Halo: Master Chief Collection Has 20 Gig Day One Update

Xbox Day-One updates aren’t an uncommon thing in games these days—now that developers can keep working on games after it’s been shipped off to be turned into a disk, it’s actually not a horrible thing, either: it means extra features and content can be developed for the game that might not have made it into the game in an earlier era, although sometimes that content is released as DLC, and that’s a whole different mess.

Still, they take time to download and it can be a pain, especially when you’re all excited to get playing, and thanks to a new announcement by Microsoft we know that the upcoming Halo: Master Chief Collection is going to have one hell of a day-one update: 20 Gigabytes of “features and multiplayer content” will need to be downloaded the moment you pop in the disk.

Here’s what Microsoft has to say:

“From the start, our philosophy has been to give Halo fans the best possible experience and not compromise the quality or features of the collection. The result is that Halo: The Master Chief Collection will take up almost all of the usable space of a single Blu-ray (45 GB), and we will also issue a content update at launch that is estimated to be 20 GB. You'll be able to start playing Campaign and more as the content is installing, with some features and multiplayer content being added via the update. Yes, the update is large, but we weren't about to cut corners to save disc space. This ensures that you are getting every bit of Halo goodness we can fit in. Our work is not done, however, as we continue to tune, tweak and optimize the online experience to ensure a smooth multiplayer launch. This will continue right up until launch day.”

That’s a lot of data and a lot to download, and if you have a broadband limit or your internet is slow it could be debilitating, but at least you can play single-player while you wait.  Additionally, if you pre-order the digital version, you can ‘pre-download the 20 gig update.

The game is set to be released November 11^th.