Halo: The Master Chief Collection developer 343 Industries is experimenting with an increase in player sizes all the way up to 60 players in classic games.
The revelation about the potentially huge increase of players in a match comes straight from 343 Industries producer Sean Swidersky. The developer appeared on an official Xbox stream playing the collection (via Gamespot and clipped by Mint Blitz) and talked about the experiment.
While playing, Swidersky revealed that the team was investigating pushing the number of players that could join a game. Speaking on it, he said: "To tease at it, we are doing some investigations on increasing player counts above 16."
"Halo's epic, if we can add more people, which, again, you can, but obviously performance and some of the other consoles... If we can add that kind of stuff to go higher than 16 players in these classic games, hell, get up to 40, 60, you know what I mean?"
These kinds of numbers would far exceed the current highest number of players in a match. 8v8 Big Team Battle is the biggest scale available in the game, so this is proposing pushing these maps to the limit, more than tripling the number of players in the games.
It's not clear exactly how the developer intends to implement this, and if it would be a matchmaking playlist or only available in custom games. Whatever the case, 343 would likely have to limit which maps could use the feature. Most maps certainly haven't been designed for these kinds of enormous player counts, so the idea of more than tripling the number of players in a single lobby is pretty wild. It might work on maps like Bloodgulch or its variants, but 60 players inside, say, The Pit might be near unplayable.
While Halo Infinite will undoubtedly be on the lips of most multiplayer player's minds, it's very cool that 343 experimenting with its older titles. Using modern technology to augment and enhance these classic Halo multiplayer experiences' past graphical upgrades is a testament to the developer's dedication to making the Master Chief Collection a continual, compelling experience
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