As part of the Master Chief Collection, Halo 2 is getting the Anniversary treatment.  The long awaited and highly rumored game was announced during Microsoft’s Xbox Press Briefing.  Halo 2 was the best selling game for the original Xbox with over 8 million copies sold and over 5.4 billion matchmaking games played online resulting in almost 57K years played.  It also has the longest Halo campaign to date with 14 missions which has been played for almost 27K years.

Multiplayer

Halo 2 Anniversary will feature an updated multiplayer including the original 25 maps with six getting completely re-designed, including Ascension that was shown played live during the press conference.  The multiplayer experience will still be running on the Halo 2 engine leaving classic button combos like BXR intact, while other glitches will not necessarily be in the game.  The multiplayer will run on dedicated servers with matchmaking integrated into the Master Chief Collection Universal hopper.  Custom games will also be available with the inclusion of a new Forge game mode for the six re-designed maps and theater system.  The original Halo 2 ranking system will not be included, but there will be some form of leveling system included in the final game.

Campaign

The remastered campaign will feature a new graphics engine that can swap between classic and remastered graphics.  Similarly to Halo: CE Anniversary, the campaign will include new terminals that will tie into Halo 5: Guardians.  New prologue and epilogue cutscenes will be introduced to the Halo 2 Anniversary campaign.  When in re-mastered mode, players will experience new CGI cutscenes that will replace the old in-game cutscenes with stunning new visuals and detail.  While not confirmed, it’s likely we will see Halo 2 online co-op.

Remastered Graphics

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