Nothing is more tragic than an honest statement made on April Fools Day that ends up being untrue after all.
Such is the case with the supposed public testing for the upcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC, which is now being delayed to a timeframe currently unknown. This is coming fast after the heels of the original announcement, made by community director Brian Jarrard on Twitter last April 1. The tweet stated that if all went according to plan, the first public tests of Halo: Reach for the Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be made available sometime during April. He made an announcement again on April 17, stating that the tests might not debut after all during this month.
Happy April! If all goes according to plan, this is the month we start the first Reach/MCC flights. ✈️ ?
— Brian Jarrard (@ske7ch) April 2, 2019
Well this tweet didn't age well. Hey, this project is complex, and being transparent means sometimes things change vs. what we originally hoped. Work continues but the first public flights are pushing out further than originally targeted. Will share more info soon! https://t.co/aSCB37ZxD2
— Brian Jarrard (@ske7ch) April 29, 2019
Jarrard, more commonly known in the community as ske7ch, took to the forums again last Monday to express his disappointment and officially pull the plug, stating that:
With the end of April nearly upon us, I wanted to jump in and share another quick update. Twenty-eight days ago I tweeted that "if all goes according to plan, this is the month public flighting will begin!" While many suspected that was an April Fools joke, the reality was that we did have aspirations and plans to hopefully kickoff flighting in April. That wasn't a joke.
In a post on 4/17 I noted it might not happen and now with only a day to go, I can definitively say there won't be any public flights this month.
He went on to say that there would be no more ‘target timeframe’ coming from him with regards to the first public tests. It’s not exactly sure what caused the delay, and in my opinion, it would be understandable, since these things happen all the time. Jarrard went on to say that the whole project is "turning out to be more challenging than first anticipated in some aspects while there's been great progress and work done in plenty of other areas."
In any case, the 343 team has already made a development update on the official Halo site, which should help satiate the excitement coming from the fans. A breakdown of it can be found here.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is set to be released on the PC sometime this year, available through both Steam and the Microsoft Store.
