A group of modders on Discord recently discovered information that seemed to indicate that Halo: The Master Chief Collection could add bots as a feature in future updates. Unfortunately for those excited at this prospect, 343 Industries, developer of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, have now officially stated that bots are not in its immediate plans for the game.
When Discord users found a file called "ADD_BOT.png" in the files for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, they assumed that this was heralding the addition of bots to the game. Halo mod-makers would certainly get a lot of benefit from having bots added to MCC, as they would be able to utilize them alongside the game's Forge mode and their own modding tools to make brand new scenarios and game types.
In a post on Reddit, 343 Industries' community support and engagement manager, Postums, noted that 343 were aware that bots were "definitely a feature we have heard that players want in MCC for quite some time," but pointed out that they were used internally for "Custom Game Browser testing" and weren't part of any planned updates for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.
Rumors were further dispelled by Postums in a Halo Waypoint post stating that "Bots can be a useful tool for testing some of our features such as CGB [Custom Games Browser] and they have a ton of potential, but we are not ready to talk about any future plans for them yet." He went on to say that 343 were "encouraged by the discussions online from the community and taking that into consideration when discussing them internally," indicating that there might be some hope for those wanting bots added to Halo: The Master Chief Collection in future updates.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection could likely benefit from bots in many ways, with modders being able to utilize them in tandem with Forge to create custom game modes that would otherwise be impossible. Custom lobbies could be created that allowed players to select bots of varying difficulties as opponents in order to play Halo at a higher level, as with other first-person shooters such as Overwatch.
While Halo fans were slightly discouraged by the news that bots wouldn't be making it into Halo: The Master Chief Collection any time soon, it should be noted that Postums' comments indicated that 343 were aware of the Halo community's "wants and desires around bots." While that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be considering bots as content any time soon, it could mean that they are at least on the table.
Halo: Master Chief Collection is available now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Halowaypoint.com