The PC version of Halo: Reach will not include the Forge level editor or the Theater replay modes at launch, the development team for Halo: The Master Chief Collection has confirmed. 343 Industries doesn't know how long it will take to get them ready for PC, but it will likely be "a very lengthy amount of time".

Halo: Reach is coming to PC as part of The Master Chief Collection later this year, and it will arrive on Xbox One at the same time. While the Xbox One version will launch with both Forge and Theater, the team says that "bringing both features to PC is extremely complex and time consuming".

"We need to properly give both features enough time, so they are a true PC-first experience," lead PC producer Michael Fahrny said in a development update yesterday. "When you look specifically at Forge and what it truly is, it is a 3D editing tool that was built completely for console. In some cases, it’s built to have mouse and keyboard support, and in some it’s not—and that’s one of our biggest challenges right now with the feature.

It will take an "undetermined amount of work" to get Forge ready for PC, he added. "We haven’t done a deep enough dive to determine how much work it truly is due to the priority of getting the main game up and ready. What we suspect, is it’s a very lengthy amount of time."

The team's main focus is finishing the main game, after which it will try to get Forge and Theater finalized "as soon as possible", with help from studios Ruffian and Splash Damage.

In the same update, the developers revealed that players will be able to import custom maps from previous Halo games on the Xbox 360 to PC. Maps made in the Forge modes on Halo 3, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4 will be playable on PC: to prepare, all you have to do is boot them up on Xbox 360, or Xbox One if available, and upload files to your file share. When the time comes, you'll be able to play them in The Master Chief Collection on PC.

The first PC test for Halo: Reach is live right now.

Halo: Reach is finally playable by the public for the first time, but fewer than 1,000 fans have the chance to test it out. The closed test of Halo: The Master Chief Collection—a compilation that brings lots of Halo games to PC for the first time—started yesterday, and it contains an updated build of the Halo: Reach demo that James tried at E3.

343 Industries stressed this first test is "very small", and that only a fraction of the registered Halo Insiders that showed an interest have been invited to play. The primary goal is to test how to roll out builds on Steam at a larger scale, while the secondary goal is to "get player feedback on the current state of mouse and keyboard controls and how the game 'feels' on PC", 343 said in a forum post.

"This flight will include a broader range of PC hardware than what we’ve had access to thus far so we’re eager to see if any specific new issues arise related to things like drivers and different configurations."

The test includes the Halo: Reach campaign mission Tip of the Spear. It's "missing numerous features and is sure to have some rough edges"—known issues include intermittent audio problems and full-on crashes. The test launched yesterday and will run until Monday, July 1.

Alongside the test, the dev team released 15 minutes of 4K gameplay from the campaign mission, which you can watch at the top of this article.

After a couple of delays, Halo: The Master Chief Collection's first test on PC is expected to begin soon. 343 Industries was aiming for June, after E3, and now the flighting for Halo: Reach is on track to start next week. 

Registered Halo Insiders will be the first to get their hands on the remastered Reach, but only a small number of them. "We're starting more modestly because we've got quite a few levers to pull and we want to ensure our delivery pipeline runs smoothly, our communications are clear, and that participants can properly provide their feedback on the build," said 343's John Junyszek. 

The team apparently has a build that's looking like a strong candidate, but it's still being tested. "We need to take our time to ensure we're sending out a quality flight to our Halo Insiders," Junyszek said. Originally planned for April, 343 has been quite cautious and pushed it back for more internal testing and tweaking. 

While this test won't be a public, the details will be shared with everyone. You can also sign up to the Halo Insider Program here and get opportunities to test all of the MCC games when they're available. 

Our James Davenport played a short demo of Halo Reach at E3 and first impressions are that it seemed like a good port, which is always nice to hear. Microsoft have released some more info about the Master Chief Collection on PC and that includes the price. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 4, and Halo: Reach will be $US10 each on both Steam and the Microsoft Store, while Halo 3: ODST will be $US5, though that's only the campaign. Additionally, anyone with an Xbox Game Pass for PC will get each game as part of that subscription.

Microsoft also add that, "Players will have flexibility to purchase any or all the games at any point along the way as they become available."

Now it's just a matter of when.

Halo Reach is the first of the series hitting PC as part of the Master Chief Collection, and its time is imminent, evidenced by the state of the demo I played at Microsoft's E3 Showcase. It feels like a PC game should. 

I remember jack-all about Reach's console version except that it's sad as hell and that I liked it because it was more Halo, except with a sprint button, and that's exactly what the early build feels like on PC. Mouse control is precise and pixel-perfect with no acceleration or stick virtualization. There's no option to change settings during gameplay yet, so I didn't get to tinker with options as much as I would've liked, but things look sharp and natural at 4K resolution and 60 fps, even with the FOV topped out at 90. 

Seeing Halo on PC for the first time in nearly a decade, I'm stuck on how well the combat has held up. While it's missing years of UI and feedback improvements from shooters of a similar caliber that have released since (hit indicators have spoiled us), Reach still manages to feel distinct today with its large, fairly open areas littered with enemies and vehicles and whatever weapons you can get your hands on. 

The opening moments of the demo throw you right into the sightlines of a dozen or so Covenant, and shortly after that your allies drop off a warthog with an attached missile turret. It's absolute, unscripted chaos. I died about five times on heroic difficulty while trying to find the optimal way through the arena, and every attempt articulated differently. 

On my first try, I circled a massive AA gun while an AI-controlled ally fired on Covenant from the back, but two ghosts eventually took us down, dumping me right on an elite with a plasma launcher. I commandeered my own ghost on the second attempt, thinning out the Covenant around the AA gun from afar while my AI friend drove around aimlessly in the warthog, drawing some attention away from me. 

When I finally succeeded it wasn’t because I had a plan, it was because I improvised, trading weapons with Covenant corpses at every opportunity, my shield in the red for most of the fight. That constant swing between desperation and brilliant improvisation is what Halo excels at, and it still works. Some of the sheen has naturally worn off with age, but it hardly matters because we can aim with a damn mouse now.

Halo's PvP multiplayer always had pretty great network performance on consoles, all things considered. Sure, it could be laggy, and cheaters could use the standby buttons on their modems to rig games. But it worked well most of the time and shooting felt fair and responsive. In an era where console games didn't have dedicated servers, Halo's peer-to-peer code was about as good as it got. Until you played a mode like campaign or Firefight online, and then it could really go to shit.

I have vivid memories of trying to play Halo Reach's Firefight mode online, and giving up in frustration when it was so laggy I could barely move. That's why a few sentences in 343's latest big Master Chief Collection progress report really caught my attention. Basically: They knew it was bad, and they're fixing it with dedicated servers. Hallelujah.

Here's some background on why campaign and Firefight could be so damn laggy. Because those modes included enemy AI, the asynchronous code used in normal multiplayer wouldn't work. That method keeps lag at a minimum, but is why you can occasionally get shot through a wall, as your client and the host disagree on what they're seeing. It's still a commonly used design. Online campaign and Firefight modes, on the other hand, instead had to use a synchronous model, where every player's game was in exact agreement about what was happening at all times, to keep the game simulation and AI all running properly.

Without a perfect network connection between all the players, though, shit got laggy fast. You could rubber band back and forth as the game tried to keep everything in sync, or move sluggishly as it struggled to keep up. It wasn't very fun. 

343 says: No more of that for Firefight.

"Firefight matchmaking will be hosted on dedicated servers and use a new asynchronous network model. Co-op Campaigns and Firefight have always run on a synchronous model where clients have to wait for the host to simulate their actions and send them back before they can be observed by the client. This can result in a sense of sluggishness for off-host players. Reach Firefight in MCC will use an async model which should result in a much smoother and more consistent online experience."

That's a single paragraph in a very long update about the Master Chief Collection, but it's an exciting paragraph. It's rare for me to have the opportunity to play through a Halo campaign, sitting on the couch, with my old Halo buddies. But if we can play hours of Firefight online, on PC, without the lag issues of old, that's about as good as it gets.

Correction: This story originally stated that dedicated servers and asynchronous code would apply to both campaign co-op and Firefight. 343 has clarified that it will only apply to Firefight. We regret the error.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection's upcoming PC release will be the first time most of the games have left Microsoft's consoles, and thankfully 343 Industries and Splash Damage have been taking their time with the port, getting the controls and UI up to snuff. Reach will be the first one out of the gate in a staggered release schedule, though none of the six games have yet received a release date. 

Public tests, meanwhile, have been postponed—the original plan was to start in April—while the developers spend more time getting it ready. Last week, community director Brian Jarrard said that it probably wouldn't start before E3, though progress was being made.

If you've signed up to the Halo Insider programme, you'll be able to take an early look, presumably not long after the fan celebration. In response to questions about the event, Jarrard explained that the test phase would be starting soon and that Reach would probably be playable at E3.

"Flighting should begin rolling out to Insiders in June," he wrote. "But, it's highly likely that a representative work-in-progress flight-build slice of Reach PC will be on hand in Microsoft's booth at E3."

There's still no official date yet, but Microsoft will host fan celebrations during the Xbox E3 press conference across all Microsoft Stores, featuring news, first looks and details from the Xbox briefing. You can also see it in action during a live show-and-tell today at 1:30 pm PT on Mixer. 

Update: This article originally stated that the build shown during today's livestream would be playable during the fan celebration events in Microsoft Stores. Jarrard has since clarified on Twitter that that was a mistake.