What's new in 0.10: Project Reclaimer

Highlights

Five Bungie Halos in one game: Halo 3 and ODST natively, and now Halo: Reach, Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, in an early form. The new games.
The engine is recompiled, and the game runs natively on Windows, macOS and Linux. The engine.
Networking is completely overhauled, with hole punching, host migration and joining a mission in progress. Networking.
Engine limits are far higher: 16,320 objects in the world, up from 2,048, and 9,999 on a Forge map. Limits.
The Reclaimer Kit: a whole editing kit for modders, as an app of its own. Reclaimer Kit.
Megalo is far bigger, with one-file modes, Conquest, a third faction and Reach's own game types. Megalo.
Every menu is new. Menus and settings.

Updating from 0.9

An installation of 0.9 offers 0.10 as an update, like any other. Update players and servers together: 0.9 and 0.10 can't play together, because the network protocol is new.

What comes along: your settings, identity and player ID, armor and emblem, game modes, playlists, server configurations, mods, saved Forge maps, finished missions and your rank.
What doesn't: saved films, and a mission's saved checkpoint. Finished missions are kept, so you can start the mission again.
Your files move. The first start moves your player folder out of Documents, into the system's folder for application data. A notice says where.
Saved maps and game modes are converted to 0.10's format. The originals are backed up first, to Backups/Before 0.10 in your player folder, as 0.9 can't read the new ones.
Wine, CrossOver and Proton are no longer supported. On a Mac or Linux, install the native build, not the update in the game: it finds your 0.9 player folder and brings it across.

Coming from 0.9, for players. Updating a server. Updating a master.

Halo: Reach, Combat Evolved and Halo 2

Each one shows once it's installed in your MCC, beside Halo 3 and ODST, in the same menus, server browser, Forge and theater. They're early: expect missing pieces, and tell us on Discord what you find. Status by game.

Halo: Reach: all its multiplayer maps, with Halo 3's game types and its own 418 game variants, its armor abilities, health and HUD. Its eleven missions and ten Firefight maps, solo or in co-op for up to 16, with its own saved game; its AI fights and every mission's opening plays, but some of its missions' scripts are still missing. Its Spartan and Elite in Customize, in its own armor, and Forge with its own objects.
Halo: Combat Evolved: its campaign from the first mission to the last, solo or in co-op, and its multiplayer maps with its own game types, all by its own rules: no health recharge, health packs, its own vehicles, AI and HUD, in its classic look.
Halo 2: its multiplayer maps with its own game types, rules and HUD, in its classic look and sound. Its campaign's missions are there in an early form.
Each game's rules on its own maps. A game plays by the rules of the game its map comes from, and the host can choose another in Game Options.
Across games: characters on other games' maps, each game's objects in Forge on every other's, Megalo modes on every game's maps, and server playlists that mix every game's maps. Playlists.
Their mods too: MCC's mods for Reach, Combat Evolved and Halo 2, campaigns and maps, play as Halo 3's do. Mods.
The Kit opens their maps as it opens Halo 3's. The Kit.

The engine

The Reclaimer Engine: Halo 3's engine recompiled to Rust and rewritten piece by piece as readable code. How it works.
One shared engine for all Bungie Halo games. Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST are natively supported, and Halo: Reach, Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 play on it in an early form. Status by game.
No game code in any download. The game translates the engine from your own copy at first start, in under a minute, with no tools to install, and again only when the game itself updates. What happens.
MCC updates no longer stop you playing. The game goes on from its own copy of the files it needs. When MCC updates.
A game of its own. No MCC running underneath: your window, menus and networking are all the game's.

Windows, macOS and Linux

The game runs natively on Mac and Linux, with no Wine, Proton or CrossOver. macOS draws with Metal, on Apple silicon; Linux draws with Vulkan, on x86-64 and ARM64; Windows keeps Direct3D 11. Details.
Native dedicated servers on Linux and macOS, with no display or graphics card, and a Docker image with no Wine in it. Linux, macOS, Docker.
Every tool on every system: the game, the Reclaimer Kit, the customization editor, the remote console, the dedicated server and the server bot are each a download of their own, for each system, and none needs anything else from the release. The remote console opens its own window. Download.
Controllers on every system: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro and other Mac game controllers on macOS, and any controller the system sees on Linux.
Your files, in your system's place. Where the game keeps them.

Networking

Completely overhauled. A new transport in portable Rust, on encrypted, authenticated UDP, with sending on a thread of its own. How it works, with measurements.
Enhanced networking is the new default: updates by what each player would actually see, straight-flying vehicles, smoothed corrections and fairer driving. In our 64-player tests a player's download fell by half or more. Classic networking stays as a host setting. Choose one.
Host-authoritative co-op, experimental. Campaign and Firefight play in lockstep by default, as Halo 3 does. A host can turn on Host-authoritative co-op in Host Settings, so guests' own moves no longer wait for a round trip. Co-op.
Join a mission in progress: a player can join campaign or Firefight mid-mission while everyone else keeps playing, with no trip back to a checkpoint. Someone who arrives during a cinematic comes in when it ends, and a host can turn joining off in Host Settings. Co-op.
Host migration: when the listen host of a multiplayer or host-authoritative co-op game leaves, another player takes over. Hosting.
Hole punching: the masters answer STUN and introduce players, any master can do it, and a host registers with up to four. Which routers connect.

Limits

16,320 objects in the world, up from Halo 3's 2,048, with 16,384 over the network, up from 1,024.
Four times the effects, 1,024 lights, and draw lists to match: 12,288 objects and 14,336 models in a view.
ODST's larger tables for every game: 512 squads, 125 objectives and 64 sound classes, with 65,534 tags in a map.
Every other limit you know stays: 128 players, 64 teams in scripted modes, and 16 in co-op. The whole table.

Reclaimer Kit

A whole editing kit for modders, as an app of its own that needs only MCC. It does what Tool, Guerilla and Sapien do for Halo 3, as one program laid out like Blender. Start here.

A level editor over the running map: place, move and restyle anything with full undo, and press F5 to play it.
Tags, assets and scripts: edit every tag in a map live, swap textures and sounds, export models and animations, and compile HaloScript, with a live console, cheats and debug drawing. The reference.
Your own Editing Kit tags: point the Kit at your tags folder for named fields, Import Tags and Editing Kit scenarios. Using a tags folder.
Maps shared as recipes: joiners download a few KB, and their game makes the same map from their own files. Recipes.
Checked on all 27 multiplayer maps, from opening a map to hosting it and joining. Campaign editing is partial. Where it stands.
Every game's maps: the Kit opens Reach's, Combat Evolved's and Halo 2's maps as it opens Halo 3's.
It updates itself, as the game does.

Forge

A 9,999 object limit, in one simple count. The old 640 limit and the separate frozen objects are gone, and still objects are made cheap automatically. Object limits.
Loose objects stay: a map keeps its objects with Normal physics, and piles too big to work out go to sleep whole instead of losing blocks. Loose objects.
A new Forge menu with find, category and source, and a FORGE row on the main menu. The menu.
The asset library: objects from every game and mod, built in seconds, with no game data for joiners to download. Asset library. Choose each game's sources.
One Forge on every game's maps: each map has its own game's objects, and a host can add the other games' objects to any map. Choose each game's sources.
ODST in Forge: its 17 objects on Halo 3's maps, and canvases from its campaign. ODST's objects.
A Save Map page with a description, save over or as new, and what joiners will need. Saving.
Maps with no spawn points can't strand players: a warning on save, and spawns given back in games. Nowhere to respawn.
Narrows, High Ground and Orbital get the extra respawn points of their default variants. It's a host setting, on by default. Default variants' respawn points.
Six more AI kinds, four of them Flood. AI.
Forge sessions are recorded as films, and joiners and late joiners see the same map. Building together.

Megalo and game modes

One file, nothing to compile. A mode is one .rmeg text file with a settings header, and plays straight from your Game Modes folder. The mode header.
Conquest comes with the game: squads, tickets, five classes and a deployment map to choose where you come back in. Play Conquest.
UNSC vs Covenant vs Flood: a third faction, 41 classes, and any two factions can start the battle. Classes.
Reach's own game types: with Reach installed, its 418 multiplayer game variants play through Megalo, on Reach's maps or any other, with their loadouts and armor abilities. Other games' game types.
Modes play on every game's maps, Reach's, Combat Evolved's and Halo 2's included.
The game type picker's Megalo card lists every mode you have. Compile and host.
Scripts hear the game: damage and death events, button presses and widget clicks. Events.
Any object on the map, by tag path, and copies of it. Tag paths.
New calls for: waypoints, sounds, per-object damage rules, revives where you fell, armor and colors and weapons and drivers' seats reserved by class.
Up to 64 classes, 24 a team, and 64 teams. Classes.
The old JSON script language is retired for new modes. Older JSON modes keep working. Older modes.

Menus and settings

Every menu is new: the main menu, lobby, pickers, Customize, Settings, server browser, Forge menu, Theater, chat, loading screens and the carnage report.
Find a setting: press / in Settings or Game Options. Settings.
New settings: HDR, UI width, Hide hints, an Auto frame limit that follows your display, Show FPS and tick rate, and on Advanced graphics Bloom, with its own value for ODST, Ambient occlusion and Occlusion culling.
Sharp at any size. Rendering resolution's Default draws at your window's or display's own pixels in every display mode, and a new installation starts in exclusive fullscreen. Display modes.
A controller in every menu: the D-pad moves through every page, and an on-screen keyboard opens on any text field. With a controller.
More menu music, with ODST's songs when it's installed. Menu music.
Mods from a server always ask first. A server's own mod files never download without your yes. Only Steam Workshop items can be set to download by themselves. Mods.

Campaign and ODST

Reach's, Combat Evolved's and Halo 2's campaigns, and Reach's Firefight, on the same pages as Halo 3's and ODST's. The new games.
ODST on the shared engine: its campaign and Firefight, from the same menus as Halo 3. Play ODST.
Campaign scoring and Players choose their camera. Modifiers.
Campaign and Firefight mods in the games window. Campaign mods.
Mod campaigns go further: your own characters carry through every mission, a resumed game and co-op, and more Workshop campaigns load.

Customize and characters

ODST's troopers in multiplayer, and an Appearance list that says which of your looks each server shows. Characters.
Reach's Spartan and Elite in Customize, piece by piece in Reach's own armor, and Combat Evolved's and Halo 2's colors on pages of their own.
Your identity file is a plain file now, so it can be backed up. First start.

Theater

Film screenshots, and video with sound on every system. Watching a film, Saving a video.
Films of Forge games, too.

Servers and masters

Your 0.9 configuration still loads. Settings not yet supported are named and set aside. Updating a server.
Docker hosts update as before: docker compose pull, with 0.9's compose files.
Lighter servers: dedicated servers draw nothing and sleep between frames.
Tick rate: dedicated servers (tick_rate) and Host Settings can play multiplayer at 30 ticks a second instead of 60, which halves the host's simulation. Joiners stay at 60, and co-op, ODST and Firefight always play at 60. Playing at 30 ticks.
Stats on dedicated servers: a server with an empty stats_server reports its games to the public stats service once two of its players have proven who they are. Set it to off to stop that. Stats.
Native masters, on TCP and UDP. What changed.
Playlists mix multiplayer with campaign and ODST, up to 256 games, and every game's maps in one playlist: Halo 3's, Reach's, Combat Evolved's and Halo 2's. A player without a game the playlist needs is told as they join. Co-op in a playlist.
Bots for your server: reclaimer-bot joins a dedicated server's chat and voice as a DJ, an announcer or a relay to another chat, with no game or graphics card, and players see it marked [BOT]. Bots.
The public services move to ports of their own: the masters to 44340 and the stats service to 8792, beside 0.9's, and the new social service runs on 8791. Saved 0.9 addresses follow them, and your own machine's master keeps 49175. What changed.
New settings such as bind_address, vote_kick_immune, post_game_seconds, start_countdown_seconds and stock_map_defaults, and Forge's odst_objects, forge_mods and forge_primitives. Server settings.
More in RCON: immune, mutes, next, replay, restart and quit, and teamcount up to 64. Commands.
For panel and bot makers: status.json and RCON events now name players by network key. What changed.

What's new in 0.10