It’s been a rather busy week here at the studio. This busyness has come in many forms, including a multitude of playtests that have offered insight into adjustments to existing experiences, gameplay on new upcoming maps, and future things I’d get in trouble if I talked about. Teams across the studio are nearing completion on the December update, and work on future updates is well underway too. Without delay, let’s take a sneak peek at what you can expect in the just-announced Cartographer’s Gift update – the next free batch of goodness coming to Halo 5: Guardians.

CARTOGRAPHER’S GIFT

The Cartographer’s Gift update was first shown at last night’s The Game Awards show, and if you missed the trailer, you can get a peek here. It brings with it a long list of updates, some of which we’ll start to talk about today and all of which we’ll be talking about during next week’s live stream (Friday, 12/11 at 3 PM PDT on Halo Channel & Twitch.tv/Halo.)

To kick things off, let’s take a look at some of the stuff we’ve revealed so far for this update, as well as some of the REQs we’ll be showing off next week: Continue reading →

Over the past week, we’ve been playing with you, reviewing feedback as we tune existing experiences, and also preparing to deliver new ones. Today, we’ll talk about recent and upcoming game updates, as well as brand new content that will soon be on the way. Welcome to the weekly update, where we’ll talk about all of this and more.

PLAYLIST UPDATES & ADDITIONS

Just a few hours ago, the latest Halo 5: Guardians playlist update went live. Thanks to your community votes, Shotty Snipers is available this weekend, and it’ll be around until the early morning hours (pacific time) on Monday. Jump into the playlist to enjoy a chaotic mix of long and close range combat as well as some increased XP rewards.

But this playlist update doesn’t stop there. We’ve made a few additional changes based on your feedback from this past week, starting with the removal of Orion from all playlists. We’ve pulled the map from matchmaking in order to patch some exploits and make some additional improvements before re-adding it to appropriate playlists. Next, based on feedback regarding map variety and rotations, we’ve added 15 additional map / game type combinations to existing playlists.

We’ve also made some additional matchmaking changes in today’s update. The first of these was an update to the “One or more members of your fireteam has high latency to the dedicated server” error message. Previously, this message blocked players in error, preventing you from playing with the other player(s), and we’ve now removed this restriction. Also, we’ve been keeping an eye on feedback from international players regarding Warzone matchmaking, and found that we were a bit too aggressive in filtering players during matchmaking. After reviewing the current parameters, we’ve made adjustments that will allow Warzone matchmaking to not only allow players to find matches quicker and easier, but also allow for improved matchmaking for players across the globe, thanks to updated searching parameters that also better prioritize players in your region. Today, thanks to your reports, we were able to confirm that the changes did indeed improve matching for players across multiple regions. We need to do some additional tests to ensure that the changes don’t negatively impact any playlists, so we’ve temporarily disabled the changes, and will be re-adjusting the parameters once these changes are verified.

In addition to the other items mentioned last week, the team is also hard at work preparing updates for things like Warzone Assault tuning tweaks (more on that with design next week), updating SWAT respawn time to 3 seconds and turning off SWAT friendly fire, CSR tuning tweaks, Seasons & seasonal rewards, actively monitoring and updating ban thresholds, and more. Also, we know many of you are excited to get you Teishin Raikou Armor set, but may not have received yet – don’t you worry. We’re tracking all eligible players, and will roll these out once we’re able to process all of the player data – there are lots of you. We’ll be taking about these updates and plenty more in the weeks to come.

But now – onto the reason many of you may have joined us today. The new stuff. Continue reading →

It’s a busy June morning in downtown Los Angeles. As expected, exit 20B on I-110 Southbound is an absolute mess, and as a sea of cameramen and camerawomen litter the streets – including the exit ramp itself – in an effort to get inside the Galen Center, host of the E3 2013 Xbox Media Briefing. bs angel, myself, and a small crew of 343’ers put up with the traffic for a bit, but eventually ditch our cab and join the on-foot procession down the exit ramp to attend the festivities as onlookers. We tuck ourselves into the nosebleeds of the USC arena with press and industry folk, the large majority of which aren’t aware that the first glimpse at the next Halo title will be shown within the next 90 minutes. You may have watched from home – and got the first look at what was then dubbed, both internally and externally, “Halo Xbox One.” Chief’s cloaked trek served as a confirmation that development of a Halo title for the Xbox One was indeed underway. When the Halo logo appeared on-screen, and the roar of fellow Halo fans erupted throughout the arena, I found myself with goosebumps, and I’d bet many of you did as well. Continue reading →