life's marines to do one hit shots but that probably won't have been a fun game.
The red crosses on Valentine from Skullgirls where changed to purple because of the Red Cross as well.
I'm surprised they didn't mention the glow from the plasma hitting the terrain. One of my favorite things to do with he plasma gun was to just shoot stuff as it really felt like it was melting things due to how hot it was. (easily seen at 20:30 as t they're talking frames).
Adam has an excellent voiceover voice!
In the here and now, I'm a little disappointed adam didn't mention instant, yes instant, notifications whenever digital foundry posts a video.
I wonder if it's got a replacement for the EAX Advanced HD surround sound audio the original PC release had.
This is great, but they also need to put work in on the net code and feel of the multiplayer. Online play is nowhere near the feel of the OG version and it is a shame.
Thank you.
While I've had issues with the map and gametype pools, and lack of server browsers (they're coming!) etc. the netcode is infinitely better than any Xbox 360 or older era Halo title, which are VERY rough to play online these days by comparison. I loved the originals, and wish the overall multiplayer experience was closer, but netcode specifically is one thing that is inherently far superior on MCC. Old netcode and P2P never holds up
@@EposVox H4 and Reach are great in terms of net code. H3 is acceptable, but CE and H2 are pretty damn bad. That is really what I am getting at. The older the game the worse it feels online as of right now.
Bring more guests in the show! It will be nice.
It still blows my mind that they still struggle to make Halo look and feel like the Original with all the technological Advancements we have.
When they are done updating MCC, Xbox should allow profiles and the SeriesX to be set up offline. Then do a new disc version of MCC that is fully updated and contained on disc.
I was in the same boat thinking "They made it look worse so the new one looks better wtf"
We were ahead of our time XD
I thought people were exaggerating the issues when comparing MCC/og PC to the og Xbox, but I played through the original Xbox version again late last year and at times I was astounded by how much better it looked, largely thanks to bump-mapping.
I wonder if the pistol differs because original Xbox release had a variant balanced for multiplayer specifically? The Gearbox and later MCC use the campaign variant in all game modes.
one thing that I noticed right away when mcc first launched was how light dark sections were in ce and halo 2… I’ll always remember it being pitch black and not being able to see without the flashlight in the original… but maybe its because we have hdr now why they’re not pitch black anymore…
I'm pretty sure the slower and more inaccurate halo CE mp magnum is for balancing purposes, the campaign magnum is way too op for multiplayer matches
In 2025 they will introduce HDR on PC.
Almost fixed. Some issues remain such as white sniper scope hashmarks instead of blue, missing gaussian distortion on the outside edge of all scopes, broken scripts in places (mostly on T&R). Plasma grenades still have the anniversary wind-up sound before they detonate, and we desperately need the Classic HUD.
Has this changed yet?
Great to hear from Adam. I hope we get to hear from him again in the future!
Unexpected EposVox appearance
14:54 seems like the fixed the duplicate armour behind the chief, I wonder if you can still see it in game too by walking into the pod and looking in.
It's great to see these effects corrected. I'm honestly surprised they are still updating this package all these years later. Kudos to them for that.
The only other change to CE’s visuals is hope for is restoring the original HUD. Having the bold outlines was super helpful, especially on some of the brighter stages like assault on the control room or two betrayals.
Other than that, it’s just so nice to see the game look the way it was meant to again.
They also changed the aspect ratio of the cutscenes. Camera angles are wider now and the black bars are back. They also fixed it so Cortana changes colors again.
Nice Collaboration!
I'll admit most of those things I never noticed because I keep assuming that's how it looked like in the original Xbox. Like that fog in the upper atmosphere, I just assumed it was always like that. These changes look great, by the way!
Thank you for bringing this to attention. Us old fans knew about this but others would just dismiss it.
Dang they finally fixed it. Maybe next time they do it before the game comes out
This is amazing. Gives me hope that they'll also go back and update the animations etc in the others
If my memory is correct, in incorrect fire rate in multiplayer is because in the original game when playing MP the game patches applies a balance patch that wasn't implemented in the PC port. The pistol's accuracy was also one of the things changed in that patch.
I wish they would fix the audio issues in Halo 2 now!
Wow! I played Halo on a very good gaming PC for it’s day and I had no idea that there were so many negative changes. Likewise Xbox one S was my first Xbox and I just assumed that the Anniversary Edition would be superior seeing as it’s a remake.
Considering that Xbox used direct X I’m not really sure why Gearbox had to make so many visual changes to the PC port.
Honestly I had no idea that MCC had an inferior version of Halo CE. So it’s really cool to see how ahead of its time the original Halo CE is on the og Xbox especially the slower fire rate on the MCC
excellent explanation, guys. now explain why the collection has a 17gb hub then you still have to download the titles on top of that...
I always play Halo CE with the original gfx its so much nicer to look at.
Theres alot of factors that contribute to how colors display both software and hardware wise
An easy explanation would be
CRTs compared to LED/LCD panels will display colors differently, god knows what the reference display settings bungie used back in development maybe,
but a bit of personal tweaking on your monitor and/or game would fix this (Brightness/Contrast and Color Vibrance and Gamma)
The shield fix alone is a huge improvement. The gane tutorialised plasma weapons being best for shields subtley in the pillar of autumn. But only when they change to red. Without it, the tutorial's broken
I started out with Halo CE on PC too.
I remember my dad getting it for our pc the year it came out and it looked sooo janky,
I thought THIS is what everyone made such a huge fuss over?
Didn’t realize until Halo 3 came out with legendary edition and that movie DVD that it wasn’t supposed to look that way.
Honestly I’m surprised the red health cross is still freaking there because Red Cross REALLY hates video games it seems
Guy saying Halo CE Anniversary coming out when he was in high school dates me so much. I remember when the game first came out originally on Xbox and Pc..
I was waiting for the German word for goodbye at the end where’d it go?
Damn, I only ever played Halo on PC, I didn't even know what I was missing.
I think part 3 of the fixes for CEA hopefully will bring back the original HUD as a toggle and the gameplay fixes as well to the game (which probably need to be fixed still with the 30 FPS animations).
I'm glad it's gotten better, but the best way to play the game is still on an OG Xbox connected to a CRT TV.
@@MichaelM28 for multiplayer play, in mcc shooting mechanics and shot reg feels just not right. I don't think it is because of frame rate but the games may look similar but they play and feel different.
@@MichaelM28 Halo CE was never designed to run at super high resolutions or fast framerates, it feels off. The assets don't hold up on a 4k display and look more dated than if you were playing the OG Xbox version on a CRT TV, 6th gen games just don't look good on modern displays even if you force them to run at native 4k. Sure you can argue that you prefer playing Halo CE on PC/Series X for xyz reasons, but if we're talking about game preservation and having the most authentic experience nothing beats playing the original Xbox version on a CRT TV, that is how everyone experienced the game back in the day.
Gotta say I disagree and I was there at the very beginning day one. 4K 120FPS 120 field of view on series X is absolutely awesome and is definitely the best way to play it now.
@@gamerbum9350 I was there too on day 1. Like I said you can prefer to play it at 4k 120 with higher FOV, that's great for you. But that's not authentic Halo CE to me and certainly not true to the original experience.
I own every Xbox and I just don't enjoy playing Halo CE on the MCC nearly as much on my big 85 inch 4k/120hz tv. I rather play it on a 25 inch CRT on an OG Xbox, it just looks better to me and I know there are others who would agree 🤷♂️ 6th generation console games were designed for CRTs in mind and they exploited their strengths beautifully. As another commenter has mentioned, the game on the MCC just doesn't feel the same as the OG.
@@DaRockCandy Yes! Very much so. It's not an authentic experience on the MCC.
Awesome, I only played through the full Halo CE campaign on MCC on Seriex X last week (though I played some of it on a friend's original XBOX at the time) and I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I got to experience the corrected presentation as I wouldn't have knows what I was missing otherwise.
Happy you guys covered this, thank you!
343 is finally getting Halo CE to a state it should've launched in for pc...
The multiplayer still spawns you with the magnum when you're supposed to spawn with a plasma pistol and AR.
The hud need to go back to the OG xbox version and the AI needs fixed but so far this is ALOT better, it's glad to see Halo 3 isn't the update's focus for once.
Would be cool if they did a Halo CE raytraced version, like they did with raytraced quake.
Haven't been impressed with graphics since halo ce and wreckless Yakuza missions on Xbox.. I think it's an older time where normal maps and specular shading was all the rage , then Skyrim came out and games chose texture resolution over shading
Love to see it. RIP the awesome og loading screens though.