Halo: Reach PC Testing may no longer happen this month, publisher 343 Industries has announced. After revealing earlier in March that Halo Reach is finally making its way over to PC alongside the Master Chief Collection, it’s possible that the first PC test might be pushed to a later date.
Community Manager ske7ch explained that PC development implies its own set of separate hurdles. Despite the test obviously running on a build that’s very much work-in-progress, they want to make sure that everything is in order for PC players to get a proper experience prior to throwing it out there in the wild.
Halo Reach PC Testing April Delay
“PC is considerably more complicated and requires a lot more work.[…] One of the team’s main priorities to support PC flighting is getting the mouse/keyboard controls feeling as good as possible and there’s been good progress on that front. Some key things are still coming together though - for example, in yesterday’s playtest build, the full UI and functionality to remap keys isn’t in yet so if you want to change defaults, it requires launching a separate application. That works for now, but isn’t a viable experience for any kind of external flighting.”, the post reads.
Other factors that might result in the delay of Halo Reach PC Testing are the implementation of telemetry, required for the team to get valuable data from playtests, as well as “carving out a ‘safe’ build”, which Community Manager ske7ch described to be a “learning process”.
While it’s not yet 100% confirmed that Halo: Reach PC Testing will no longer begin this month, it’s a possible scenario. When tests do begin, they won’t be subject to any NDA, so everyone interested will get a chance to look at how the PC version of Halo Reach is shaping up, even if they didn’t make it into the tests themselves.
