Halo CE's decompiled ports go online, with four-Vita co-op and browser players joining handheld games

The PS Vita port's 1.1.0 betas add internet play and a co-op campaign for up to four Vitas. The Anbernic RG35XX H port now lets people on OpenCE's browser build join its games.

AI-drafted from 4 sources. This story was written with AI from the outside reporting listed under Sources, and checked by automated tools before it went up. The originals have the full detail.

Last week two native ports of Halo: Combat Evolved, built from the decompiled Xbox game, took their multiplayer online. Neither is emulation: both run the game's own code, rebuilt from the decompilation and the OpenCE port for Linux, Windows and Android that grew out of it. Both also ask for your own Xbox copy of the game and ship no game data.

Co-op for up to four Vitas

BirchWoodGod's PS Vita port put out three betas of version 1.1.0 between 8 and 9 October. The release notes call 1.1.0 "the multiplayer release". It brings OpenCE's internet play to the Vita, with a server browser of public games, Join by code and passworded lobbies, plus play over the same Wi-Fi and ad hoc between Vitas side by side. The campaign can be played in co-op by up to four Vitas, and a player who joins a game on a custom map they lack is offered the map from the host.

The first beta's notes say "Vitas play only Vitas". The online menus come from the PC version, so they need three files, bitmaps.map, sounds.map and loc.map, which the port can pull out of the free Halo Custom Edition installer or copy from The Master Chief Collection on Steam. Beta 3, posted late on 9 October and now the recommended build, fixes the memory leaks behind crashes on big Custom Edition maps and moves about 16 MB of the renderer out of the game's 48 MB budget.

The README's figures for a PS Vita 1000 are 25 to 30 fps in menus and quiet areas, 20 to 30 in ordinary fights and about 15 to 18 in Pillar of Autumn's biggest firefights. It also warns that the host's Vita runs everyone's AI and the level's scripts in co-op, so it slows down with three or four players.

Browser players on a handheld

kirklandsig's port for the Anbernic RG35XX H and other Allwinner H700 handhelds has had online co-op and multiplayer since 6 October. Its v2026.10.11 release on 11 October moves to network version 26, which means "people playing OpenCE's web build in a browser can join games, the handheld's included". The browser connects over WebRTC, which the handheld answers using DTLS 1.2 with Mbed TLS. The same release adds upstream's third round of hardening against malicious players, checking what other machines send before using it.

Every player in a game needs the same network version, so handhelds on older releases will not see these games. The README claims 60 fps in the menus and about 40 to 55 fps in campaign levels on the RG35XX H, and lists user reports of the port working on an RG353M under ROCKNIX and an R36S under dArkOSen.

Sources

Image: BirchWoodGod

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