Halo Reach on PC is the customizable combat we’ve been wanting—but just barely

Enlarge / Back into Reach. This time, on Windows PC. (credit: Xbox Game Studios)

Years of teases and waiting have finally ended with this: Halo is back on PC in officially supported fashion.

In particular, this week's launch of 2011's Halo Reach on Windows PC is fascinating because of how it compares to the last time Microsoft tried the Halo-on-PC thing. Rewind to 2007, and Microsoft shoved out a Halo 2 port that required both Games For Windows Live and Windows Vista to run—and shipped in mod-unfriendly fashion. It received nary a patch or useful update and left diehard fans scrambling to patch it into decent shape.

Compare that to Halo Reach, which is still a Windows-only game but works on any Microsoft OS from Windows 7 and up and can be purchased either on the Windows Store or Steam. If you pay for Xbox Game Pass on PCs, you get it day-and-date via Windows Store. If you buy it on Steam, meanwhile, you get one heckuva cool option already: total mod support. Simply pick the game's "cheat detection disabled" option upon boot and you can fiddle with every relevant file (within a "friends-only" online sandbox, which is fair enough).

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