Microsoft keeps fumbling Halo, so fans are fixing it themselves with 64-player Halo 3: Project Reclaimer

Published Oct 3, 2026, 2:02 PM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Summary Halo 3: Reclaimer is a fan-made standalone PC launcher that runs Halo 3 from your Master Chief Collection installation with community servers. This version of the iconic game adds a server browser, auto-downloaded mods, pre-match map/mode voting, and expanded Forge options. Halo 3: Reclaimer supports 64 players, expansive Spartan color options, and four players per PC. Unfortunately, there's no campaign or matchmaking. If you're a Halo fan, you'll know the franchise has struggled over the past few years. However, the series has recently seen a boost in interest and fan-made projects, with Halo 3: Reclaimer being the latest in that growing list. Halo Infinite never managed to live up to expectations despite being a great multiplayer game in a lot of ways, and more recently, Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) was basically shut down, with the series' development being handed over to Activision, a publisher and developer best known for the long-running Call of Duty series. But against the odds, the franchise lives on thanks to dedicated fans. First, a decompilation of Halo: Combat Evolved dropped, leading to a 128-player browser-based port and native versions for Windows, Linux, PS5, and Android. Now, Halo 3, arguably the best entry in the iconic first-person shooter series both in terms of single-player and multiplayer, is getting a new lease on life thanks to dedicated fans. Halo 3: Reclaimer is a free, standalone multiplayer launcher for Halo 3 on PC that loads the game from your Master Chief Collection (MCC) install on Steam and then runs it on Windows 11 with its own menu system. With Halo 3: Reclaimer, you never actually open MCC. Additionally, the servers are run by the community, so there's no risk of them ever being pulled down. This seems like the best way to play Halo 3's multiplayer in 2026 The project brings back several fan-favorite features Credit: Halo 3: Project Reclaimer Things get more interesting when you unpack what Reclaimer adds to Halo 3. Along with dedicated servers, there's now a server browser with mods that download directly from whatever server you've joined. Forge has also been expanded to 735 blocks, with more detailed construction options. Pre-match map and mode voting, a fan-favorite Halo feature we haven't seen since 2012's Halo 4, is also included in Halo 3: Reclaimer. The unique build supports up to 64 players in one game, taking large-scale combat up several notches since Halo 3 was originally built for 16 players. It also features revamped Spartan customization, including the ability to make your character any color you want (buying colors in Halo Infinite was ridiculous). In a fun throwback, four players can play together online on one PC, just like you could back in the day on the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. Unfortunately, there's no campaign or matchmaking. It's unclear if those key features are coming in the future. Credit: Halo 3: Project Reclaimer One of the developers behind the project (WarmBiertje) says this version is still an early build, so players should expect bugs. The team behind Halo 3: Reclaimer also plans to open-source everything at some point, but doesn't have a date yet. They also emphasize that Halo 3: Reclaimer isn't a faithful recreation of the original 19-year-old Xbox 360 Halo 3 release. Instead, it "changes or adds whatever makes it better to play today." From a legal perspective, the team behind Halo 3: Reclaimer is likely protected because you need to own a legitimate copy of the Master Chief Collection to play the game. This means that Microsoft is unlikely to be able to pull the project. With all of that in mind, if you spent way too much time in high school playing Halo 3 like me, this is probably the best way to revisit the first-person shooter today. While I haven't played Halo 3: Reclaimer yet, if it eventually features classic matchmaking and ranks (give me that coveted General Level 50 rank, please), it sounds like a near-perfect recreation of the original. I hope Activision is taking notes.