Halo: Reach, the first part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, unlocks on December 3, which is tomorrow—less than 24 hours from right now, in other words. It's a simultaneous worldwide launch, and if you're wondering what exactly that means for your particular time zone, we're here to help.
Actually, 343 Industries community manager John Junyszek is here to help:
Halo: Reach can be purchased on Steam by itself for $10/£7/€10, or as the opening chapter of The Master Chief Collection for $40/£30/€40. Whichever way you go, the game is not preloadable, so you can pre-purchase it now but you won't actually be able to get on the download process until after the flag drops.
For much of North America, that's going to happen in the middle of the workday, or school day as the case may be. (Halo: Reach is rated M, though, so if you're in school you probably shouldn't be playing it anyway.) There are ways around that, though, as long as you've got a mobile phone on hand.
If you haven't already got it, you can get the lowdown on the Steam Mobile App here. It also includes Steam Guard for two-factor authentication, and even if you're not interested in the other features it's worth using for that alone.
The Halo: Reach download size hasn't been specified, but the Steam listing indicates that it will take up 20GB of storage space so you can reasonably expect something a little south of that figure and prepare accordingly. The PC version will support 4K graphics and uncapped framerates, plus ultrawide support, FOV customization, and other options.
In case you're confused by the release timeline, Halo: Reach came out in 2010, well after the launch of the original trilogy, but chronologically it takes place first and so it's being released first for The Master Chief Collection. After Reach, we'll get Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo: ODST, and then Halo 4, all of which are expected to arrive throughout 2020.
