The announcement that 343 Industries would be introducing full support for modding to Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC came as a major surprise. It was confirmed suddenly just one week ago and then launched three days later. As exciting as the introduction of mod support and a Custom Game Browser to Halo: The Master Chief Collection is, however, there was an unfortunate oversight in the hurry to get the update live. Official mod support has broken a significant number of previously available Halo mods.
As most PC gamers understand, the vast majority of game mods are made without any sort of official support from the developer. Modders simply take a game as it is and go to work. That was the case with Halo: The Master Chief Collection when it first launched on PC. Over 800 mods are currently listed on NexusMods now. But implementing official support for mods requires some dramatic changes to files and structures, many of which earlier mods depended on not being changed.
Looking through the NexusMods listings for Halo: The Master Chief Collection now results in many of the mods being flagged with "BROKEN" in their titles. Many of those not flagged are likely broken, too, but haven't been updated to reflect the recent changes. It's likely that some, and hopefully many, of these Halo mods will be fixed in the weeks and months to come. But it's possible some of them won't be, either because of the difficulty involved with adapting to the new system or because they're no longer supported.
343 hasn't acknowledged the issue since it dropped the modding update on June 23. A bullet point in the update's patch notes does mention that modders may have to "rebuild your maps to play properly," which doesn't quite seem to meet the severity of the situation.
To 343's credit, the addition of the Custom Game Browser is going to make mods for Halo: The Master Chief Collection accessible in a way that's difficult to capture. Modders who go the extra mile to make sure their mods work with the update will be rewarded. 343 clearly has its eye on that goal.
But it's fair criticism to say that 343 Industries could have done much, much more to make this process smoother for the Halo: The Master Chief Collection modding community. These are some of the most dedicated Halo fans in the world and 343 put them in a very challenging position. It'll be interesting to see if 343 reaches out to the modding community in the coming weeks.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is available now on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.