The executive in charge of 343 Industries, the studio responsible for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, has asked fans to accept her "heartfelt apologies" over the game's persistent online problems.

In a frank message to fans, Bonnie Ross admitted "we have not delivered the experience you deserve."

She said: "I personally apologize for this on behalf of us all at 343 Industries. Our team is committed to working around the clock until these issues are resolved."

Since its launch two weeks ago, on November 11, The Master Chief Collection has been unable to connect players online smoothly or swiftly. Various patches, applied in a bid to improve the experience, have not resolved the issues, and in some instances have made matters worse.

Ross said the connectivity bugs were "not apparent in our internal test environment and have resulted in a frustrating experience, including long matchmaking times and low session success rates".

She pledged that the studio would be working intensely in a bid to resolve these issues, creating both server-side and user-download patches. A key update will be released to users "later this week".

"We will update you on the status and patch notes of the content update once we have a better understanding of our release window," Ross added.

"We are also preparing additional content updates that will address existing campaign, UI, and other issues to improve the overall experience. With each update we will carefully analyze data to confirm that the improvements we’re seeing internally are also happening with fans at home.

"Know that we’re trying to be as nimble as possible to put fixes in place. We are planning multiple server-side tweaks and game content updates over the coming weeks. Looking forward, I want to give you a high-level cadence of the latest updates we’re currently working on."

Resolving the game's matchmaking problems are Ross's "number one" priority, she said.