Halo backward-compat news may spell death knell for Master Chief Collection [Updated]

Enlarge / Older Halo games are coming to Xbox One... again. Is this good news or bad news for Master Chief Collection owners? (credit: 343 Industries)

By the end of this year, the Xbox One's backward compatibility program will finally include all of the Halo games released on the Xbox 360. Microsoft announced this news as part of its "Halo Summer Celebration" news update on Thursday, and while it's good news for owners of those games, a similar slew of classic-Halo fans have been left scratching their heads.

The series' remaining back-compat holdouts (Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4, and Halo CE: Anniversary) will land "later this year" on Xbox One. In an intriguing twist, anybody who owns those games either digitally or on disc will be able to play either online or via LAN against players on Xbox 360 consoles. (The backwards-compatible collection contains very few games that take advantage of this inherent "XB1 and X360 in same LAN party" feature.)

However, the news update includes zero updates about the Halo: Master Chief Collection, a 2014 game whose matchmaking bugs and woes have proven to be legendary. As of press time, users continue to flood the series' official forums with bug reports and complaints about lengthy matchmaking times.

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