When Microsoft released Halo 5: Forge on PC in 2016, a lot assumed that its single-player campaign would also find its way to the PC. And yesterday, Tyler Owens, a former Halo 5 dev confirmed that there were plans to bring it to the PC. However, Microsoft has decided to cancel that PC port due to some technical issues.
Owens did not clarify what those tech issues were. Some assume that the game’s physics were tied to its framerate. That was a common issue console games had back in that era. Nevertheless, this sounds like a mere excuse to me, and nothing more.
The truth is that MS did not want to invest any resources in a PC port of Halo 5. If it was relatively easy to port it, they would have done it. However, it appears that a PC port would require some work. So, instead of investing resources – and money – in it, MS decided to simply pull the plug. That’s the harsh truth. It wasn’t impossible to port it.
This very same thing happened to a lot of PC ports that never got released during the Xbox 360 era. Do you want another example? Remember Red Dead Redemption? You know, the game Rockstar claimed it was impossible to port to any other platform as it was a “spaghetti code“? Well, the game got remastered and came out on PS4/Nintendo Switch, and it will hit PC tomorrow.
In short, these technical issues are mere excuses and nothing more. Hell, we even have modders that can unlock a game’s locked framerate on PC. Surely the devs who have access to the source code can do a better job with their tools, right? Unless they are really incompetent.
Anyway, at this point, I don’t expect we’ll ever see Halo 5: Guardians on PC. That’s a bummer as every other Halo game is now on PC. So, no Halo 5 SP for us, unless MS remasters all of its older games for both Xbox and PC. Now that would be a stupid idea, especially since we’ve already gotten remasters for all 4 main games via Halo: MCC. But hey, this is MS we’re talking about. So, who knows?
I wish but it’s never going to happen imo. I think the port that was being considered ran into significant tech hurdles and was scrapped.
— Tyler Owens (@heytred) October 27, 2024
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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"A PC port for Halo 5 was canceled due to technical issues"
they could port it to unreal engine like until dawn, if their engine is more buggier. better than nothing.
That would take way more effort than trying to fix whatever problem they had on their current engine.
You lack understanding of what a huge undertaking it is to switch game engine like that.
All these armchair devs and journalists do
Microsoft could still get one of their developers that's doing nothing anyways to do the porting. will they ever do it though, maybe, maybe not. they did go out of their way to port Fable to UE4 years ago.
You just reinforced what I said before, that you guys have no idea of the undertaking involved to switch engine, a single developer really?
And for the record was Unreal Engine 3, there was a whole team behind it, is even more complex now, with low level APIs.
Sure…an indie company like Microsoft doesn't have the resources for such huge undertaking. You said that in a world were almost every company is using or changing to UE as their engine, making the industry even worse than already is.
I suggest you read the article, is clear Microsoft did not wanna waste time fixing the technical issues on PC, and they for sure wouldn't waste triple the money and time to switch engine.
Switching a game engine, is comparable to making a game remake, they would need to find a way to port all the assets, and even recreate them.
The systems would need to be recoded for Unreal Engine, and even alternatives would have to be found for specific cases.
Again, you guys have no idea of the undertaking involved to switch a game engine, is not just pressing a button and you done.
lol
That's what they did for MCC, i don't get the lol
They used UE as a front end & run time wrapper for the MCC launcher and such …. not the game themselves as you were suggesting
Ok fair enough, still don't get the lol though
And how did the PC version of Until Dawn performed? Pretty crappy
Did you read the part where it said "better than nothing"?
It would have taken literally minimum effort at best. Microsoft just doesn't care enough about the game to port it nowadays. Back then they acted as if PC gaming was their enemy.
"A PC port for Halo 5 was canceled due to technical issues"
they could port it to unreal engine like until dawn, if their engine is more buggier. better than nothing.
i guess leave it to microsoft to not be able to utilize their own platform
i mean they own both the xbox & the windows platform, and them not being able to port an xbox one game to windows is hilarious to me
Classic sigma move by Microsoft.
Nothing of value was lost. HALO 5's campaign is easily the worst in the series.
The multiplayer was peak though.
It's equally as bad as 4 but definitely has the absolute worst multiplayer in the series though.
Are these technical issues in the room with us right now?
Rockstar claimed it was impossible to port to any other platform as it was a “spaghetti code“?
Rockstar never said that, they only said they won't port the game for business or technical reasons without even being clear, check your facts before spreading internet legends as true stories
This is a game journalist. You think they do research. That'd be time wasted for the sake of clicks
Unfortunately, Jonh is below a game journalist in terms of quality.
I was gonna fact check John on this stuff but got lazy. Yeah it always annoyed me when fanboys spread those rumors.
They're now proceeding to port most if not every IP to their rival platform, PS5 … but 1 missing link in Halo PC saga is too much work
Still no Fable 2 on PC. 1&3 are there.
Still no Gears 2&3 on PC. 1, 1R, 4&5 are there.
They're all pretty weak games anyway. Big whup
Gears 2 and 3 arent playable on Xenia?
Hey John, you have a paragraph written twice:
Ah, my bad. Fixed.
I was going to wait for Halo 5 on PC before buying Halo Infinite. I guess I'll never be playing either of them.
It's not like you're missing out on some heavy story elements. God I hope you're just kidding.
I don't like skipping games in a series.
If Quake 1 is everything a first person shooter should be, Halo games are everything first-person shooters shouldn't be.
Big weapons that take up half the screen, underwhelming and unsatisfying weapon sounds, enemies and weapons that are reminiscent of lgbt colors, lack of gore and blood, characters that look like toys, and a universe that appeals only to 12 year olds.
Well, you mean if Half Life is everything an FPS should be. Of course, even games like GoldenEye are ultimately superior experiences.
quake1, half life 1, doom2, goldeneye, perfect dark, hexen2, fear1, avp1&2, unreal tournament, moh allied assault, nolfe1&2, sin, turok1&2, cultic, dusk, soldier of fortune 1&2, and wolfenstein new colossus.
All of these games are some of the best fps games ever made imo. My favorite is quake1 but I can add a lot more.
0 accuracy too, if you have good aim and you come from playing years of Counter-Strike or Quake and you boot one of these dogwater halo games, none of them have anything resembling shooting accuracy, it was a casual game made for consoles from day 1 this entire franchise, im fine with it burning to the ground tbh.
Soooo, who cares? In that blatantly mediocre series, 5 is garbage even by the standards of mediocrity.
Wait… Halo 5 isn't on PC? I thought it was. Huh, that shows you how much I care about Halo at this point. And it's a bigger showcase of how absolutely terrible 343 is at their jobs. A MICROSOFT company, and Flagship title for their Gaming division can't even come out on their main product. I've said it for years, and I'll continue saying 343 should never have been allowed to take over the mantle of Halo from Bungie.
343 is the prime example of terrible developers who have no clue how to make a video game. And I'll never call them "Halo Studios" because they don't deserve it. It taints the name and legacy, which they've already tarnished beyond repair. Halo should be killed off and brought back in 10 years from a developer who actually is even halfway decent at their jobs.
Always wonder why no halo 5 on pc.
technical issues = incompetence
Who cares? It's an old game! If you wanna play it that bad buy a used Xbox one, Series S, Series X, or even a fire stick! I don't see these criticisms for the literal sh*t ton of games stuck on the PlayStation 3!
343 does not employ anyone who could fix technical issues with a port of HALO 5. That game isn't even a decade old and already they've lost every staffer who would know his way around the penultimate version of the Halo engine. The brain drain is real. Nobody competent works at 343.
Microsoft should honestly leave gaming bussiness, they screwed up Halo, gears, acquired bethesda; Starfield was a flop. They get acti+blizzard; nothing changes, still greedy microtransaction bs.