Halo: CE Adding A Brand-New Skin Feature In The Master Chief Collection

While one team inside 343 Industries plugs away on Halo Infinite--which we'll be learning more about during the Xbox Series X Games Showcase on July 23--another continues to work on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The studio has continually introduced impressive updates for the game over the years, and this continues with a major update coming to Halo: CE in particular. Things are about to get a whole lot more customizable.

The game is getting a brand-new customization system for multiplayer. These include visors, weapon skins, and vehicle skins. You can see some work-in-progress images of the new system below.

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In a blog post, design director Max Szlagor explained why 343 is adding these new visor, weapon, and vehicle skins to Halo: CE and not the other titles in the collection.

"We wanted to bring a greater level of customization to the games that didn't have as many customization options for armor sets so players can have their uniqueness in each game," he said. "With that in mind, we thought, 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool to have some new options for Halo: CE and what's possible there?' Turns out there were a number of things that we could do! We sat down and started to come up with some concepts, going through trial and error in trying stuff out, and I think we're quite happy with what was possible and how to spice things up in multiplayer with these options."

Szlagor went on to say that the size and scale of MCC--which comprises five different games--meant that 343 needed to make a call about what game to prioritize. "There's just so much stuff in MCC that it takes time to build out these features to the level of quality and the level of depth that we want," he said. "This was an opportunity where we saw Halo: CE didn't have any of these types of features previously and now, we are bringing these to life."

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These new customization items will be available for MCC Season 2, which is set to kick off with the launch of Halo 3 on PC sometime soon. In the future, Szlagor said 343 might look to develop new customization items for the other games in MCC. "I think people are going to be stoked to see what crazy stuff comes up for all the different titles in MCC," he said.

Not everyone will want to have skins, or want to see them. With that in mind, 343 created a new option from the Gameplay tab that allows you to opt out of seeing the new skins. The "New Skins" setting is toggled on by default, but you can disable it so you can only see the original art for Halo: CE.