Halo: The Master Chief Collection Pre-Orders Start Today

343 Industries and partners are done working on this year’s blockbuster Xbox One exclusive, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Microsoft announced today. In addition, Xbox One owners will be able to pre-order and pre-download the game beginning this afternoon.

Microsoft made its pre-download and pre-order announcements for Halo: The Master Chief Collection earlier today on its Xbox Wire news blog. In that post Microsoft promises users the “biggest Halo experience so far.” In reaching the milestone, Microsoft has also apparently made getting the game earlier than originally planned a possibility for some.

Originally, Halo: The Master Chief’s international release date was going to be October 14th, three days after the game arrived in the United States. Apparently, Microsoft was able to shave some time off their release window. Now Microsoft is confirming that the Halo: The Master Chief Collection release date for the “majority” of international markets is now November 11th, that’s the same day Xbox One owners in the United States can pick up the game.  That’s a pretty big win since one of the big reasons Xbox One owners are picking up Halo: The Master Chief Collection is its remastered Halo 2 multiplayer.

Read: Halo: The Master Chief Collection Reveals Tons of Epic Extras

Unfortunately, Belgian users won’t get the chance to download the game until November 12th. November 14th is when Xbox One owners in France can expect Halo: The Master Chief Collection because new games there typically début on Fridays. Finally, Japanese Xbox One owners can expect Halo: The Master Chief Collection to arrive on November 13th.

It’s pretty easy to see why Microsoft is calling Halo: The Master Chief Collection a big Halo launch. Halo: The Master Chief Collection gives Xbox One owners every Halo single-player campaign to ever feature John 117. That’s the campaigns from Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 4. In addition to that, there’s a remastered Halo 2 multiplayer that’s been layered with new textures to celebrate that game’s 10 year anniversary. All of the extra downloadable content for these games is included too.

Xbox One owners can pre-order Halo: The Master Chief Collection now and download the game. Whether it’s pre-ordered through the Xbox Store or purchased at a gaming retailer it’ll weigh in at 45GB. In addition to that, users will need to install a 20GB title update as well.

Instead of including the Firefight Mode with Halo 4, 343 Industries including an episodic multiplayer experience called Spartan Ops. Spartan Ops will make it into Halo: The Master Chief Collection, but it won’t be available until December. 343 Industries plans on making all ten of those episodes available at the same time.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is this year’s go-to Xbox One exclusive game. It’s the biggest and most ambitious remastering of a game Microsoft has ever attempted. Users will be able to switch between refreshed graphics and gameplay on Halo 2. A playlist maker is built into the game so that users can string together their favorite moments from each game’s campaign too. That alone would be enough to make this a big release, but what makes it even bigger is that this’ll be the first time that users can play Halo on an Xbox One console. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is completely exclusive to the Xbox One. Xbox 360 users are stuck tracking down older versions of these games or upgrade to the Xbox One to get the experience. The Halo 5: The Guardians beta will also be included in the game.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection costs $60. Pre-ordering and pre-downloading digitally is only to ensure that users will be able to play the game as soon as possible on release night. That doesn’t mean that users will be able to play the game before release night, they won’t.