Halo The Master Chief Collection – Best Playing Order

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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 somehwat Halo: ODST and Halo 3, though the difference is less noticable.

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.

So my question is: Is there an equivalent to Star Wars' machete order to the Halo franchise?

Best Answer

It depends on your priorities:

  • Do you want what makes sense for storytelling purposes?
    • Play the games in release order: Combat Evolved, 2, 3, ODST, Reach, 4.
  • Do you want what makes sense for mechanical evolution?
    • Play the games in release order: Combat Evolved, 2, 3, ODST, Reach, 4 (and maybe stick to the original graphics of 1 and 2 to see the progression of that as well).
  • Do you want to play the games chronologically, and not necessarily be able to understand the significance of plot elements?
    • Play the games in in-universe chronological order: Reach, Combat Evolved, 2 / ODST (see note below), 3, 4

Unfortunately unlike a non-interactive medium like traditional films (choose your own adventure films aside), players are going to be subjected to the actual gameplay mechanics of the games they play (well, duh, I suppose). Especially since videogames are a new medium a lot of gameplay changes have occurred over the decade plus the Bungie (and Halo 4) Halo games span. With film, most viewers are able to suspend their recognition of the obvious technological progress that was made between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy of Star Wars, but with Halo its more of a buildup of mechanical changes that mostly make each entry better. While there are occasional reversals of new mechanics (ex. the removal of dual wielding), each game tends to be more complex a sandbox, or at least a refined version. With the plot of Reach in particular, it will have more meaning to players who already have experienced the rest of the trilogy; irrespective of mechanical progress.

Answer: I would suggest either playing them in release order, or possibly just sucking it up and playing them as they are re-released (luckily, this will change a few years after this answer is posted). Since games are different than film, I argue that a "machete order" doesn't work nearly as well for them.

Note on Halo 2/ODST: Thanks to some fan efforts its arguably possible to play the missions of each game in chronological order, the missions are as follows:

  1. Halo 2 "Metropolis"
  2. Halo 3: ODST "Prepare to Drop"
  3. Halo 3: ODST "Uplift Reserve"
  4. Halo 3: ODST "ONI Alpha Site"
  5. Halo 3: ODST "Kikowani Station"
  6. Halo 3: ODST "Sadie's Story"
  7. Halo 3: ODST "Data Hive"
  8. Halo 2 "The Arbiter"
  9. Halo 2 "The Oracle"
  10. Halo 3: ODST "Coastal Highway"
  11. After this point resume Halo 2.
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