Recently Microsoft announced Halo Online, an online multiplayer only F2P FPS. The closed beta was announced exclusively for the Russian marketplace however, so given we game on PC, one of the things that happens on PC, happened; mods. Chiefly mods that allowed gamers to bypass said Russian region lock.
Now news arrives that the modders behind such region bypassing solutions are apparently on the receiving end of DMCA takedowns from Microsoft’s legal representatives. The custom launcher that was allowing players to bypass the region lock, ElDorito (an apparent parody name of the official client, ElDorado) has now been pulled down from Github.
Currently it seems Microsoft has no intention of expanding the regions Halo Online is available in, thus I doubt modders will cease searching for new ways around region locks like this one. So while Halo Online is designed for the Russian marketplace specifically, maybe Microsoft should think of a solution that satiates the demands in Western markets for Halo on PC? Western PC gamers want Halo Online not because it’s the newest and greatest but because it’s the only attention the franchise has received on PC in years (sans Spartan Assault, the top-down twinstick shooter). The game itself is runs on a heavily modified version of Halo 3’s engine, to suit the needs of developing markets and the lower end PCs users own in those markets.
So why not give PC gamers the mainline entries in the Halo franchise on PC Microsoft? Then fewer in the US, Europe or other developed markets will want to play your F2P Russian entry.
Just a thought.
Spencer joined us in early 2015, previously a console centric gamer he switched to PC a few years ago. He later helped push for an increase in Japanese content on PC with the #SEGAPCPorts campaign. Previously he ran a SEGA fansite as well as co-hosted a gaming podcast. He thinks Duke Nukem 3D is the best FPS of all time, his text message alert on his phone is literally Duke Nukem saying “Let God sort ’em out.”
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Not stopping them 🙂 https://gitlab.com/Wunkolo/ElDorito/commits/master
Screw Halo, this piece of sh*t franchise along with Activision’s milking of COD has done more harm to the First Person Shooter genre than anything and now they bring it to PC and act like it is some amazing game series that PC gamers will beg them to want to play. Nope. Half-Life 3 will overshadow Halo so badly that nobody on PC will remember it ever existed.
you sound upset 🙂
Not really. I just do not like overrated, overhyped franchises hogging all the spotlight from better unknown games.
Unknown games like hl3?
Sorry but do to the amount of hype valve can’t live up to that lol
Hl3 will be online only in Russia ok? Don’t be upset please.
Half Life 3?
I remember it, as the first FPS enough slow to let you aim with the right analog, from there every FPS tried to emulate the slow-paced experience of Halo to call kids attention. Good bye UT and Quake days… Gladly those dark days has passed as it seems arena shooters are making a comeback.
Dude hl3 is a myth!
What’s with Russia getting these free-to-play games first? The same thing happened with Warface.
lol, Warface
Yeah, I’m not saying I’m upset with this, I’d just like to understand.
I would also like to know what possible benefits does MS have by releasing this in a Russian-only market? I don’t play Halo, just wondering.
Region lock? That’s peanuts and there’s no way MS will keep the game limited to Russia for long any way. The real goal of the modders is actually UNLOCKING ALL FEATURES and getting the game to run on custom servers outside of Microsoft’s grasp. That means, no real money shop, 100% free. The people working on this must understand that they are running a direct attack on the Microsoft’s business model. You would expect that they have taken precautions and are hard to identify. It remains to be seen if MS manages to track them down. So far all I’m seeing is that Github caved. No surprise there, but I wonder why they had the mod on that site in the first place.
Well, I’ve played Halo multiple times… on Youtube. Saves my PC from a bad console port and leaves more room on my system for far more interesting games.
They should just release halo 5 on pc. It won’t hurt xbox sales
Sony will do that lol