Category Archives: Halo

Halo: The Master Chief Collection Content Update – 3.3.15

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343 Industries has released the long awaited content update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Multiplayer is working better than ever! It’s 690MB in size and focuses on matchmaking, party stability, and title-specific improvements. Essentially, this CU is targeting to the core system and how multiplayer functions.

The content update notes are as follows

MATCHMAKING

  • Made a variety of updates to improve matchmaking performance and success rates
  • Improved matchmaking search times/time to match
  • Improved stability throughout the matchmaking process across all titles

PARTIES

  • Improved party stability

For HALO 2

  • Made improvements to multiplayer shot registration
  • Improved campaign stability across a variety of levels
  • Addressed stability issues for matchmaking and custom games
  • Fixed issues around resuming H2A Campaign from “remastered” mode
  • Improved medal display consistency

HALO: CE

  • Fixed issues regarding aim assist which resulted in the reticle being pushed away from an enemy
  • Improved shot registration consistency between host / client in peer-to-peer custom game matches
  • Resolved a variety of UI inconsistencies, including team color randomization, medals, and in-game scoreboard display

They’ve also added motion backgrounds that show of moments from the 4 campaigns while you briefly search for a match – Which is a really cool touch!

Dec Rumble 21 2nd Place Screenshot 2015-03-04 09-37-25

Source:  HaloWaypoint

Halo 5: Guardians – Promethean Phaeton Gunship, Spartan Laser, New Forerunner Enemy, & More!

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Recap of the news and rumors for Halo 5: Guardians. New Promethean Phaeton Gunship vehicle, Forerunner enemy, Halo 5 Spartan Laser, Agent Locke’s Armor Variant, and more!

Rumor – Leaked Halo 5 Live Action Photo

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Looks like a leaked live action photo has surfaced on reddit /r/Halo. Speculations have been made that this photo is either for a live action commercial for Halo 5: Guardians or for Stephen Speilberg’s Halo Television series.

The source of the image won’t be mentioned as it was promptly removed from the social media platform.

Halo 5 Guardians Live Action Leak

The photo depicts Master Chief laying at a base of a burned and scarred memorial, while Agent Locke approaches without his helmet. You can also see a camera crew personnel in the background on the right. The memorial reads “Duty and Honor Above All”, there are speculations this could be the same memorial seen at the end of Halo 3, but the Voi Memorial is made out of UNSC Pelican wing where as this new image clearly depicts a stone memorial. The pelican wing memorial could have easily been replaced by a more permanent memorial item since the events of Halo 3.

Halo 3 Voi Memorial

Another theory is that this image could be for a commercial that may function like the Halo 4 Scanned commercial, which was live action, gave us hints of Halo 4’s story direction, but not actually be canon in game.

Update: Microsoft has issued the following statement since the photo surfaced

“Xbox and Halo have a tradition of creating rich, narrative events to entertain and delight fans, including award-winning campaigns such as Starry Night, Believe, Remember Reach and more. We have no details to share at this time but look forward to exciting and surprising fans later this year as work continues on Halo 5: Guardians.”

Halo 5: Guardians Toys – New York Toy Fair 2015

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At New York Toy Fair 2015 MEGA Bloks, Kotobukiya, McFarlane Toys, and BOOMco unveiled some of their new toys coming this fall 2015. Many of these are inspired by Halo 5 and according to James Monosmith, Marketing Manager for Halo Consumer Products at 343 Industries, “…some of the MEGA Bloks toys feature sneak peeks into the plot of Halo 5: Guardians.”

Halo 5 Mega Bloks Promethean Phaeton Gunship

New line of Halo 5: Guardians Mega Bloks sets revealed at New York Toy Fair 2015. The line features:

  • Promethean Phaeton Gunship
  • UNSC Gauss Warthog, with the black and yellow look from Halo: CE rocket hog for the PC.
  • UNSC Scorpion Tank
  • Covenant Ghost
  • Covenant Banshee

According to James Monosmith, Marketing Manager for Halo Consumer Products at 343 Industries “…some of the Mega Bloks toys feature sneak peeks into the plot of Halo 5: Guardians.”

Halo 5 Mega Bloks UNSC Gauss HogHalo 5 Mega Bloks UNSC Scorpion Halo 5 Mega Bloks Covenant Ghost Halo 5 Mega Bloks Covenant Banshee

Here are the other toys shown off, featuring BOOMco nerf Halo weapons, McFarlane Halo 5: Guardians 10 inch Master Chief and Agent Locke figures, and more!

The Sprint – Making Halo 5: Guardians Beta Now On YouTube

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The entire 6 episode series of “The Sprint”, previously only available on the Halo Channel Xbox One App, is now available on YouTube.

343 Industries presents an unprecedented and exclusive behind-the-scenes look into the development of the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta. The Sprint lets viewers step into the lives and meeting rooms of the team that makes Halo 5: Guardians happen

Halo 2 Anniversary Relic DLC Multiplayer Map

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343 Industries announced that Certain Affinity has begun development on the multiplayer map Relic for Halo 2 Anniversary. Along with this announcement they release concept art for the remastered map. Relic will be the 7th remastered map for Halo 2 Anniversary and is set to arrive “Spring 2015” and will be free for all players.

Halo 2 Anniversary Relic Concept Art

Wallpapers: [1920×1080] [1280×720] [1024×768]

Halo 2 Anniversary Relic Concept Art

Wallpapers: [1920×1080] [1280×720] [1024×768]

In the same community update 343 Industries announced that the Content Update Beta for Halo: The Master Chief Collection (which was only open for Xbox One Preview Members) has been cancelled. The beta would have delayed the public release of the content update and now testing will be done internally.

Source: HaloWaypoint

Halo 5: Guardians Post-Beta Changes

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343 Industries released detail stats from the Halo 5 Beta and a list of post-beta changes and improvements to Halo 5’s Spartan Abilities, Sprint, Weapons, Presentation, CSR, and Matchmaking

Halo 5 Beta StatsSPARTAN ABILITIES AND MOBILITY

  • The results from the HCFP surveys showed that nearly 11% of HCFP participants felt that Halo should not have sprint. 77% of participants agreed/strongly agreed that Halo should have sprint.
  • Toggle Sprint and Spartan Abilities on/off in custom games
  • Increase base speed (faster base movement)
  • Increase strafe acceleration (faster, more responsive strafing)
  • Reduce top sprint speed (narrow the delta between base movement and sprint)
  • Modify Ground Pound controls to prevent conflicts w/ crouch jumping
  • General tuning & bug fixes for all Spartan Abilities (Thrusters, Clamber, Ground Pound, etc.)

WEAPONS

  • The Hydra will be buffed to make it more effective out of zoom and ensure that it feels like a true power weapon.
  • Sniper Rifle: improve scope experience to making it less “clunky” and faster to scope
  • DMR: adjust position of the scope to improve visibility
  • Bring back the SPNKr Rocket Launcher as a legendary version of the weaponHalo 5 SPNKr Rocket Launcher
  • Reduce bonuses for automatic weapons in Smart-Link & w/ headshots
  • Remove grenade detonation in mid-air based on weapon fire
  • Ability to turn on/off vibration feedback for weapons
  • General tuning and bug fixing for all weapons

PRESENTATION

  • The intro and a victory sequences will feature considerably fewer chest bumps and high fives.
  • Post-death replay: this will become an opt-in feature. After death, players will see a traditional follow-cam and have the option to view a replay of their death from the killer’s perspective (as long as the feature is enabled within the playlist)
  • Medals: decrease frequency and number of medals displayed in the medal feed
  • Spartan chatter: players will have the option to turn this on or off in the settings menu
  • Adding highlights to placed/dropped weapons to make them easier to see
  • General tuning for announcer and Spartan chatter to reduce the frequency of events and focus on the information that matters most to players

COMPETITIVE SKILL RANK (CSR)

  • Improved skill detection during placement phase
  • Improved skill matching
  • Improved team balancing
  • Prevent skill boosting
  • General bug fixing & tuning

MATCHMAKING

  • Much faster matches
  • Better skill matching
  • Better feedback to players in the lobby and matchmaking experiences
  • Allow players to set desired datacenter for matchmaking (may impact matchmaking speed and skill balance)
  • Improved party vs party matchmaking
  • Hide CSR ranks until in match to de-incentivize quitting
  • Punish quitters with CSR penalties and matchmaking bans

Source: HaloWaypont

Halo 5 Limited and Limited Collector’s Editions Announced!

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The Halo 5: Guardians Collector’s Edition and Halo 5: Guardians Limited Edition have been announced! Also Pre-Order Poster.

Halo 5 Pre Order Poster

Source: http://news.xbox.com/2014/12/games-halo-5-preorder-and-beta

 

New Halo 5 Forge Map “Pegasus”, Hydra MLRS, Rocket Launcher

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343 Industries released footage of the Rocket Launcher and Hydra MLRS power weapons for Halo 5 Guardians. A new image for a possible Forge map “Pegasus” was also revealed.

halo 5 hydra mlrs halo 5 rocket launcher halo 5 Pegasus

Vote for either Hydra or the Rocket Launcher for Phase 2 of the Halo 5 Beta https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/community/bulletins/the-bulletin-episode-6

Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta Schedule

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Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta starts December 29th and lasts for 3 weeks. Each week will feature different maps, game types, and weapons!

Week 1:

  • Game type: Slayer – Assault Rifle starts
  • Maps: Truth and Empire

Week 2:

  • Game type: Slayer – Battle Rifle starts
  • Maps: Regret and Eden.
  • Game type: Breakout – SMG starts
  • Maps: Crossfire and Trench

Week 3:

  • Game type: Strongholds
  • Maps: to be voted on