343 Industries has announced today on the Halo Waypoint blog that Halo will be coming back to PC with Halo Online, a free-to-play first person shooter but it will only be available in Russia for now.
“Halo Online is powered by a highly modified version of the Halo 3 engine and optimized for smooth performance on lower-end PCs. While there’s no campaign mode, Halo Online is set on a secret UNSC space installation called Anvil, where Spartan-IV soldiers train together in war exercises to sharpen their battle skills and test experimental technology,” the announcement states.
A multiplayer beta is planned for late spring and 343 Industries says “we will continuously adjust and modify gameplay, features, and the in-game economy. We’re looking forward to getting feedback from gamers living in Russia when Halo Online enters closed beta later this spring via Innova’s 4game platform.”
Halo Online will launch in Russia, developed by Saber Interactive, the studio that developed the franchises of Timeshift and Inversion. Halo Online will be published by Russian MMO company Innova Systems with Innova’s 4game platform.
There is currently no plan to bring Halo Online to Xbox One and at this time, Russia is the only country getting Halo Online but other regions haven’t been completely ruled out. The beta is planned for late spring and a release date is not confirmed yet.
^Aaron (@PxDIZZLE)
Source: Halo Waypoint
Aaron Perreault (PxDIZZLE) contributed 8 articles to ICXM in 2015, covering Windows and PC, and Xbox news with a focus on hands-on impressions and verified-source reporting. Their bylines on the site span the Xbox One’s first full year of post-launch coverage, including the early days of Backwards Compatibility and Windows 10 gaming. They post on X as @PxDIZZLE.