Best way to experience Halo MCC (Playing order)
With Halo MCC coming to PC, making it available for a wider audience, many might consider jumping in to experience the Halo universe.
A friend of mine started very recently and to my surprise, he started with Halo CE, his reason it being the first Halo game. And this got me thinking.
Similar to the Star Wars saga, we have a more recent game being a prequel to an older game, i.E. Halo Reach being a prequel to Halo CE, and maybe somewhat Halo: ODST and Halo 3, though the difference is less noticeable.
Chronologically, the order would be (IMO) Halo Reach, Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo: ODST, Halo 3, Halo 4. But since Halo Reach is a more recent game than Halo CE, it has many new features as in weapons, armor abilities, vehicles and the like which will be missing in Halo CE. So when starting with Halo Reach, you will be taking a heavy downgrade in features when continuing with Halo CE.
Is there an equivalent to Star Wars' machete order to the Halo franchise?
Best Answer
There are basically 3 "obvious" orders in which to play the games in Halo: The Master Chief collection on PC, and I would say that all of them are reasonable:
Original release order:
CE, 2, 3, ODST, Reach, 4, 5
Chronological order:
Reach, CE, 2, ODST, 3, 4, 5
Halo 2 and ODST can be interleaved as suggested in the other answer for maximum chronological purity.
Halo MCC on PC release order:
Reach, CE, 2, 3, ODST, 4, 5
I am not aware of any other popular playthrough order that is equivalent to the Star Wars Machete order.
Regarding the story, there are no substantial spoilers for Reach in any of the other games, and no substantial spoilers for other stories in Reach. It is a standalone story for the most part. The end connects to Halo 1, but in a way that I think works well no matter what order you play them in. Similarly, Halo 3: ODST shares some events with Halo 2, and it's probably better to play Halo 2 first or interleave them, but that works in all of those orders.
This is different from Star Wars; the Machete order was created largely because
Revenge of the Sith, and the prequels overall, spoil the big reveal in Empire Strikes Back that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker
As for features, the progression was not as linear as you may think. Armor abilities were added in Halo: Reach, completely changed in Halo 4, and completely changed again in Halo 5. Dual wielding is a mechanic that only exists in Halo 2 and 3, and was removed in Halo 3: ODST and later games. Deployable equipment is a mechanic unique to Halo 3. Every game adds and removes guns and vehicles.
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