Category Archives: Halo Games

Halo Wars 2 Feature: Blitz 101

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This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

By Ske7ch

hw2-blitzbeta101module

The Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta is nearly upon us which means it’s time for a special edition of the Halo Community Update to get you fully up to speed on everything you need to know to hit the ground running and emerge victorious on the battlefield! Blitz is a new way to play Halo Wars and offers a fast, card-based strategic experience that’s quite different from the standard RTS-style PVP matches of the past (don’t worry, those modes are all still included in the final game!). The Blitz Beta will be avaialble on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC but for the sake of this guide, when controls are stated they will be in reference to the console version.

Winning or losing a Blitz match ultimately comes down to a few key things:

  • Understanding the game mechanics
  • Leader & Deck composition
  • Battlefield decision-making

Luckily these are exactly the key things we’re going to dive into today. To kick things off, let’s first start with the basics and overall game mechanics. Continue reading →

Halo Wars 2 goes GOLD!

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A HUGE Congrats to the teams at 343 and Creative Assembly for Halo Wars 2 going GOLD!

The 343 Halo Wars 2 Team:IMG_0070

The Creative Assembly Halo Wars 2 Team:IMG_0095

Don’t forget folks, the second BETA starts TOMORROW! It lasts for 10 days and will be all about the gametype Blitz.

Blitz is a mix of RTS as well as Card Strategy. If you haven’t seen it, there is a twitterblitz game on twitter right now. Check out Isabel’s (The AI in Halo Wars 2) twitter account to play!2B3dLs7x

Canon Fodder Issue 96: The Art of War(s)

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This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

BY GRIMBROTHER ONE
ISSUE 96

canonfodder-1-18-17-b6fbefdc141f4cd292d763bfde6e1746Greetings, and welcome back to the first Canon Fodder of 2017! It’s been a while since we last met like this, with understandable cause of course – with the Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta nigh upon us, and the full game launch itself barely a month away, the studio has been abuzz with activity on a myriad of fronts.

With these things in mind, we thought it prudent to kick this year off the right way – with a salvo of salivation-inducing sweetness that we hope will satisfy the many lore-leaning fans who love to linger around these parts. We’ve got awesome new Halo Wars 2 Blitz art, an in-depth look at some rad new recent additions to the Halo: Ground Command arsenal thanks to fellow 343 lore liaison Kenneth Peters, cool community contributions, and more. Shall we begin? Continue reading →

Night of the Mantis!

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I’ve had a chance to play this new COMMUNITY-MADE minigame over the past several days. Let me say it is FANTASTIC! Honestly, I didn’t think something like this was possible in Forge. It just shows the absolute POWER of scripting in Halo 5’s Forge!

The following is a partial repost from Waypoint, with my commentary in BLUE as usual.

NIGHT OF THE MANTIS

A game mode that’s been taking the Forge world by storm, Night of the Mantis, caught our attention as well. In this minigame made by Julianoz1224, the only objective is to protect your base from waves of Mantises. While taking down Mantises, you earn points to purchase new weapons, grenades, and power ups that will in turn help fight off future waves. Julianoz recommends playing with four or fewer players, but the difficulty does scale for five to nine players, and then gets even more difficult with ten or more players.

HFFL: Folks, I can tell you for a fact, the difficulty DOES increase. I’ve played this with as few as 4 people and as many as 8. It gets a lot harder with 8, especially when you play it on harder difficulties!

MANTIS TYPES
The different types of Mantis you will face. Each type will reward your team with different points, as seen on the table below.notm-mantises-21188436d7fc44788c9e7a9fc0705ce8

HFFL: The fact that Julianoz was able to script each Mantis differently speaks not only to what you can do with Forge, but his mastery of scritping it as well! Continue reading →

Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta

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A few qords from Dan Ayoub, Studio Head of Strategy Games at 343 Industries
This is a repost from halo Waypoint: 

hw2-blitz-mp-beta-blogbanner-1120-x-334-3cd197c27ad9447cab6c814f377e8896

Hi everyone –

Last June we invited our fan community to jump in and get hands-on with a slice of Halo Wars 2 with our first multiplayer beta. As discussed, we received a tremendous amount of valuable feedback on both the technical and gameplay side that has helped the team continue to refine and improve the overall Halo Wars 2 experience as we march towards launch on Feb. 21, 2017. Continue reading →

A look at what comes in the Halo Wars 2 game cartridge!

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We are now 50 days out from the official retail release of Halo Wars 2. A friend passed this along to me, so I just HAD to share it!

Below you can see what is included in the box of the Ultimate and Special editions (PC editions). halowars2_se_front_finalhffl_smhalowars2_ue_front_finalhffl_sm

HFFL: I’m surprised there are so many discs for this. But will be happy to get them!

Some more info about the various releases:

Halo Wars 2 Standard Edition
Release: February 21, 2017
You will get: Continue reading →

Halo Mega Bloks game? YES PLEASE!

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Okay, so this game is currently cancelled.

However, just revealed yesterday on Kotaku, we see that indeed there was a Halo Mega Bloks game in development. And not just easrly stages either! Just take a look at the gif below!!

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nspace-logo

The game was being developed by NSpace, a now defunct developer. The gif you see above was of the development stage around fall of 2013. It was being developed for the 360 as opposed to the new XBOX One (at the time). Perhaps this is one reason it was cancelled? I’m not sure why this couldn’t have been ported to the XBOX One. The game used the UnReal engine, that I understand works on the XBOX One. Continue reading →

All the Black Box Locations in Halo Wars!I

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Now, I know some of you will say, “This is old news.” However, with Pre-orders of HaloFanForLife1 wars 2 including the Halo Wars Definitive Edition, its VERY much pertinent again.

HaloCanon posted this tuse. I’m reposting it here, with permission.

Well, I know what I’m playing today!

I do not have the definitive edition. I never got all the black boxes, so that’s something I’m going to go for now.

Halo 5 Custom BTB Map: Sanghelios Trench

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The folks at forgelabs have done it again! Sanghelios Trench is a reimagining of Blood Gulch with lots of GREAT extras! This map totally looks dev made, especially when you compare it to the original Blood Gulch. Check it out below and be sure to watch it all for some fun gameplay!

You can download the map HERE

Here are some screenshots forgelabs captured from the map:

img_9120img_9121img_9122img_9123img_9124

Atriox: We HAVE seen him before AND we have FOUGHT HIM!

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This article is conjecture, however with some research behind it to bolster my claim. If you’ve heard otherwise, please just hear me out…

Chances are, you’ve not only seen Atriox before, but have PLAYED against him if you played the original Halo Wars.

Atriox IS the unnamed Brute Commander in the ORIGIAL Halo Wars game!

So how did I come to this conclusion and what facts do I have to prove this or at least make a good argument for it? Let’s explore, shall we?

First, let’s take a look at the Brute Commander from Halo Wars.

unnamed-brute-halo-wars-comp_sm Continue reading →

Halo Update: Monitor’s Bounty PREVIEW

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Whew, it’s been a couple of months since I’ve posted an update. To be fair, the last couple of months haven’t seen any real significant updates. That changes with December’s update!

The following is a reblog from Waypoint, with my remarks in BLUE.

Well folks, the hour has finally come. It’s no surprise that this time of year exudes a spirit of gift-giving, and we couldn’t be more excited to help you unwrap a very special present from us to you: Monitor’s Bounty. Halo 5’s latest content release is an epic salvo of experience-enhancing additions, from new weapons, armor, and skins, to brand new ways to build and play, all alongside the biggest Forge update ever seen in a Halo game. In fact, we’ve got so much in store that we’ve split up the reveal across two days.

Today, we’re excited to begin our bountiful breakdown of everything that’s in store for your hungry hard drives on Thursday, Dec. 8. That’s right, baby – the day after tomorrow. Be sure to return to Waypoint tomorrow for deep dives into Forge, Canon Fodder, Warzone, and Playlists.

To kick off this party, let’s take a look at all the free REQ items heading your way in Monitor’s Bounty.

monitorsbounty_infographic-ba193589b2ee4513b8133c8c2b319afc

HFFL: I will have a short breakdown of this some time tomorrow. For now though…HOLY CRAP, CQB and EOD! Loving the Reach Pilot helmet too. Hmm, I wonder if that means we’ll get a ‘Haunted” version too???? Continue reading →

HFFL Spartan Company Commendations to work on.

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Below are the remaining level 3 commendations the HFFL Spartan Company needs to work on to get the Achilles armor.

HFFL Commendations Aug 16 to get

We are getting very close on the top 4 of those. It’s the bottom 3 we need to pay attention to.

I will accept new members until August 16. At that time, new membership will be suspended until such time as we get the Achilles armor. Then I will once again open it up for new members. This is to ensure that people aren’t just joining to get the armor, then leave.

If you want to join, you have 11 days in which to do so. Send a request to join here:

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/spartan-companies/halofanforlife

There should be a link there for you to sign up. In doing so, you MUST be VERY active. Since we are very close to getting the armor, I will not allow for inactive people to sign up and get the armor for no work towards it. I will be monitoring member activity DAILY. From Aug 16 until we get the armor. New members that join between now and the 16 MUST play at least 20 games within three days (straight). If you cannot maintain this amount of gameplay, you will be removed from the company. Members who are currently in will be monitored for activity but on a different scale as most of those have been members for awhile.

Also, to all of my Lieutenants of the Company, from Aug 16 until we get the Armor, you will be temporarily demoted to member. This is to ensure that we do not get a flux of new members without my knowledge, and more importantly, ones who are not active.

So recruit now!

Halo Wars 2 Story Vidoc

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There is SO much goodness in this video. Take a look then we’ll talk after…

Okay, so what did you think? First off, Blur’s visuals have gotten even BETTER.

Atriox is truly a Brute Commander to be reckoned with! Fighting off 3 Spartans and not even breaking a sweat or breathing heavy? Yeah, uh, we’re in for a fight here!

The updated look for Anders is decent. I like the new AI, though I can’t wait to see what happened to Serena.

Can you imagine being in Cryo for 28 years, then coming out of it to this? Just think about in our own lifetimes how much has happened in 28 years. For instance, if you went into Cryo in 1998, then woke up now? The world has changed DRAMATICALLY in those years. Such it is as well for the crew of the Spirit of Fire.

The story of Halo Wars 2 is really shaping up to be something special in the Halo timeline. I have a bad feeling that ending of Halo Wars to may not bode well for the crew of the Spirit of Fire… Worse still, the UNSC at large.