The rerelease of discs bursting with the entire remastered main canon of a renowned game series in HD is a fairly common concept in modern gaming, but Halo: The Master Chief Collection is far from an ordinary compilation.

It brings together the four core games from the acclaimed sci-fi shooter series, each of which has undergone various applications of spit and polish, with Halo 2 enjoying the most impressive reworking. The four titles’ single-player campaigns alone offer a hefty experience that shows one of the most influential game series of all time evolve with, and spearhead, the progression of the first-person shooter.

But The Master Chief Collection also presents more than 100 online multiplayer maps from across the quartet of games. However, on launch, there have been substantial problems with multiplayer access, itself the reason for delaying this review. At the time of writing, they are partly resolved and should be fully solved in the near future.

What does work right now is the compendium boosting the games to 60 frames per second, meaning significant improvements to fluidity of game play, and there’s access to the coming Halo 5 beta and the Halo Nightfall series. Ostensibly another collection of bundled rereleases, then, and with a multiplayer start that was far from graceful, but the size, scope and design elegance of the package are what really set it apart and present a weighty slab of modern video game history.