ProjectReclaimer/project-reclaimer-releases v0.10.2

on GitHub

0.10.2 fixes Windows exclusive fullscreen and improves Forge, classic maps, co-op, controllers, mod downloads and Theater. It also adds scoreboard options, a frame graph, faster repeat loads of saved maps, and dedicated-server reload and standby features. Combat Evolved, Halo 2 and Reach receive further campaign, weapon and rendering fixes.

Changes since v0.10.1.

What's new

• Custom modes can use characters from other supported games on classic maps. Reach's Spartans and Elites follow the host's Halo: Reach Spartans and Elites permission on Combat Evolved and Halo 2 maps too.

• Optional extra scoreboard columns show K/D and medals, with a gold mark beside the leader. These are off by default.

• A final scoreboard appears for three seconds before the game-over page. The new Final scoreboard at game end setting is on by default.

• The server browser has a Recents tab. Controller focus starts on its first row, and a late server listing no longer steals a selection you moved.

• Startup and Customize show what they are preparing while the asset library or menu scenery loads. Slow menu loading no longer ends a game underneath it.

• Steam Deck users get a one-time hint when Steam is sending keyboard presses for the controller.

• Joins from the menus show their current stage, can be cancelled and time out if nothing progresses. Mod-map hashing contributes to the progress shown.

• The required-mods window shows where an installed mod came from, with its folder and removal guidance on hover.

• Friends are reachable from more lobby and postgame pages. The roster follows the party, uses consistent gray icons, and the main-menu player card shows your own rank.

• Show frame graph in Game Options displays frame, GPU and thread timings and identifies whether the game is limited by the CPU, GPU, display or frame limit. It also lists the available graphics cards and which one is being used.

• Eligible finished map merges are cached on disk, avoiding the same merge work when returning to a saved map. The cache removes older entries to stay within its size limit.

• Edit playlists by player count, including lobby sizes, voting time, game options and curves or formulas. Hosted lobbies keep their player count current during games, and formula errors identify the offending character clearly.

• The playlist editor offers every supported game's maps, including classic and mod maps. Classic entries keep the correct map identity, and a playlist can start from a lobby on this PC alone.

• Live configuration reloads apply settings while players remain connected. The reload report distinguishes immediate changes, next-game changes, restarts once empty and supervisor restarts.

• A planned handoff can move a lobby to a prepared standby server, carrying its queue, overrides, player names and split-screen seats.

• Optional failover names a standby to take over if the primary server is lost. Mid-game failover is a separate opt-in setting and requires a standby that loads the game; not every in-progress server-side counter carries over.

• Large servers can opt into multiple network channel-update threads. This is off by default.

• Forge offers respawn times from one to ten seconds. Choose each one-second step in the object properties, alongside Never and the longer respawn times.

• The Kit includes field names and types for supported games. Original Editing Kits are optional for viewing these definitions; importing source assets still requires the appropriate tools and assets.

• Remap Theater playback, camera and capture controls. Use the Theater section of Settings → Keyboard & Mouse. Playback-bar hints follow the selected bindings, and recording has its own action separate from raising the free camera.

• Choose campaign and Firefight characters in three ways. The CHARACTERS option offers Original characters, Customized game look and Custom load order. The host chooses for the group, and the choice is retained in co-op, saved games and films.

• Reclaimer Kit: Picture Mode, and a checked picture for Workshop uploads. View › Picture Mode shows the map as a game would, with nothing of the editor in the way, and saves pictures of it (16 : 9 or square) that Steam Workshop and the game accept. Publish to Steam Workshop now takes its picture from a file you choose and says at once whether it fits: a PNG or JPEG under 1 MB that the game can show.

• Reclaimer Kit: publish to Steam Workshop. File › Publish to Steam Workshop… uploads a package from your Mods folder (a map made with Compile Map, or a mission's package) straight to the Master Chief Collection's Workshop through Steam, with no other uploader. Give it a title, description, picture, tags and who may see it; the first publish makes a new Workshop item (private unless you choose otherwise) and later ones update the same item. The Kit builds the package layout the Workshop expects, so a Kit map no longer needs files written by hand. Steam must be running, signed in to an account that owns MCC.

• The server browser and dedicated servers now also use a second public master that runs on two machines behind one address, so the server list stays available when one machine or the first master is unreachable.

• Halo 2 missions can be played as your own characters. On the Campaign page, set CHARACTERS to Custom load order on a Halo 2 mission to play it as your own Spartan or Elite (or a character pack's), in your own armor and colors, holding Halo 2's weapons and riding its vehicles. A Spartan can play the Arbiter's missions too.

• Halo 2 missions can be played in your customized game look. On the Campaign page and in a co-op lobby, set CHARACTERS to Customized game look on a Halo 2 mission: the Master Chief keeps his role and wears the colors you picked for the Spartan on Halo 2's Customize page.

• Reach's and Combat Evolved's main menu music in the menu playlist. The menu music now also plays the main menu music of Halo: Reach and of Halo: Combat Evolved, each as one song, when that game is installed. Both are in the default playlist; turn them off or reorder them under Settings, Audio, like any other song.

• UNSC vs Covenant: Reach, a new game mode with Reach's own characters. A new bundled Megalo mode for Halo: Reach's maps. The UNSC's Army troopers, ODSTs and Spartans fight the Covenant's Grunts, Jackals, Skirmishers, Brutes, Elites and Hunters, each in its own Reach body with Reach's weapons (DMR, needle rifle, plasma repeater, grenade launcher, concussion rifle and more). Kills earn deployment points for stronger classes, and the faction that runs out of reinforcements loses.

  The troopers and the Covenant below the Elites need one of Reach's missions or Firefight maps installed; without them each faction plays its Spartans or Elites. Modes of your own can use these characters (reach_trooper, skirmisher, reach_grunt, reach_jackal, reach_brute, reach_hunter) and weapons as class bodies and loadouts on Reach's maps too.

Changed

• Tap controller Back to pin the scoreboard; hold it to show the board while pressed. The D-pad navigates its controls, and closing a player's panel restores focus correctly.

• Every mod download asks for permission first, including Steam Workshop downloads.

• Workshop downloads respect the allowed disk space. Downloads stop if they exceed the configured space limit.

• Joining a friend while in a party asks whether to bring or leave the party, with an Ask Leader choice for members.

• Faster and more resilient social-service handling: friend requests and invitations no longer wait behind presence updates, reconnecting after a service restart works more reliably, and excessive presence traffic is reduced.

• Game text and voices start in English regardless of the system language. Choose a text language in Settings and use Same as Text for voices, or select the voice language separately. Unavailable voices fall back to English.

• Linux film export prefers NVIDIA NVENC when available. VA-API converts colors on the graphics card, and export tries another encoder when one cannot start.

• Less CPU work during rendering, physics and engine execution. Rendering copies less data per frame, collision and object-pose work costs less, and engine calls and layout lookups avoid repeated work. Reach Invasion no longer repeatedly rebuilds player rosters. Film recording avoids a blocking graphics readback for keyframes, and Windows frame pacing spends less time spinning between frames.

• Approving a Workshop download subscribes your Steam account to the item. The download still asks for permission and checks available space. Dedicated servers keep using transport downloads without Steam-account subscriptions.

• Every game uses the shared scoreboard and results UI. Held and automatic scoreboards, final scores, the winner screen and carnage reports use the shared interface on classic maps and in split screen too.

• The server browser asks two masters at a time. A refresh asks the first two public masters together and combines their servers. The third is asked only when one of the first two does not answer, so a refresh makes fewer requests and the list is the same.

• Forge magnets pair corners by default; edge middles and face centres are options. Magnets now pull only the corners of objects together unless you ask for more. The Forge menu's Tools tab has two new switches under Magnets, Edge middles and Face centres, which add the middle of each edge and the centre of each face. Both are off by default and saved with your settings. Only the points that are on are shown as squares.

• Forge magnets pull smoothly and show their points as small squares. Magnets no longer yank a held object across their whole reach the moment it comes close. The pull starts gently at the edge of the reach, grows as the two points near each other, and the object glides into place over a few frames instead of jumping; it lets go just as smoothly. Letting go of an object that is only partly pulled leaves it where it is.

  Magnet points are now small yellow squares instead of large hatched boxes. The object in your hands shows its own points as well as its neighbour's, and the two points a magnet is pulling together turn red.

• Joins and hosted starts are only given up when nothing is moving. - A join is given up after 30 seconds without any progress (90 before). Getting the server's map ready on your PC now counts as progress for as long as it takes, so a slow PC is no longer cut off for being slow.

  • Hosting a game with START uses the same rule: the loading screen stays while your PC is still making or loading the map, and the lobby is shown only if nothing has moved for 30 seconds.
  • Joining a server from the menus no longer waits for the menus' background to finish loading first.
  • A START pressed while the lobby's map is changing always starts the new map.

• Kit magnets pair corners by default, with edge middles and face centres as options. The Kit's Magnets now snap only the corners of objects' boxes together, as Forge's do. While Magnets is on, a Points menu beside it adds Edge middles and Face centres. Both are off by default and kept in the Kit's preferences.

• Multiplayer games begin without waiting for slow PCs to load. A multiplayer game now begins as soon as its first machine has loaded it: the host's own, or on a dedicated server the first player's. Players whose PC is still loading are no longer waited for, and are no longer removed for loading slowly. They finish loading and come straight into the running game on the same connection.

  Before, everyone sat on the loading screen until the slowest PC was in, and a host with "Kick stalled players" on removed a PC that stopped making progress. That setting now only applies to co-op campaigns and Firefight, which still start with every player.

• Boosting a Sabre or a Seraph widens the view. The pilot's view now pulls out as the boost builds and eases back when it ends, where it zoomed in before.

• Server discovery uses an additional public master by default. The server browser and hosted servers use three public masters for discovery, registration and master-list exchange.

• Forge magnet cubes shrink with distance. The magnet points' cubes now have a size in the world: they look larger up close and smaller far away, like the objects they mark, and never get too small to find.

• Forge magnets snap once you hold still, and show their points as small 3D cubes. Magnets now wait for you: while you are still moving an object somewhere, nothing pulls at it, even when its points pass close to another object's. Hold it nearly still with two points in reach (both turn red) and it glides the whole way onto its neighbour and stays there. Move it on and it comes loose again.

  This also fixes magnets that would not close: two red points held almost still next to each other could stop short of touching.

  The magnet points are now small see-through cubes without an outline, a little larger than the old squares, and they stay on the corners of the object in your hands as it moves instead of trailing behind it.

• Forge menu: Left and Right change a dropdown without opening it. In the Forge menu, move to a dropdown such as Category or From and press Left or Right (on the keyboard or a controller) to step to the entry before or after. The dropdown still opens with Enter or a click.

• "Kick stalled players" is now "Wait for slow players", for co-op only. Multiplayer games no longer wait for slow players or remove them, so the Host Settings row did nothing there and is gone. Co-op lobbies, which still start with everyone, now show it as "Wait for slow players": how long a mission change waits for a player whose game is not ready before that game joins again by itself. Nobody is removed.

  For dedicated servers, load_timeout now only applies to co-op games in a playlist.

• Campaign and Firefight list the games in release order. The games window of the Campaign page, and Q and E on its game line, now go Halo: CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, then Halo: Reach, each with its mods' campaigns under it. Firefight keeps Halo 3: ODST before Halo: Reach.

• Remove duplicate voice indicators from the bottom-right HUD. Removed the duplicate voice status symbols and talking-player display from the bottom-right HUD. Speaker icons beside players in the world remain.

• The next mission starts at once after a win. Winning a campaign mission no longer shows the MISSION COMPLETE screen with its countdown and CONTINUE NOW button: the next mission loads straight away, in Halo 3, ODST, Halo: CE and Halo 2, alone or as a co-op host. The screen that remains is CAMPAIGN COMPLETE, after a campaign's last mission.

• The scoreboard and post-game screen have an even, darker background. The scoreboard and the post-game results no longer show a dark band in the middle that fades out to the sides: the whole screen behind them is now darkened evenly, a little more than before. On team games the scoreboard's team headers and player rows now have an even tint in their team's colour rather than one that fades out.

Removed

• The Download without asking option has been removed. Mod downloads now always ask for permission, including Steam Workshop items.

Fixed

• Windows exclusive fullscreen switches reliably and releases the display before the engine stops. Alt+Tab restores it on return, the display keeps its desktop resolution and refresh rate, and Alt+Enter restores the proper windowed size.

• Hybrid-GPU laptops fall back cleanly to borderless when the rendering card cannot take exclusive control of a display attached to the other card, instead of repeatedly retrying.

• Typed Forge positions and rotations remain exact. Object copies and alignment snaps keep their intended pose instead of drifting or inheriting the wrong orientation.

• Combat Evolved and Halo 2 split-screen shots align with the crosshair in every view.

• Combat Evolved and Halo 2 campaign allies show as friends. Marines use the correct friendly markers on the motion sensor and when aimed at, instead of appearing hostile.

• Halo 2 mission starts use the proper weapons. The Armory starts empty-handed, and every co-op player starts and respawns with the mission’s intended equipment.

• Reach enemies use Reach’s health, shields and difficulty rules. Grunts, Jackals and Brutes no longer gain unintended shields. Enemy damage, shield recharge and AI timing follow Reach’s difficulty settings, and Mythic doubles enemy health and shields instead of tripling them.

• Long Night of Solace co-op players spawn and respawn in Sabres. Players 5–16 receive ships too, and a player downed in space returns beside a surviving teammate who is flying.

• Combat Evolved and Halo 2 palette objects can be selected and moved, including objects that previously could not be edited correctly.

• Rotation snap reaches the engine and shows its angle. Yaw, Pitch and Roll controls continue from the held object's current orientation, and unsupported snap angles are rejected. Combat Evolved and Halo 2 objects, including rocks, turn correctly and hold their snapped angle between steps.

• The mouse wheel no longer locks looking or movement while holding an object. A quick or free-spinning scroll no longer keeps pushing the object away for seconds after the wheel stops.

• Magnets snap objects while they are held, keep the pairing as the object catches up and preserve it on release. Primitive size controls change only the side you adjust.

• A Forge guest can take over after the host leaves without the takeover crash.

• Forge saves with more than 256 object kinds still save after deleting an object.

• Restored stationary Forge items and vehicles retain their respawn tracking, preventing duplicate spawns and empty spawn points.

• Changing the next Forge map clears the previous map's sky and settings. Gravity changes take effect immediately, and starting a campaign mission after Forge no longer carries Forge's gravity into the mission.

• Starting weapons on Combat Evolved and Halo 2 maps use that game's weapons. A map with no matching weapon set no longer stops a game from starting.

• Saved game modes tolerate unsupported settings: the other settings still load and play.

• Editing Kit maps are recognized correctly by the Kit and Forge's asset library, so their objects can be used.

• Recompiling a map in the Kit preserves existing primitives, AI definitions and Reach imports. Adding another object or AI kind no longer discards ones the map already uses.

• Saved maps keep all their object sources when combined with a game mode's characters. If the mode's characters cannot fit, the map can still play with its other objects and starting weapons.

• Unavailable character choices explain why they cannot be used. A host and its joiners agree on which fallback characters are available.

• Maps with the same file name keep their own objects. Reach's Forge World and modded ports can coexist without losing palette entries, and saved maps and joins select the correct source across different PCs.

• More community Reach map variants and game types load and run correctly, including Slipspace variants, empty map variants that keep their base map's objects, and scripts that update large numbers of objects and waypoints.

• Combat Evolved and Halo 2 maps keep their own teleporter pads and effects, with each game's exit direction, movement and reuse rules instead of Halo 3's substitute behavior.

• Combat Evolved teleporters no longer bounce a player straight back when an exit overlaps another entrance. Chiron TL-34's doorway exits work correctly, and channels beyond 25 remain distinct.

• Maps can register up to 256 teleporter entries, allowing every pair on Chiron TL-34 to work.

• Forge and Kit edits to classic maps' own items are respected, including moved, replaced or deleted weapons, equipment and vehicles.

• Combat Evolved characters keep their player colors on other games' maps. Cross-game weapon animation choices are more reliable, including the Elite using Halo 2's Battle Rifle.

• Combat Evolved's respawn countdown plays in its game types, and Halo 3's native weapon sets use the map's own definitions.

• Co-op guests follow the host's player deaths and falling damage, instead of their local copy deciding a death independently.

• Campaign transitions keep guests within the whole level's bounds. Players held while moving between level sections, including late joiners, remain in step with the host.

• Large co-op groups are placed more safely around ledges and lifts, including The Silent Cartographer's ledge and 343 Guilty Spark's lift.

• Combat Evolved recorded animations use the proper alert walking behavior, and placed bipeds retain their own starting weapons.

• Halo 2 dialogue animates speakers' faces without changing the shared simulation, improving co-op consistency during conversations and combat lines.

• Clients refresh multiplayer glass state after host migration.

• Halo 2's Scorpion and Wraith drivers can fire their turret weapons and see the proper reticle. The Scorpion's cannon and machine gun and the Wraith's mortar follow the driver's aim.

• Halo 2 weapons use their own aim-assist falloff, restoring the energy sword's intended lunge distance. Collision damage also uses Halo 2's own object and global settings.

• Scripted Halo 2 machines move at their proper cruising speed when no acceleration time is specified, restoring the pace of Metropolis's Scarab.

• ODST falls back to its troopers if customization characters cannot fit in memory, with a notice on every split-screen view instead of ending the game.

• Player one follows the controller being used. A button press switches controllers; an idle stick or trigger no longer steals control or blocks input when a menu closes.

• Background-window detection is more reliable, and controller rumble, Customize and split-screen seating follow the active window correctly. A minimized Windows game no longer handles input or seats controllers in the background.

• Each split-screen player can choose or be assigned a team, and the game menu identifies whose menu is open.

• Split-screen seats retain separate looks, colors, emblems and service tags. Guests of party members are marked as part of the party, and the server browser lists every seat.

• Scoreboard rows and team placement remain correct. Departed players are removed correctly, and team-game placement follows the player.

• Controller Back also opens the shared scoreboard in campaign.

• Halo 2’s HUD uses the player’s game text language, and its rocket lock indicator follows the target.

• Menu questions support Left and Right navigation, skip disabled choices, and leave and exit questions start on the choice to stay. Escape on the saved-film deletion question keeps the film.

• Controller question hints follow the selected button, including questions with a third choice.

• Game Options opens on its first section, and game-type descriptions show their words instead of MCC string keys.

• Customize hides choices you have not unlocked. Renaming a player updates the lobby and other players, and Show my server role is now on the Identity page.

• Startup opens the main menu after its scenery is ready, instead of leaving a lobby that nobody hosted. The Forge menu also opens correctly after leaving a game with player details open.

• Pressing T during a game's loading screen opens chat over that screen, without switching to an empty menu page.

• Loading screens use the next game's own map and artwork, rather than carrying over the previous mission's picture or unrelated menu loads.

• A held host lobby has a Leave Lobby action on the main menu. Joining another server from that lobby shows the server's lobby correctly.

• Joining while the menu scenery loads shows the server's map loading screen immediately, with its map artwork and description, instead of waiting under the generic loading logo.

• Password-protected modded servers ask for the password first, before opening the required-mods window.

• Required mods from every supported game are found correctly, including Steam Workshop installations and their shared map data.

• Required-mod checks and downloads reach listed hosts behind NAT through their rendezvous, and explain when Steam Workshop is unavailable on the current PC.

• A refused server password shows WRONG PASSWORD beside the server's padlock.

• Mixed playlists share mods needed by later games from the first join, including Halo 2 mod maps. Their own map artwork appears throughout the lobby, browser and voting pages.

• Applying Share mod files and upload-limit changes reaches the current lobby and its waiting joiners without stalling the host's frames.

• Queue cards show your place and waiting times without overlapping. Leaving a queue as a party asks first: the leader takes the party out, while a member can leave separately.

• The friends list keeps its last known state when the service is unavailable, offers a working Sign In Here action, and only shows the signed-in player's friends.

• Friends pages explain why the service is unavailable, and the Add by Code field still accepts typing and pasting while offline.

• Peer connections become usable as each direct link is ready. A member following a new host during its handshake is welcomed correctly.

• Leaving a lobby during an automatic rejoin leaves it for good, instead of joining it again in the background. Modded servers' browser entries also refresh their player names correctly.

• Exiting the game closes its connections cleanly, including exits from an active game.

• Multiplayer clients keep 60 simulation updates per second, independently of the host's tick-rate setting.

• Maps using Reach effects merge consistently for hosts and joiners, including a host's first Forge-library build, reducing map mismatch failures.

• Graphics-card failures give a clear reason. A selected card that cannot display the game can fall back to Auto, and running out of graphics memory is reported instead of leaving a blank window or an unexplained crash.

• Fixed a Vulkan map-loading wait that could hold the graphics device while waiting for the GPU.

• Combat Evolved textures use their full available detail.

• Reach rendering: corrected atmospheric fog on sky materials and helmet-fire placement, with restored sky suns and lens flares that disappear behind level geometry.

• Halo 2 rendering: restored Scarab hull and leg materials, reduced seams flickering through walls, and improved occluded light flares and methane-tank glows.

• Halo 2 first-person bodies follow the world camera and their original head-bob timing. Feet stand more naturally while walking, and looking down no longer exposes the body's inside surfaces.

• Halo 2 models with missing node maps retain their proper shape, and dynamic lights choose the correct shader behavior, restoring effects such as muzzle flashes lighting the floor.

• Combat Evolved and Halo 2 hands are hidden correctly by nearer weapon surfaces, and Halo 2 first-person objects keep their motion-blur masking.

• Failed or out-of-step film playback returns to Theater with an explanation, instead of leaving a frozen Film Error alert or black screen.

• A damaged film opened before playing any game is refused cleanly, without closing the program.

• An out-of-step film no longer leaves an error behind for the next film.

• Combat Evolved weapons have their original firing feedback, with corrected firing and reload blends. Shotguns insert the first shell and hold between later shell messages, then play the proper pumping finish.

• Halo 2 weapons retain their firing feedback, animation sounds and effects, use the character's own first-person grips, and handle shotgun shell inserts correctly.

• Halo 2 dialogue uses the correct mouth-pose weights.

• Reach mission openings, objectives and checkpoint positions work more reliably. AI characters inherit their intended bodies and ranks, and synchronized performances restore more scripted actions and dialogue, including Jun placing his charges in Nightfall.

• ODST's Data Hive and Chasm Ten load correctly on case-sensitive file systems.

• Combat Evolved mod maps can still play when their AI cannot be converted, and a problem with one actor's weapon no longer removes the map's other AI.

• Combat Evolved AI follows more of its original combat rules, including firing patterns when moving or changing targets, panic and berserk behavior around allies, and the rules of promoted enemies.

• Combat Evolved squads and conversations keep their authored behavior: wake-up timers survive checkpoints, casualty thresholds retain their original rounding, required speakers are checked, and dialogue waits for scripted advances where intended.

• Combat Evolved vehicle gunners can finish boarding and fire their mounted guns. Mounted weapons consume ammunition and chamber correctly, without firing one gun resetting another gun's shell or bomb chamber.

• Voice chat follows master volume, mute and background-muting settings. Voice chat volume is also on the Audio page, and choosing the Speaker talking indicator no longer freezes the game.

• Remove individual games from a playlist with Remove Game, Delete or Backspace, without deleting the playlist itself.

• Workshop rotation entries find maps from every supported game, including references by a map's plain name. Dedicated servers can host Halo 2 campaign missions.

• Read-only content folders work with installed Workshop items. Mod digests stay in the server's writable data folder, and hashing a rotation no longer blocks live status or prevents a first start from completing.

• Mod digest handling tolerates shared writers and refuses a map that changes while it is first being shared.

• Reloaded RCON passwords, control ports and metrics ports take effect promptly. New server entries start automatically, removed entries wait until empty, and content installation and hashing stay off the live server loop.

• Role-badge visibility stays correct on long-running hosts.

• Release versions are reported consistently by the game, remote console, Windows file properties, Kit logs and VPN agent.

• Combat Evolved co-op players survive the cryo-bay load on The Pillar of Autumn. A player left inside the level no longer dies from incorrect falling damage when that part of the mission loads.

• Halo 2 characters authored as corpses lie down instead of standing upright. They are placed dead in their death poses instead of appearing as living Marines.

• Reach aircraft follow their scripted flight paths and hover points. This improves Falcon rides and evacuation movement, including Exodus. New Alexandria’s unkillable Pelican pilots and their vehicles can pass the intended kill volumes to reach their destinations.

• Reach campaign menus offer every mission rally point. The Package’s Rally Point Bravo starts in the ice cave, Exodus rally points begin where their scripts expect, and advancing to the next mission starts that mission from its beginning.

• Reach collision lets players enter The Package’s armory. Floor plates and other instanced level shapes no longer block movement through gaps that should be open.

• Decals on large Reach levels no longer cause the beach crash in Long Night of Solace.

• Menus retain their proportions on ultrawide displays and with a fixed render resolution. Deployment-map markers remain over the locations they identify when the render resolution and window have different shapes.

• Linux controllers avoid duplicate input from Steam’s virtual gamepad. Duplicate readings no longer drive another split-screen player, separate controllers remain usable, and Steam Controller and Steam Deck X/Y buttons use their correct labels.

• Film export allows more time for the first picture. Starting an export waits up to 60 seconds instead of failing after three seconds.

• Modded maps from the same package appear once in required-mod prompts. English voices included by a mod can play regardless of the selected voice language.

• Kit map builds preserve valid instance collision and level audibility.

• A host’s map settings no longer overwrite unrelated local preferences.

• Joined lobbies and scoreboards follow the host’s current player limit. Solo Reach and ODST missions show their own names, and choosing None for the player icon also hides the server-role badge.

• The Heretic's Pillar of Autumn shots no longer look washed out. Halo 2 lens flares use their intended marker size instead of covering the scene with oversized light.

• Halo 2 Banshees no longer sink while flying. Their flight tuning keeps them aloft instead of letting them drift downward.

• Halo 2 textures retain their full available detail. Maps no longer lose their highest-resolution texture level during conversion.

• Scripts can move vehicles without stopping at mounted turrets. Vehicle movement no longer stops the script when it encounters a mounted turret.

• Theater video recording defaults to F12. R raises the free camera without starting a recording, and the recording key stays clear of poll-answer keys.

• Joining players no longer freeze a map change. Lobbies can complete their transition when another player joins.

• Floating objects keep their ambient lighting on maps such as Consecration. Reach maps can use their lighting data for objects even when the associated lightmap cannot be drawn.

• Reach’s additional occlusion culling stays on Reach maps. It no longer changes the rendering of other games’ maps.

• Custom game scripts reliably read held gameplay buttons. Rules that use a held button can read the player’s current input.

• Classic maps no longer gain unrelated Halo 3 objects. The Armory no longer inherits Sierra 117’s vehicle palette when its own list is intentionally empty.

• Forge dropdowns fit their rows and support keyboard and controller navigation. Move through fields, filters and popup choices without losing focus. Edits to a selected group apply live, including shared properties, primitive materials and position offsets, and companion meshes follow grabs and rotation.

• Combat Evolved cinematic characters retain their faces and materials. Restore facial animation, lighting and material rendering during cinematic scenes.

• Ready players can start while slower machines catch up. Slow machines can rejoin individually, obsolete loading work is cancelled, and final result synchronization can finish between games.

• Halo 2’s HUD warning lights flash beneath the crosshair. Restore the game’s warning indicators and their timing.

• Halo 2 lens flares animate with their intended flashes, colors and rotation. Restore running lights in The Heretic, beacons and antenna lights.

• Halo 2 characters keep their own unit flags and boost settings. Characters no longer inherit unrelated settings from their replacement models.

• Halo 2 units placed closed start closed. Sentinel emitters and other authored closed units keep their intended starting state.

• Joining shared maps finds downloaded mods from every Halo game. Shared map content finds downloaded Reach, ODST, CE and Halo 2 mod files by their checked digests instead of looking only in installed-map folders. ODST packages are recognized in the required-mods window and Settings > Mods, including when disabled. Later playlist entries also share CE mods and Reach mods named by their launch keys. Use the updated build on both the host and joining players for shared maps that combine mod content.

• Modded vehicle seats remain usable when Reach assets are enabled. Adding Halo: Reach objects to a Forge map preserves its custom vehicle seats. Elites can again pilot Ultimate Forge's Halo 3 and Reach Pelicans.

• Forge lights stay safe after changing maps. Fixed a crash when placing a Forge light after playing another map in the same session.

• Halo 3 Spartans and Elites can ride Halo 2 Spectres. Forge maps with Halo 2 vehicles supply the missing rider animations, including the Spectre's driver, passenger and gunner seats.

• Kit keeps its viewport camera when campaign scripts or respawns change the view. Opening a mission now takes control even when its scripts already hold the camera, keeping the level aligned with the editor's overlays.

• Kit scenarios find their tags when an Editing Kit installation is selected. Use the installation's tags subfolder automatically, including for saved preferences, so scenario dependencies resolve from the correct folder.

• Remote vehicles move more smoothly on maps with content from other games. Maps with Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2 or Halo: Reach content blend network corrections to displayed positions and turns while retaining classic replication rules. Explicit correction-blending settings still apply.

• Every split-screen controller can pin and control the custom scoreboard. Hold the scoreboard button to view scores, or tap it to keep the board open. Each local player uses their own binding and controller to navigate and close it.

• Windows accepts locally installed graphics injectors and overlays. Permit locally generated graphics calls without requiring a compatibility setting.

• Server browser finishes querying larger server lists. Refreshes no longer omit reachable servers that are still waiting to be queried. The completion count also includes servers that did not answer.

• Halo CE vehicle lights are hidden by the vehicle model. Banshee wing lights no longer shine through the opposite side of the vehicle.

• Forge closes the pause menu when starting a new round.

• Forge: a campaign canvas hosted from the command line (or by a dedicated server) shows its name in the lobby, and a Forge map built on it saves instead of failing with "Invalid multiplayer map metadata".

• Theater: a film of a game played on a campaign canvas (such as an ODST mission's area in Forge) plays back instead of failing with "failed to set film header".

• Halo: CE Banshees and Ghosts flown by the AI fire only forwards. On Halo: CE's missions an enemy Banshee could shoot straight at you while flying away from you. Its guns, and the Ghost's, are fixed: the AI now waits until its craft points at its target and its shots leave along the nose.

• Halo: CE scorch marks and blood follow the ground. On Halo: CE's maps, grenade scorches showed as dark squares cutting through the ground, most plainly at the crash site of the mission Halo. Decals now follow the level's surfaces and end at its edges or wrap up a wall, blood splats have their full size and their four shapes, a fading mark fades back to the bare surface, and the marks placed in the later parts of a mission appear when those parts load.

• Halo: CE weapons and models no longer show flickering triangles. Triangles of Halo: CE's models, most visibly the assault rifle held in first person, flashed dark from frame to frame as the weapon moved. Their surfaces now draw steadily.

• Halo: CE characters hold their weapons with both hands in third person. Seen from outside, a Halo: CE character's left hand floated off the grip of most weapons, most visibly the plasma rifle and the rocket launcher. The left hand now holds each weapon where Halo: CE places it.

• Halo: CE weapons flash at the weapon in third person. With the third-person camera on a Halo: CE map, firing drew the first-person muzzle flash, smoke and shell casings in the middle of the screen and hid the flash at your character's weapon. The flash, casings and weapon glows now appear at the weapon your character holds. First person is unchanged.

• Players 5 to 16 ride along when the ground they wait on is unloaded. In a co-op game of more than four, the extra players waiting for a scripted ride (Tip of the Spear's Falcons) no longer fall to their deaths when the ride moves the mission on and the place they wait at is unloaded: they travel with their leader's vehicle, unseen and unharmed, and are set down beside their leader when the ride ends.

• Co-op cutscenes hide every player, not just the first ones. In a co-op mission with more players than its scripts name (more than four in Halo 3, more than two in Halo 2), the extra players now disappear and reappear with the player they follow when a cutscene hides the players, instead of standing in view of the cutscene.

• Players 5 to 16 make room when a mission sends another player onto their spot. In a co-op game of more than four, an extra player a mission's script has just placed now steps aside when the script places one of the first four on the same spot a moment later, instead of the two standing inside each other.

• Players 5 to 16 ride a scripted lift down alive. In a co-op game of more than four, the extra players a mission sends into a lift with the first four (Exodus's atrium elevator) are now set apart on its floor where each one fits, instead of inside one another; before, the lift's stop at the foot of its shaft killed all but one of the sixteen.

• Players 5 to 16 are brought back and kept safe by New Alexandria's co-op scripts. In a co-op game of more than four on New Alexandria, the extra players are now taken back to the hub with the others when a building is left, sent back to the start when the player whose Falcon they rode in leaves the game, and treated as the first four are by building C's guard against players on foot, each by where they themselves are.

• Players 5 to 16 share a mission's scripted death of their leader. In a co-op game of more than four, when a mission's script kills its players outright (The Pillar of Autumn's glassing when the cruiser is not shot down in time), the extra players now die with the player they follow, so the mission goes back to its last checkpoint as it does with four players.

• Players 5 to 16 leave their vehicles at Tsavo Highway's bridge on their own. In a co-op game of more than four, Tsavo Highway's bridge scene now takes the extra players out of their vehicles when they themselves stand at the bridge, as it does the first four, instead of only when the player they follow does.

• Players 5 to 16 follow The Pillar of Autumn's way forward past the drop. In a co-op game of more than four, The Pillar of Autumn now sends the extra players forward with the others when they go back past the drop, and the scripted kill zones of Halo 3's missions that test the players one at a time treat the extra players as they do the first four.

• Dedicated servers: init --from takes a quoted Windows folder, and Workshop downloads work after it. On Windows, dedicated init --from "E:\...\Halo The Master Chief Collection\" was refused as "not an MCC installation": Windows' command line turns a backslash before the closing quote into a quote at the end of the folder. Path arguments now lose that quote (and anything typed after it is read as the arguments it was), and the error names the exact folder and file checked, with a hint about the trailing backslash. Workshop downloads after init --from failed with "No Steam runtime was found", because the copied game folder has no Steam runtime: init --from now records the MCC folder in [workshop] mcc, the Workshop route uses its Steam runtime when the game folder has none, and the error lists the folders checked and the three ways out (game = MCC's folder, RECLAIMER_STEAM_API, or [workshop] steamcmd).

• A character set no longer reaches the engine's settings in later games on CE or Halo 2 maps, or in a dedicated server's next game. The lobby already kept a character set and team characters out of the engine's settings. Later games on a CE or Halo 2 map and a dedicated server's next game now do the same, so their other settings are always taken and the log no longer warns about the left-out option every game.

• Starting Forge after END GAME no longer leaves the last game's FINAL SCORE over a black screen. After a local game ended early with END GAME, changing the lobby's map and game type and pressing START showed the finished game's FINAL SCORE board, named after the new map, over black while the next map loaded. The board of a game already reported no longer shows in the next one, a finished game that never moves on gives way to the game menu after 30 seconds, and Escape or a controller's B over a finished game always opens the game menu.

• Imported weapons settle normally and vehicles show entry prompts on CE maps. Weapons from other games no longer receive CE resting poses that could make them bounce or creep across the ground. Imported vehicles show their seat role and vehicle name when they can be entered. CE objects held in Forge leave their movement to the monitor until released.

• Forge selection cloning and transform controls are restored. With empty hands and nothing under the crosshair, press C to copy the selection and pick up the copied object or group. The originals remain in place.

  Hovered objects expose Yaw, Pitch and Roll without needing to be held. Position and rotation share a Transform section; rotation snap lives in Tools. The redundant position-reset button is removed, and property changes preserve focus.

  New objects prefer size-aware clearance in front of the player, retaining the existing collision-safe fallback. Magnet helpers show every snap point on the nearest target object.

• Forge menu switches turn again, and Properties stays where you left it. On the Forge menu's Tools tab, the on/off switches (Magnets, Fly through walls, Pause rules) and the stepped values ignored clicks, Enter, the arrow keys and the controller once a row was highlighted. They respond again.

  The Properties tab no longer jumps to the end of its list when it opens or when you click a value's arrow, such as Physics.

• Forge: scenery from another game placed on a Forge map (such as ODST's jersey barriers or Halo: CE's and Halo 2's barricades and crates) now shows for everyone in a custom game on that map, not only for its host.

• Forge on a Halo: Reach map offers the other games' and mods' objects with Hugegrass on. Forge on a Halo: Reach map such as Forge World, with Hugegrass among its FORGE OBJECTS, listed only Reach's own objects: the mod's own Olifaunt was treated as Halo 3: ODST's, and the whole palette of the other games and mods was dropped. Every chosen source is offered again.

• Reach's Forge World no longer loads a mod's Savannah after a joined game. A game joined on a mod map (Ultimate Forge's Savannah) left its map selection under the session's later games. A later game on Reach's Forge World, which names no file of its own, kept Savannah's file under its name: the engine loaded Savannah as Forge World and stopped. A later game's map selection now replaces the earlier one whole, and the engine never opens a listed map by another map's file.

• No more regular frame hitches the longer a game runs. On the native renderer (Linux, and macOS), a frame every 64 stalled for a few milliseconds, and the stall grew the longer the game ran: after half a minute of play it was about 7 ms, and after longer sessions a whole 60 Hz tick or more, so high frame rates showed a steady stutter. The renderer listed the same released texture again every frame it was looked at, and the list it walked every 64 frames grew without end. Each object is now listed once.

• Halo: CE the dead marines in the lifeboat sit in their seats. At the start of "Halo" the three dead marines inside the lifeboat stood bunched together in the aisle in front of you. They now sit slumped in their seats, and objects a Halo: CE mission attaches to a named point of another object go to that point.

• Halo: CE bodies a mission places dead lie down. Marines a Halo: CE mission places as dead bodies stood upright like frozen soldiers, as beside the lifeboat at the start of "Halo", and the lifeboat's pilot stood through its roof with arms spread. The bodies now fall and lie on the ground as the mission starts, and bodies a mission poses itself take their pose.

• Halo 2's AI characters move by their own animations. On Halo 2's maps, Marines, Elites, Grunts and the other AI characters moved by player physics, a setting Halo 2 gives only the players' bodies. They now move as Halo 2's data says; the Chief and the Arbiter keep player physics.

• Halo 2 faces: mouths take Halo 2's mouth poses. Speaking faces on Halo 2's maps lay the mouth poses Halo 2 lays, found by name, where they had laid emotion poses that tipped heads and rolled eyes.

• Halo 2's Flood carrier forms burst into infection forms. On Halo 2's missions a carrier form that died vanished without bursting. It now bursts into Halo 2's five infection forms, which attack, and the infection forms Halo 2's missions place appear too.

• Halo 2 characters speak with their own gentle mouth movement. On Halo 2's maps, characters' mouths and heads moved far too strongly while they spoke: heads tipped back, lips twisted, eyes rolled, and a silent Elite's mandibles opened wide. Faces now move as Halo 2 moves them, and a speaker's cap stays on his head in Cairo Station's opening.

• Reclaimer Kit: decals you move, turn, add, copy or delete change in the view. A decal of the map's selected in the Kit stayed where it was however it was moved or turned, a deleted one stayed drawn, and a decal added with Add › Decal or copied never appeared until the map was compiled. The view now shows each change at once. The map's decals are listed under Decals at the end of the outliner, each named by its decal system, with their place, rotation and scale in the Object tab.

• Reclaimer Kit: an imported biped no longer crashes the map. Importing a biped (such as the multiplayer Master Chief) from the Editing Kit's tags folder made the map crash as it loaded again, as soon as a player spawned. Imported bipeds and creatures now get the collision shapes the original tools build for them. Imported characters, vehicles and weapons also show their model in the object browser instead of a plain icon.

• Reclaimer Kit: imported characters and vehicles keep the right unit flags. A biped or vehicle imported from the Editing Kit's tags folder could come out with the wrong unit flags, because the tags and the game number some of them differently. They now match the game's own. The Kit learns the tags folder again once after this update (about a minute at the first import).

• Reclaimer Kit: Forge prefabs and turned objects keep their rotation. A prefab saved in Forge came into the Kit with its tilted objects facing the wrong way (and a prefab saved in the Kit did the same in Forge), and an object already turned one way did not turn about the chosen axis when rotated again or aligned to a surface. The Kit now reads Yaw, Pitch and Roll exactly as the game does. Scenarios and maps saved before keep their objects as they stood.

• LEAVE LOBBY while a join connects gives the join up. Pressing LEAVE LOBBY while joining a server now really stops the join: the player stays on the main menu instead of landing in the lobby they left once the join finished, and the server sees the join never arrive or leave at once. A lobby the player asks for right after leaving another (a new join, a party follow) is no longer at risk of being closed by the leave before it.

• A PC the game went on without rejoins its server instead of landing on the main menu. When a game ended while your PC was still loading it, or your PC stopped responding for a while, you were returned to the main menu with "the game went on without it". Your game now joins the server again by itself, into its lobby or the game in progress.

• A game that was left no longer plays on under the menus. - Quitting a mission or leaving a game now ends it at once. Before, its world kept running out of sight until the next map loaded, so its fights, voices and music could be heard in the main menu and the next lobby.

• A lobby's Character set no longer freezes its settings. Choosing a Character set (or a team's character) in a lobby's Game Options stopped the lobby's later changes from reaching the game: the next map's settings, its game options and its rules were all turned down. Changing the map then started the previous map, and when that map was one of Halo: Combat Evolved's or a mod's, the game crashed as it loaded. The lobby's other settings are now taken as they should be, and an option the game doesn't know is simply left out instead of turning down every other setting.

• Leaving a lobby always returns to the main menu: after a game ended, LEAVE LOBBY (and leaving from the game menu) could leave the main menu stuck showing LOBBY HELD, with Leave doing nothing until another game was played. A lobby still held a few seconds after a leave is now closed by force.

• Games start without waiting for slow players, and slow players are no longer sent away. On a dedicated server, a game whose map took every player more than three seconds to get ready (every Forge entry, big mod maps) sent the whole lobby out to join again: the countdown stopped, a new vote opened and the chosen game never started.

  Multiplayer lobbies now never wait for every player and never send anyone away while they wait:

  • A host can press START while players are still getting the map ready.
  • A dedicated server counts down as soon as its first player has the map.
  • Players who are not ready when the game starts stay out of nobody's way: their game joins the game in progress by itself once the map is ready.
  • While a game loads, one slow PC no longer holds everyone else on the loading screen.
  • Joining again after a map change is much faster: the menus no longer load their background first.

  Co-op campaigns and Firefight still start with every player.

• Halo 2: allies and enemies read the level's ledges and openings correctly, so they no longer get held on routes such as the Outskirts building's stairs.

• The game no longer closes itself when a map takes long to load. On a slow PC the game could close without warning while it was still working: when a map took more than two minutes to load, or when joining or starting a game took more than about a minute. Those time limits are gone. A join now waits for as long as your PC needs while it still hears the host, and you can leave it yourself at any time.

• Earlier release candidates can update to the approved final build. Testing an older candidate no longer leaves it installed when the final release uses the same version number. The selected final candidate avoids a redundant download.

• Players 5 to 16 follow Reach's co-op teleports. In The Package and The Pillar of Autumn, the extra players in a co-op game of more than four are now brought along when the mission moves a player who fell behind, instead of being left where they were.

• Tip of the Spear's Falcon ride keeps its crew under fire. The Falcon the mission carries Noble Team in no longer throws out its pilot and gunners when the anti-air Shades shoot it down to nothing; it flies on to the crash site as in the original game.

• Winter Contingency: Jorge walks to the witnesses' door before his entrance. Out of his Falcon for the scene, Jorge no longer keeps holding his seat in the departing Falcon's squad: he rejoins his own team and walks to the kiva's door before playing his part, instead of playing it where he landed. A later part he is given while an earlier one still plays now waits for it to end before he walks on.

• Halo: Reach's lifts no longer throw their riders as a move ends. A lift moved to a place short of its end, such as ONI: Sword Base's garage lift or Exodus's atrium lift, threw everyone riding it into the air the moment it stopped, killing them and sending the mission back to its checkpoint. Riders now arrive standing.

• Winter Contingency: Jorge keeps walking to the witnesses' door. An actor walking to its place in a scripted scene no longer stops for good where its path is lost on the way; it goes on once a way is found again.

• Reach's scripted scenes: an actor asked to walk to its place keeps trying while it has no footing on the AI's paths. An actor in a scripted scene who could not yet find its way to its place (standing where the AI's paths do not reach it yet) now keeps trying for a while, as in Reach, instead of giving up at once; a walk it gives up no longer holds the rest of the scene.

• Exodus: a ride Falcon held up on the way to the starport flies on along its route. When the second Falcon of the ride to the starport was held up (caught on the first Falcon), its flight path skipped ahead waypoint by waypoint, so once free it cut straight across the city and stopped against a building: the Falcons never set down at the starport and fallen players could not respawn. A held-up Falcon now flies on from where it is along its route, as in the original game.

• Reach's scripted scenes: each actor plays its parts one after another. In a scripted scene, an actor's parts now follow each other in order as in Reach, instead of a later part cutting in before an earlier one played: in Winter Contingency's scene with the family at the kiva, Jorge speaks his part before he leaves.

• Reach's shields no longer show through walls. A Spartan's or an Elite's shield flaring after a hit on Reach's maps was drawn in front of everything: through walls, floors, vehicles and the weapon in your hands. It now shows only where the shielded body itself can be seen, as in Reach, and still covers the whole body when it flares.

• Reach's shield glow fades against what is behind it. The edge of a Reach shield's glow now fades by the scene behind it on every graphics backend, as in Reach, instead of glowing at full strength.

• Reach's scripted scenes: an actor walks to its own place in the scene, not toward the scene's center. An actor walking to where its part of a scene starts now finds its way to that spot itself; Winter Contingency's Jorge had headed for the middle of the witnesses' scene and stopped short of the kiva's door.

• Winter Contingency: Jorge drops from his Falcon at the first kiva instead of hanging in the air. When the players reach the witnesses' kiva while Jorge's Falcon is still flying him in, Jorge now leaves the Falcon, falls to the ground and makes his way to the door for his scene with the family, instead of hanging thirteen units up until his scene's animation slowly lowered him. Actors in Reach's scripted scenes now start a scene's synchronized animation from the place the scene sets for them, walking there first, as in Reach.

• Saved server browser master lists get the new standby master. A Discovery master list saved without changes by an earlier build now reads as today's default list, so the browser and the NAT check ask the standby master too. A list you changed yourself is kept as it is; the game's log says once that a newer default master exists. An empty saved list reads as the defaults.

• Maps in a mod package that lists no maps are no longer refused. A map placed in a package whose ModInfo.json lists no maps (such as a Reclaimer Kit map wrapped by hand for the Workshop) was skipped with "Map needs matching .mapinfo metadata". It is now listed from the map itself, and a map a package leaves out of its list says exactly that.

• A vehicle fires its second weapon from itself at the first switch. The Sabre's missiles and the Seraph's and Reach Banshee's bombs no longer come from where the vehicle was when you first switched to them.

• Halo: CE's Banshee canopy and Scorpion hatch close over the driver. On Halo: CE's maps the Banshee flew with its canopy raised and the Scorpion drove with its hatch open. They now close once the driver is seated and open again as the driver leaves, as in Halo: CE.

• Halo: CE vehicles show their HUD. In a Halo: CE vehicle you now see the gun's own crosshair (the Warthog's turret, the Scorpion, the Ghost, the Banshee), the hull meter of the campaign Ghost and Banshee, and, as a Warthog's driver, your passenger's and gunner's health. A Warthog's driver has no crosshair, as in the original, and a passenger keeps the HUD of the weapon in hand. Before, a seated player saw only their own shield and health.

• Theater: films of Halo: CE multiplayer and Halo 2 games play again after a CE mission. A game on a Halo: CE multiplayer map or on a Halo 2 map, played after a Halo: CE mission in the same session, recorded that mission's characters in its film, and the film then refused to play ("the host's characters go into a10, which this PC lacks"). Players joining such a game were refused the same way. These games no longer keep the last game's characters, and films already recorded this way play.

• Halo: CE's enemies and bodies collide as they do in Halo: CE. On Halo: CE's maps only the player's body is a tall capsule, as in Halo: CE itself. Every other character (Covenant, Flood, Marines) now meets the level and other characters as a ball of its own width at its feet, so enemies fit under and through what they do in Halo: CE instead of colliding as a Halo 3 Spartan. Sentinels, the Monitor and infection forms collide as balls of their own size, and a dead body rests as one. Halo 3's own characters and maps are unchanged.

• Halo: CE campaign: the Chief wears his colour again. In a Halo: CE mission the Master Chief was drawn white. With "Original characters" he is his own green again, and with "Customized game look" he wears the color picked on Halo: CE's Customize page, as in multiplayer. Grunts, Jackals' shields and Marines show their own colors too.

• Halo: CE's player fits through Halo: CE's low doorways again. On Halo: CE's maps the player's body collided with the world as a Halo 3 Spartan (a little taller and thinner than CE's Master Chief), so its head could catch on low ceilings that CE's own player walks under, such as the roofed ramp behind each base on Blood Gulch. The body now collides at CE's own height and width, standing and crouching. Halo 3's maps are unchanged.

• Ascension's low paths no longer turn the whole view grey. On Halo 2's Ascension, walking the low covered paths put the camera just under the top of the pit's fog, and the whole screen turned flat grey until you moved away. The fog now thickens with depth as it should, so those paths are drawn normally.

• Beaver Creek's creek is clear water again. On Halo 2's Beaver Creek the creek was drawn as a flat milky white sheet. Halo 2's pools and streams now show what lies under the water, rippled, beneath their reflection.

• Halo 2: the Pelicans' guns and the Sentinel Enforcers' weapons fire from their barrels. On Halo 2's missions the guns of the Pelicans and the Sentinel Enforcers' beam, needler and rockets named their barrel's marker in a way the game could not read, so their shots left from the middle of the weapon instead of its muzzle.

• Reduce Halo 2 surface flickering on Windows. Hidden level surfaces are less likely to bleed through nearer floors and walls as the camera moves.

• Joining a 0.10.2 host that changed games no longer fails over an earlier map. A host on 0.10.2 that played a game with customization characters (on a Halo: Reach map, for one) and then started a Halo 2 or Halo: CE multiplayer game kept telling joiners about the earlier game's characters. Joining failed with "the host's characters go into , which this PC lacks". Joiners now leave those characters out, as the host's game does.

• The next mission's loading screen shows after a win. After a Halo 3 mission was won alone, the screen stayed black, with the last chapter title still on it, until the next mission began. The next mission's loading screen now comes up as soon as the mission is won.

• Halo: Reach's armor lock shows its shield and its ring. A locked Spartan or Elite now glows blue as in Halo: Reach, with the ring and plasma about it while the lock lasts and a short afterglow as it ends. Before, the body knelt with nothing around it.

• Reach: a dead Jackal's shield goes out. On Halo: Reach's maps a Jackal's arm shield, and a skirmisher's bracers, stayed lit on its arm after it died. They now collapse as the Jackal dies and are gone two seconds later, as in Halo: Reach.

• Halo: Reach game types put players in the right species. Invasion makes the first team Spartans and the second team Elites again, whatever each player prefers, in split screen too. Other Halo: Reach game types follow their own species setting as well: the Covenant Slayers make everyone an Elite, and the matchmaking game types make everyone a Spartan. Game types that leave the choice to players, such as Slayer and Capture the Flag, still do. A host's TEAM CHARACTERS option still wins for its team.

• Theater names Halo 2 and Reach missions as themselves. The Theater listed a film of a Halo 2 or Halo: Reach mission as Sierra 117, with Sierra 117's picture, though it played the right mission. Its list now shows the mission's own name and picture, and new films of those missions are named after them ("Cairo Station (Easy)") instead of "Sierra 117 (Easy)" or the map's file name. Films recorded before keep the file name they were given; rename them from the Theater.

Install

Project Reclaimer needs Halo: The Master Chief Collection with Halo 3 installed. ODST, Halo: Reach, Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 show in the game once they're installed in MCC too. No game files or game code are included: the game finds MCC in your Steam libraries, or asks where it is, and prepares the engine from your own copy the first time it starts.

• Windows: run project-reclaimer-client-v0.10.2.exe. An installation of 0.9 offers this update itself.
• macOS (Apple Silicon): unzip project-reclaimer-client-v0.10.2-macos-aarch64.zip, move Project Reclaimer.app to Applications and open it. Apple hasn't checked these apps, so macOS blocks each one the first time: close the message, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, choose Open Anyway under Security and enter your password. Updates don't ask again. If macOS says an app is damaged, or Open Anyway doesn't appear, run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Project Reclaimer.app" in Terminal, with that app's name.
• Linux: unpack project-reclaimer-client-v0.10.2-linux-x86_64.tar.gz (-linux-aarch64 on ARM64) and run project-reclaimer; its README says how to add it to your applications.
• Dedicated servers: project-reclaimer-dedicated-v0.10.2.exe on Windows, project-reclaimer-dedicated-v0.10.2-macos-aarch64.zip on macOS, project-reclaimer-dedicated-v0.10.2-linux-x86_64.tar.gz (or -linux-aarch64) on Linux, or the Docker image ghcr.io/projectreclaimer/project-reclaimer-dedicated:0.10.2. macOS blocks a server downloaded in a browser too: run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine on the unzipped folder in Terminal, once, before its first start.
• Tools: each is a download of its own and needs nothing else from this page, so get only the one you want. The remote console is reclaimer-rcon-v0.10.2, with RCON.md for setup and commands, customization mods use reclaimer-customization-editor-v0.10.2, and the Reclaimer Kit is reclaimer-kit-v0.10.2, which needs only MCC and updates itself as the game does. A bot for a dedicated server's chat and voice is reclaimer-bot-v0.10.2, with BOT.md for setup. Each comes as .exe for Windows, -macos-aarch64.zip for macOS (each app opens the first time as the game does, and the bot needs the same xattr command as a server) and -linux-x86_64.tar.gz (or -linux-aarch64) for Linux.

The game's log is Logs/client.log in its player folder: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ProjectReclaimer on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/ProjectReclaimer on macOS, ~/.local/share/ProjectReclaimer on Linux.