A trailer dropped today announcing that beta flight of Halo 3: ODST and its long-absent Firefight mode was available last month on both PC and Xbox One on the run-up to this major release.
Halo 3: ODST is the only first-person Halo game where the player doesn't primarily assume control of an enhanced Spartan soldier, and (alongside Halo: Reach) it's one of two games in the main series in which the player doesn't control Master Chief at least half of the time. It's known for being a change a pace after the original Halo trilogy, with more challenging gameplay and no rechargeable shield for players to rely on. In the game players take on the role of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, or ODST. It follows events from the time of Halo 2, unfolding in New Mombasa after a Covenant ship has dropped an invasion force in the city and then warped away.
Xbox Game at the same time as it does to Steam and Windows 10 store.
The impending release of Halo 3: ODST on PC means that there is only one game left before the PC version of the Master Chief Collection is finally complete. The trailer ends with a mosaic of six Halo games, with only two left grayed out and unnamed until the lights behind ODST's picture flicker on. It's unknown when fans can expect the final installment, but the window between these huge updates has been shortening. There was a seven-month wait between Halo: Reach and Halo 3, and now there has been only a two month delay between Halo 3 and ODST. Of course, Halo 3: ODST is one of the shortest games in the series, so it's entirely possible that the wait for Halo 4's PC launch will be closer to Halo 3's timeframe.
Halo has always been the epitome of Xbox exclusives, and it's a huge step to see Xbox releasing their exclusive on another platform (even if it technically owns that platform, as well). Microsoft owns both Xbox and Windows, so it makes sense they would want to make money off their content in both places. Still, that self-interested move is about to give a lot of PC players their opportunity to play Halo 3: ODST for the first time, an experience their Xbox cousins are surely glad to share with them.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is available now on Xbox One and PC, and Halo 3: ODST will launch on PC on September 22, 2020.
Source: Halo
