343 promises their plans for The Master Chief Collection will not affect Halo 6

Halo: The Master Chief Collection was supposed to be every Halo fans’ dream; until it wasn’t. It’s post-launch matchmaking struggles became the stuff of legends, but back in October, developer 343 Industries recommitted itself to the project after going quiet in an effort to make the game as Legendary as they originally envisioned.

Earlier today, the company laid out a rather extensive look at their plans for the near future, and while there are no concrete dates, the developers feel confident that they have the right strategy moving forward.

“We are excited to foster a new relationship with our fans,” they said. “One that is built on transparency, honesty, and consistency.”

343 addressed fan concern over whether their recommitment to The Master Chief Collection would affect development on Halo 6; long story short, it won’t.

“[The Master Chief Collection] team is completely separate from the broader 343 team working on the next Halo FPS title,” they said.

There’s zero overlap or shared resources to ensure that the larger game team can remain laser focused on the future. I’ve read some posts from fans who are concerned that we’re cracking open MCC at the expense of the next Halo FPS title – rest assured that while MCC is incredibly important to the studio, in no way is this work interfering or taking away from the next big thing. We are committing the necessary resources to do both projects right.

Fans will be a significant part of the development process on The Master Chief Collection, as 343 says they will be leveraging the Xbox Insiders Program to share updated builds of the game for people to test. They will keep test sessions relatively intimate in the beginning, but will gradually open them up to more and more players as time goes along.

343 is not committing on any specific dates for when they will roll out these new Master Chief Collection build, but they say that they are aiming for the first one to go live sometime in March 2018.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is available now on Xbox One.