If you're hoping to take the fight to your friends online in the newly released Halo: The Master Chief Collection, be prepared for some obstacles. Users are reporting matchmaking issues with the game.
The official Halo Twitter account confirms that there are issues with the matchmaking side of the experience. "We're aware that some users are experiencing longer than normal Matchmaking search times," 343 Industries writes. "We are actively working on a fix for this issue."
The developer does suggest a workaround in event of problems. "If after a few minutes you're unable to find a match, exit Matchmaking and then begin searching again," 343 says.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection uses Microsoft's Azure platform for dedicated servers during gameplay. We've reached out to Microsoft with a request for more information on how matchmaking is handled and when a fix for these problems is expected.
For more on The Master Chief Collection, check out our review. You can also read up on the Halo 5 Multiplayer beta in our hands-on preview.
[Source: Halo on Twitter (1), (2)]
Our Take
My understanding is that using Microsoft's cloud server technology was supposed to make for smoother launches. We'd like to understand what's gone wrong here and why the publisher and developer weren't ready for launch of one of the platform's biggest exclusives this fall.