Microsoft recently debuted Halo: The Master Chief Collection for PC, delivering the first piece of the six-part shooter compilation on Steam and Windows 10. Halo: Reach kickstarts a staged rollout, expanding beyond the Xbox home console, reviving the near-decade old farewell from developer Bungie. The game's arrival marks a bold new era for Microsoft's legendary franchise, although it draws its share of technical complications too.
Moving Halo: Reach from Xbox 360 to PC isn't completely seamless, with our team currently keeping tabs on a roundup of all the bugs and launch issues. But among the most widespread is a nasty audio bug affecting a sizeable share of Halo: Reach PC newcomers, as experienced throughout our full review.
Halo: Reach PC brings 4K visuals, control refinements, and even adjustments to audio, switching up encoding across the board. That appears to have introduced a share of hitches, with many reporting muffled sounds, poor mixing, and other artifacts previously unseen with the vanilla Xbox 360 title.
Microsoft has acknowledged the issue, stating it is "actively investigating" audio quality issues. However, it doesn't appear entirely unexpected, with developer 343 Industries warning of potential hiccups in a past November blog post. "We are aware that areas of the title don't sound like what you or we ideally want them to," stated Community Support & Engagement Coordinator at 343 Industries, Tyler Davis.
"It will take some time to work through solutions to improve the overall experience for audio and that work is already underway. When it is ready, we will flight to test the fixes we can make prior to updating the title. We also plan to go into more detail on our Reach audio journey in a later blog."
While Halo: Reach PC audio issues are proving frustrating for some, it appears Microsoft is already pushing toward a fix. Unofficial workarounds or improvements are yet to surface, but keep an eye out for the days following launch.
In the meantime, Halo: Reach PC Is now available on Steam and the Microsoft Store for Windows 10.
From the beginning, you know the end
Though not perfect, Halo: Reach's PC port is well-done, and its quality should excite fans about the other Halo games coming to the platform in the future.
