Developer 343 Industries has released a new, 523MB patch for Halo: The Master Chief Collection in a bid to squish the game’s multiplayer bugs.

The studio told fans that the latest patch resolves “a number of matchmaking issues, fixes various bugs related to UI and the party system, and also improves overall stability”. However, it explained that more work still needs to be done to eliminate all the matchmaking and multiplayer problems.

“While this update contains a variety of improvements, we continue to work on additional content updates that will be rolled out to address further issues that you have called out,” the studio wrote on its blog.

Since its launch two weeks ago, on November 11, The Master Chief Collection has been unable to connect players online smoothly or swiftly. Various patches, applied in a bid to improve the experience, have not resolved the issues, and in some instances have made matters worse.

Due to the emergence of numerous bugs and problems, Bonnie Ross, the executive in charge at 343 Industries, asked fans to accept her “heartfelt apologies” over the game’s persistent online problems.

“We have not delivered the experience you deserve,” Ross said.

“I personally apologize for this on behalf of us all at 343 Industries. Our team is committed to working around the clock until these issues are resolved.”

Patch notes, written by 343 Industries, can be found below.

Matchmaking

• Made improvements to the way the matchmaking system handles player matching

• Made improvements to the team selection process to improve team balancing

• Made an update to the party system to improve searching with parties (2+ players)

• Made further improvements to how matchmaking progress is communicated to the player

• Made an update to ensure that players do not enter a non-joinable state after searching for a match

• Made an update to ensure that the “Game Session” UI does not persist after leaving a matchmaking lobby

• Resolved a variety of incorrectly displayed matchmaking prompts

• Improved matchmaking roster presentation during team creation phase to remove roster flickering

• Corrected a “connecting to host” message that incorrectly displayed during the matchmaking searching phase

• Made an update to ensure that FFA players do not appear as if they are on the red team in the pre-game lobby

Party, Lobby, and Custom Games

• Made an update to ensure that custom game settings persist between matches

• Made an update to ensure that player’s player emblems load correctly when returning to lobby

• Made an update to improve nameplate and emblem display

• Improved the display of emblems in the “Games Session Details” screen

• Made improvements to parties to ensure that parties are merged when the host joins another player and “brings party”

• Made an update to improve party stability after completing a matchmaking game

• Made an update to ensure that players are joinable after playing a matchmaking game

Stability

• Made a variety of updates to improve UI stability

• Resolved stability issues that occurred while viewing medals in “Player Details”

• Made an update to prevent stability issues caused by controller disconnects

• Made an update to improve post-game-carnage-report stability

• Made an update to address in-game stability for Halo 2

• Improved matchmaking stability while searching with parties (2+ players)

• Addressed a crash that could occur after searching in the Halo 2: Anniversary Rumble playlist

• Resolved a variety of miscellaneous stability issues to improve overall performance

Achievements

• Made an update to ensure that the “Zealot” achievement is unlockable

We have more information on Achievements and the LASO playlists here. As mentioned earlier this week, we have additional updates on the way in an effort to further improve your experience with Halo: The Master Chief Collection. We thank you for your continued feedback, patience, and support.