14 DAY TRIAL // PC Gamer magazine is one of the few print magazines dedicated to PC gaming still in existence. The latest issue has an ad with Kat from Halo Reach reaching out from a laptop. The immediate question is whether Halo: Reach is coming to the PC. The answer is no.
Unfortunately, weird ads coming from companies that didn't put too much thought into the promotion were really common when the print business was booming. You could see stuff like this all the time, with screenshots from games that didn't exist, or futuristic devices. You would think that we should have passed this stage by now, but we haven't.
As you would expect, this image sparked quite a discussion on Reddit, and the proper blame was attributed to Microsoft, the makers of that ad, or the PC Gamer magazine which shouldn't have published it. The truth is probably simpler than this. The magazine sold a page and the advertiser delivered. The company selling the laptop asked for something futuristic, and someone at the agency didn't do their homework.
It's funny because it could work
Up until last year, this could be easily dismissed, but the funny thing is that playing Halo Reach on the PC is now possible, or at least it will be if Halo Reach is made to work on Xbox One. If you have an Xbox One and a PC with Windows 10, you can connect the two and play Xbox games in your Windows, through streaming. It's not the best experience, but it will get the job done.
The page in PC Gamer also landed at a weird time when a number of possible PC ports have been leaked by Steam, so people thought that it's actually (maybe) a hint at the game coming to the PC, maybe as an HD remaster, but that's unlikely.