Halo 2 Anniversary is now available on PC, through both Steam and Xbox Game Pass for PC although with bugs. Yes, the game has been freed from Microsoft’s operating system.
Halo 2: Anniversary Edition has launched as part of The Master Chief Collection, which continues its rollout onto PC. This is the third game in the collection to arrive on PC, with three more on the way. Thankfully, Halo 2’s infamous cliffhanger ending won’t leave PC players hanging as long as Xbox fans were made to wait-Halo 3 is right around the corner. That game has, of course, never been available for PC.
Originally released in 2004 for Xbox and ported to PC in 2007, Halo 2 continues Master Chief’s storyline and also adds a new perspective to the mix. The remake comes with quite a lot of enhancements over the original experience, bringing complete graphics and audio overhauls, new cinematics, and even a toggle to switch between the original and remake versions while playing, among other benefits.
The PC version, of course, comes with additional upgrades like uncapped frame rates, keyboard and mouse support, FOV adjustments, and more features the rest of the collection already shows off. Also, for the first time since Master Chief Collection reached PC, Theater mode has been officially enabled for Halo 2 and Halo: Reach, though Forge needs some more development time.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection for PC is now available to purchase on the Microsoft Store and Steam for $39.99. However, purchasing just Halo 2: Anniversary is an option too, coming in at $9.99 on the aforementioned stores. Xbox Game Pass for PC subscribers now have the game available in their library as well.
While there’s plenty of reason to celebrate the arrival of Halo 2, it’s not necessarily a perfect port. The game is launching with a litany of bugs, so although you can play the game today. However, the update that introduces Halo 2 to The Master Chief Collection has also resolved several issues.
Thankfully, 343 Industries has stated that fixes are coming soon, but until then players will have to deal with the issues.
Here’s a full list of all known bugs and issues with Halo 2 as well as Halo 2: Anniversary.
- In-game sound effects and music incorrectly play while viewing terminal cinematics.
- In addition to this, subtitles for cutscenes are out-of-sync with the audio being played. Cutscenes are louder than they’re supposed to be, cutscenes sometimes won’t play audio,
- The cinematic audio for Halo 2 and Halo 2: Anniversary are not properly configurable with sliders.
- Switching between Halo 2 and Halo 2: Anniversary graphics while in-game can cause your audio output to swap between available devices. For example, audio may stop coming out of your headset and will instead play through your speakers.
- While swapping between these graphics, certain parts of the music playing may be skipped as well.
- If you’re using the Scarab Skull, multiple weapons also have missing weapon sounds.
- Lastly, on the level Metropolis, the level’s soundtrack will loop incorrectly while riding the Scorpion tank across the bridge.
- The visuals of the campaign are where most of the bugs are occurring.
- Subtitles simply don’t work right now, and AMD hardware users may want to avoid playing the campaign at the moment because there are reports of numerous textures throughout the levels flickering.
- The level Oracle in particular has several graphical issues that cause things like clouds, gas tanks, and lighting to display incorrectly.
- Also on Oracle, large rectangle volumes will appear if you’re using a Ryzen 5 processor and an AMD GPU.
- Additionally, the lights found on Sentinels incorrectly last for a brief time after they die.
- Some environmental ones appear at a lower resolution than they’re supposed to be, and NVIDIA GPU users using the Classic graphics setting will notice many missing foliage LODs (textures seen from far away).
- Curiously, if playing with Halo 2 graphics, the sun will not render. Finally, cutscenes and terminal vidoes will look irregular in aspect ratios other than 16:9.
- There are a few issues regarding performance, stability, and more as well.
- Enemy Elites don’t dual wield as they did in the original game w
- When you have the Scarab Gun skull active, your game can freeze if you fire a Plasma Rifle after swapping weapons with an Elite while playing as the Arbiter.
- Additionally, FPS drops towards the start of levels are possible, and the mission Gravemind in particular has some problems with stuttering.
- If one or both players have a poor internet connection in co-op play, players may be disconnected from this level as well.
- Players who are using newer Intel drivers with onboard graphics will also not be able to launch the game.
