343 Industries has responded to fan upset about the announcement of a 20 GB day one multiplayer patch for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Many wondered why they didn’t just ship the collection with multiple disks instead. The answer? “It simply wasn’t practical”, says 343 Industries.
Frank O’Connor, the Halo franchise development director, came out and said that The Master Chief Collection was “designed to run as a single, unified product” and that switching disks would have prevented this goal.
“Digital is seamless obviously, but we also wanted disc users to have the same experience, without swapping discs. Since the bulk of it (referring to the content update) is MP or MP related, the logic is sound. There will also be a title update in there, but that in itself is a tiny fraction of the content. We realize that this isn’t ideal for everyone, but it’s the path to the smoothest eventual experience.” he wrote in a post on NeoGAF.
According to 343 you’ll still be able to play the singleplayer content while the 20 GB is updating and installing, so it’s not all bad. The update will also be available to download ahead of time if you pre-order and pre-download the game.
In another post, O’Connor said he felt that two discs may have been a solution to a product released at a different time (referring to older generations) - but that requiring the download was the most straightforward solution for this new collection.
“Anything is feasible, it simply wasn’t practical for this product, this year in this timeline,” O’Connor said. “The Xbox One platform continues to improve and mature, arguably faster and more meaningfully than others and maybe next year two discs or some other method would have been the right approach, but this year it’s the option we have available that on balance, makes the most sense for this giant, ambitious project. Do I understand the inconvenience and annoyance for some users? Of course. I’m not going to blow smoke or ignore it. For some folks it will be straight up annoying and I both apologize unreservedly for the irritance, and hope that the package and the way it works more than makes up for it.
“I’ve been playing the whole enchilada for a week now and the ability to sample, jump from aspect to aspect, customize with skulls and playlists has been absolutely addictive and mesmerizing. I think I would have enjoyed a box set with the same fidelity, but the way it all connects has for me at least, made it more than the sum of its parts.”
He seems pretty sincere and passionate about this decision and we can respect that - although there’s no denying that day one patches - not to mention ones as large as this - are a nuisance to many, particularly if they have a cap on their bandwidth or don’t enjoy high-speed connections.
He finished off his explanation rather amusingly, saying: “I personally have pretty lame internet and I am doing everything via Wi-Fi, but my installation and immediate play were all pretty buttery.”
