Category Archives: Halo Waypoint

Canon Fodder: Tales and Stingers

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This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

BY GRIMBROTHER ONEISSUE 76

canonfodder-5-20-16-027d706f06834c9f8fe53b9d12642650You just keep coming back, don’t you? Well, while you’re here, let’s talk some story-related Halo goodness! In case you missed it, last week we officially announced Halo: Fractures, and gave fans some of the first details on the upcoming short-story anthology novel, which lands on September 20, 2016 and is available for pre-order here. This week we’ve got a look at the cover art from Halo: Tales from Slipspace, as well as an exclusive look at one of the interior pages from the anthology-style graphic novel that drops later this year, and a peek at some Hog Wild fiction. Let’s waste no time and take a look! See a bigger fuller version of the image above at the end of this article. Continue reading →

Community Update: A Whole New Level

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The is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

Welcome back, faithful readers. Today, we talk Infection, future content releases, Forge, HCS Pro League, and more. Let us begin.

Over the past week, we’ve been monitoring your feedback on Memories of Reach, keeping a close eye on data from Infection, matchmaking search preferences, and more. Teams across the studio are diligently gathering feedback on their respective updates, and preparing for ones that are yet to come, which we’ll talk just a bit about today. To start, we’ll talk about Forging ahead. Specifically, to Windows 10. Continue reading →

Canon Fodder: The Write Stuff

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This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint: 

BY GRIMBROTHER ONE
ISSUE 75

Welcome back, Fodder faithful; can you believe it’s been 75 issues already? Last week we dropped new knowledge on armor and weapons from the brand new Memories of Reach content release for Halo 5: Guardians, and dropped a deep lore bomb on the community’s most curious by revealing the long-lost missing pages from Halsey’s Personal Journal.  If you missed it then, get in there and rectify that situation, Spartan! As for this week, while I don’t have any diamonds on hand – as is customary for such an anniversary – I do have something that many Halo lore lovers might consider almost as valuable: brand new info on some fabulous new fiction.Fracts of Life

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Back in 2009, Halo fans around the world – including your humble messenger – devoured their respective copies of Halo: Evolutions. Showcasing “essential tales of the Halo universe,” the acclaimed anthology featured a wonderful collection of stories from a variety of passionate authors tackling a wide range of narrative corners. From “Headhunters” and “The Return,” to “Human Weakness” and “The Impossible Life & Possible Death of Preston J Cole,” many of these stories quickly began to rank among fans’ favorites. With this in mind, 343 Industries and Simon & Schuster are extremely excited to announce a brand new anthology novel, Halo: Fractures.

Continue reading →

Canon Fodder: Noble Intentions

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This is a reblog from HalWaypoint: 

BY GRIMBROTHER ONE
ISSUE 74

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Hello fair folk of fiction fancy, and welcome back to our humble lair of lore. Last week, we began our celebration of the upcoming Memories of Reach content release by digging into some of the deeper lore surrounding the hallowed Halsey’s Journal, as well as pull the icy curtain back on the fictional context for the upcoming Arena multiplayer map, Stasis.

This week, we’re going to explore a bit into how a familiar Noble narrative is weaving its influence into your Halo 5: Guardians experience very soon. And for the particularly ravenous Fodder folk, we might just have a little something… extra. Read on! Continue reading →

Community Update: Making Memories

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Greetings, and thanks for joining us for another weekly read. In this edition, we’re taking a look at more of the Memories of Reach release. Let’s waste no time.

FINDING THAT PERFECT MATCH (MATCHMAKING PREFERENCES)

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been detailing various bits and pieces arriving with Memories of Reach. One of the features included will be new Matchmaking Search Preferences. These options will be present on the Arena and Warzone playlist selection screens and will give you the ability to choose between Balanced, Focused, or Expanded as your search preference. Here’s how these break down: Continue reading →

Canon Fodder: Journalistic Integrity

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This is a reblog from HaloWaypoint: 

BY GRIMBROTHER ONEISSUE 73

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Welcome back aboard the lore bus, Fodder folk. Last week, we hit on an eclectic menagerie of scattered story snippets, taking a detailed visual look at some Halo 5: Guardians armiger aesthetics, highlighting tabletop recaps, musing about Mega Bloks in motion, and more. This week however, we’re taking a bit more of a focused approach, and taking some time to remember. As many of you know, the Memories of Reach content release for Halo 5: Guardians is fast approaching, and with it, many memories of our own surrounding time spent on one of humanity’s most important 26th-century strongholds. Continue reading →

Halo Community Update: Memories of Reach Preview

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This is a reblog from HaloWaypoint:

BY B IS FOR BRAVO

Welcome to another weekly read, friends. As I sit at my typewriter (HFFL: Typewriter? Who even uses those things anymore? Keyboard yes, Typewriter? Okay, moving on…) and combine these eloquent words, each team at the studio is busy wrapping up their contributions to Memories of Reach. The release will include updates across the game, including the addition of a new game mode in the form of Infection (a bit more on that today), new controller options, UI updates (including post-game medals and more), new armor, skins, weapons, a new Arena battleground, matchmaking preference options, Forge updates, and much more, including some updates to REQ weapon balance, which we’ll also talk about in today’s blog. To correctly set expectations, Memories of Reach won’t be here just yet next week, but we’ll continue to keep you updated on specific timing as we get closer to release and all final work is completed, tested, and ready to go out the door.

To start, let’s talk a bit more about Infection!

INFECTION

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Continue reading →

Halo Community Update3: Control Freak

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This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

BY B IS FOR BRAVO

Hello, friends. We’re off to PAX East for the weekend, but stopping by with a quick blog this week. Across the studio, teams are hard at work on the Memories of Reach release, including updates to UI and matchmaking, new Forge goodness, sandbox balance, new armors and weapons, and more. Today, we’ll talk a bit about some new advanced controller options on the way, the new Super Fiesta social playlist, Waypoint File Browser, and other tidbits. Let’s get to it.

Last weekend, you eliminated over 147 million enemies over the course of hundreds of thousands of matches in the Warzone Firefight Beta. You have left the Warzone team with thousands of feedback posts as well as a multitude of data points that are undergoing analysis. Since the beta, the design team has been reviewing your feedback on difficulty, rounds, and objectives, and actively planning updates to the mode. Here’s a quick bit from David Ellis: Continue reading →

Canon Fodder: Bits & Pieces

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This is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

BY GRIMBROTHER ONE
ISSUE 72

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDgMBAOm-cs

HFFL: Man, I REALLY want these! 

Welcome back, ye stalwarts of story! Last week we set the table(top) with a hefty helping of universe-building goodness – including a full announce of Halo: Ground Command from Spartan Games and 343 Industries – as well as an inside look into the very cool Sins of the Prophets community creation. If you want to see more of what Spartan Games had on hand to showcase at the Salute 2016 show in the UK last weekend, be sure to check out this show floor recap from Beasts of War with one of the Halo: Ground Command game designers, Spartan Games’ own Derek Sinclair. There’s some pretty awesome glimpses of what’s in store for Halo tabletop fans in the near future, so definitely give it a look!  As we let last week’s efforts digest, this week will offer a lighter – but always tasty – portion of fiction-focused treats. Shall we begin? Continue reading →

Halo Waypoint File Browser is HERE!

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We’ve been asking for this from launch. Now we finally get a file browser. While not totally what we want, it’s a step in the right direction. The following is a reblog from Halo Waypoint:

fileshare-gameclips2-d6144dcbcd9d4676a779e9b0df69ca76As your official online home for Halo, we’re always working hard to improve your user experience here on Waypoint. With that in mind, we’re incredibly excited to introduce a new online File Browser system for Halo fans to engage with and enjoy. We know that players have been eager for improved access to their favorite maps and game modes, but we also wanted to make sure that this next evolution of the online File Browser also incorporated Xbox One Game Clips and Screenshots in order to provide a single destination for players to track all of their favorite Halo moments. Let’s take a closer look at some of the details of the new online File Browser feature, shall we? Continue reading →

Halo Community Update: Campaign Relief

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This is a reblog from HaloWaypoint:

BY B IS FOR BRAVO

Greetings! Since the last community update, we’ve released the Ghosts of Meridian, had two livestreams, released the Warzone Firefight Beta, and kept a very close eye on feedback, including the many fantastic threads on Warzone Firefight rounds, objectives, and difficulty, your thoughts on Tyrant and Skirmish at Darkstar, recent sandbox updates, and more. We’re tracking down issues with custom games traits, Grifball betrayal thresholds, CSR only moving one point at a time (we pushed out an update to resolve this earlier today), and more. We’ve also noticed that you’ve been using the Spartan Laser a bit more since the buff, and using it well. Here are some stats from the data scientists:

SPARTAN LASER KILLS – INCREASE AFTER PATCH

Laser Variant
Spartan Kills Per Use
Damage Per Use
Spartan Laser
+ 26.2%
+ 10.5%
Endgame
+ 58.3%
+ 14.4%
Selene’s Lance
+ 69.8%
+ 36.8%

While there is no direct correlation just yet, we also observed that overall Splatter kills in Warzone have reduced 37.5%.

HFFL: Man, I am HAPPY about the changes to the Splaser! That is the last weapon I need for UNSC weapons commendations. In fact, it’s the last of all the weapons (not including the Spnkr Rockets) I need to complete for commendations.

In addition, teams across the studio are hard at work on a variety of updates, including many that come straight from feedback you’ve given us. Modes and playlists like Infection, matchmaking preference options, more Forge goodness, UI updates and post-game medals, Campaign balance updates (more on that in just a bit), and lots more that I can’t talk about just yet is in the works. Many of these will be landing with Memories of Reach, which is currently slated for an early May release.

Let’s dig in, starting with Halo 5’s newest experience: The Warzone Firefight Beta.

Continue reading →

Canon Fodder: Stand Your Ground

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This is a reblog from HaloWaypoint:

BY GRIMBROTHER ONE
ISSUE 71

scorpion-a090fcea8f2d459788412924caf75d4cGreetings lore-lovers, and thanks for stopping by. Last issue, we took a look at some of the cool colonial tech that players find scattered across the surface of Meridian, plus we divulged some new info on a couple of cool space ships, and more. This time around, we’re excited to help officially unveil the latest project from our friends and partners at Spartan Games in collaboration with 343 Industries, Halo: Ground Command. Spartan Games will be showing off the title in more glory this weekend at the Salute show in the UK, and we’re here to get you primed and ready. Rounding out our coverage today will be a special highlight of a particularly awesome community creation from the talented folks responsible for the Sins of the Prophets project. We’ve got a lot on the table (literally), so let’s get to it. Continue reading →

Canon Fodder: Looking Glassed

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This is a reblog from HaloWaypoint: 

BY GRIMBROTHER ONE
ISSUE 70
Greetings fiction-folk. Thanks for stopping by our little story-centric Halo haunt again this week. Last issue, we unleashed some epic new deep lore on the Arena map Tyrant – which launched this week as part of the Ghosts of Meridian content release for Halo 5: Guardians – as well as offering fictional glimpses into a couple of new Gravity Hammers and an epic new Warzone boss. If you missed it then, you can check it out now. Shifting gears a bit this week, we’ve got an eclectic buffet to help you get your narrative nosh on including Meridian mining machines, ship stuff, hidden KI colors, and more. Shall we begin? Continue reading →

Halo API Hackathon Contest

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Back in October of 2015, we launched the public API Beta for Halo 5: Guardians, and since then we’ve been blown away by community-created websites and apps. Places like Halo Tracker, Halo Data Hive, and Halo Carnage are just a few of the destinations that are providing a unique statistical experience to Halo 5 players. Continue reading →

We bid a fond farewell to BS Angel!

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Jessica Shea aka BS Angel is leaving 343 today. She tweeted about it yesterday to the shock of many including myself.

She posted this on Waypoint:
On 9/13/10, I went from community member to 343 Industries employee. On 4/8/16, I am going back from whence I came.

The past several years have been amazing, in entirely too many ways to list. The people I’ve met, the places I’ve been, the projects I’ve worked on, … as a long-time fan of Halo, it’s really been a dream come true. Through it all, you, the community, have been my closest partner. We’ve celebrated the wins and mourned the losses, both in game and out. I won’t say goodbye, because I’m certainly not going anywhere. You’ll still find me traversing the virtual battlefields I love so much. 🙂

Thank you for everything – the good times and bad, the laughs and tears, the friendship and support. You all do, and will continue to, mean the world to me.

<3, Jessica

She was a very cool Community Manger for those first few years, then went into producing for 343. She hasn’t said what’s next for her, but I hope it’s something awesome!

While she won’t be working for 343 anymore, she did say in follow up tweets to the one above that she’d still be playing a lot of Halo!

If you’re on Twitter, go give her a shout out/thanks! I did.