Halo: Reach’s launch on PC hasn’t been the smoothest. And the problems start as soon as you fire your first shot. Gun audio sounds extremely low, while dialogue and music are normal. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be a simple audio mixing issue.
In a post on Halo Waypoint yesterday, the devs acknowledged the audio issues and said it was a “known issue present at launch and the team is working to resolve this.” From the post (emphasis mine):
Players have reported various issues regarding game audio not sounding as expected (muffled, inconsistent volume, low quality, etc.). This is a known issue present at launch and the team is working to resolve this. Unfortunately, it is not a quick fix and is one that will require quite a bit of work and time to resolve. The team is already working on it and will share an update when more progress and details are available.
Halo Reach is the first of the Halo: Master Chief Collection to land on PC. Hopefully, whatever audio issues are plaguing Reach can be resolved as the rest of the MCC makes it to the platform.
It’s a damn shame too. Playing Halo: Reach on an ultrawide monitor is fantastic. But the audio issues are so glaring it does take you out of the game. We’ll see in 343’s next update what kind of timeframe we are looking at it for the audio fix.
Other Halo: Reach PC problems
The rest of the post details other problems like screen-tearing / V-sync issues, co-op latency, mouse input, menu performance, and more.
It sure would be nice for a Halo game to launch these days without a host of issues. I appreciate 343 and Microsoft bringing Halo back to PC, but once you start selling it – it needs to work. These audio issues are brutal.
Check out the support post over at Halo Waypoint to see if any problems you are having are on the list. I’ll keep an eye on any news about a fix for the audio issues and update this post once we learn more.