Bradford Welch of 343i today confirmed on his twitter feed that AA’s and classic matchmaking will return for Halo 5: Guardians
On the topic of JiP (join in progress) being only in 4 Bravo has the following to say
This makes me believe that Halo 4 will be the only game to feature the JiP feature, however it hasn’t been discussed apart from keeping CE, 2, and 3 the way they were released. Does this mean that we could see a removal of JiP of Halo 4? More to come soon!
The question was posed on Neogaf after the Halo 5 Mulitplayer trailer about the mention of “Spartan Abilities”. The question reads as follows.
“I personally don’t want any type of “spartan abilities” to me it’s not why I played Halo. I never wanted custom load outs and different “perks” and abilities. That’s what CoD was popular for. I like that Halo the only difference from player to player is skill, not finding a perk to try and exploit.”
According to Neogaf user Stinkles aka Frank O’Connor in response to the post he said the following.
Judging by his response that means that we won’t see AA’s in the traditional sense as perks and what not. It might mean different abilities that could possibly change the outcome of the game. I would personally like to see these be one time use things and on a time. Not on a recharge like AA’s have been in the past.
Source: http://bit.ly/1mCAnNP
It is a fantastic day to be a Halo fan! Today at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, Bonnie Ross of 343 Industries announced that coming November 11th Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be the entire Master Chief saga coming to the Xbox One. In addition to this they announced that Halo 2 will have a HD re-skin of the original engine and multiplayer experience. But this was not it…
In addition to Halo 2 Multiplayer you will also be able to play Halo CE – Halo 4 in their original engines as they were released. So not only do we Halo fans get Halo 2 multiplayer, but we also get all four multiplayer experiences housed in one game. Accompanying the Multiplayer will be every campaign mission from every game as well as campaign episodes. These campaign episodes are designed to tell a story that is unlike any that has been told by one game. These custom campaign playlists will allow you to experience the story in a whole new way, and I assume that it will be up to 4 player co-op online campaign.
343 Industries, Saber Interactive and Certain Affinity are all working on this project. Judging by previous projects by Certain Affinity and Saber this game is going to look incredible. Oh and I almost forgot it will run at 1080p and 60 FPS on the Xbox One console.
The Ridley Scott digital feature will also be included in this bundle and will be featured in the extras portion of the in game menu. The extras portion also houses the multiplayer beta for Halo 5: Guardians, which is coming out this December. A FULL YEAR BEFORE THE GAMES RELEASE!!! This has most likely been done as such to provide a good amount of feedback for the developers to change, while still working off the existing engine. It would be amazing to see a sort of DayZ experience where we as Halo fans get to impact the development process up to the final release of the game. More information on the beta to come as it’s announced. Here’s the full beta trailer for your viewing pleasure below.
It was also confirmed by Quinn DelHoyo on Twitter that Spartan Abilities do not mean Armor Abilities, which is something that all of us can breath a collective sigh of relief.
Halo 2 remastered Multiplayer was also showcased as Legendary Pros; Bravo, Neighbor and GH057ayame played on a remastered Halo 2 Ascension.
I must say that after all these years that Ghost still has those sick Halo 2 skills! Very cool to see an exclusive multiplayer experience that brings you back in time to when Halo was king. What is also interesting to note is that all of the Halo 2 superjumps and button glitches will be included into the mulitplayer experience. However, the standbying exploit has been removed from the engine and will not be possible with the MCC.
In addition to everything that’s been released it was also stated that on the day it ships, Halo: MCC will have everything unlocked and you can play as you want to and enjoy the experience. They have also made mention of working on a ranking system. Here is the quote.
“We are in the process of constructing a leveling system,” “You’ll be able to go down and work your way back up.”
To me this just shouts as the classic matchmaking experience with Ranked and Social experiences all in one game. It’s great to also know that they have listened to the communities wishes and wants and have given them something to satiate the Halo itch until the eventual release of Halo 5. Halo 3 and Halo 4 will not be getting any sort of changes in terms of graphics, however I would imagine that the Halo 3 engine will get a re-haul to perform better on the Xbox One as the legacy tech is not able to be updated by 343i.
Per the Halo Bulletin on 10.9.13 the limitations of the legacy technology prohibited them from consolidating or updating any current playlists in regards to the release of Halo 3 on games with gold.
“Due to the limitations associated with legacy tech, we will not be consolidating or changing the playlist layout for Halo 3, but are working closely with Xbox LIVE to ensure that players have a great experience with the Games with Gold program. “
I would naturally assume that with Halo 3 matchmaking being included in the MCC that your ranks would be reset and the engine would be updated with current netcode and qos settings. However only time will tell until we find more information about this aspect.
It has been confirmed that Halo: MCC will ship with 100 multiplayer maps. Yes you read that correctly 100! Additionally the price is being set at $59.99 USD and has been confirmed by Xbox.
http://twitter.com/Xbox/status/476052622642667522
Folks, again it is a fantastic day to be a Halo fan and I cannot wait to share more with you during the coming months. For more information make sure to follow the site as well as my twitch and on twitter for the latest content.
Source: IGN
The following screenshot was posted in a NEOGaf thread earlier today, showing a writeup from the Nordic Game Conference a few weeks ago.
The screenshot is taken from the following Kickstarter page, and the wording has since been changed. I do not quite know if the text in the screenshot is legit, however it does seem like someone had posted the text and then later revised it.
A NEOGaf user in the same thread said the following.
“He did this exact presentation a couple months back at Bungie. I attended it. Same slides, same topic. The samples were from Destiny”
It’s unclear to know if this Kickstarter page is true and was then redacted because of the information, or if this was just to gain some traffic. More to come I imagine at E3 this Monday.
Today Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson of Xbox tweeted out the following article on his blog. The article portrays a Surface tablet with an Xbox One controller plugged in and on the Halo 2 Menu screen.
Now to most people this is just the Halo 2 for PC on the surface right? Currently Halo 2 Vista is compatible for Windows 8.1 according to Microsoft. However Major Nelson goes on to say the following:
“We look forward to sharing more about the amazing lineup of games coming to Xbox during our Xbox E3 2014 Media Briefing, Xbox: Game On, which will take place Monday, June 9 beginning at 12:30 p.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. PDT.”
Not much more than a shameless plug for the Microsoft E3 presentation, however, it’s very strange out of all the games for Windows currently available that they would choose Halo 2. Am I reading into this too much? Most likely, but it could be a tease to a bigger reveal at E3. Time will only tell if we get our grubby hands on Halo 2 Anniversay this year.
Today 343i and Astro Gaming, the makers of high quality gaming headsets and peripherals, announced a new partnership to bring Halo themed accessories in the coming future.
Here is the writeup from Halo Waypoint:
“Today we are announcing a new partnership with ASTRO Gaming! I had the pleasure of wearing nearly every iteration of ASTRO products since the very first Limited Edition A40 headset, so it is with great excitement, and with an ASTRO headset on my head, that I bring you this wonderful news. I know I speak for many when I say that I cannot imagine a better or more organic headset partner for our brand. I’m super pumped about the new products that are on the way, and I am quite glad that we’re finally taking our relationship to the next level.”
Here is the official press release statement:
“Skullcandy, Inc. and its division ASTRO Gaming, creators of premium video gaming equipment, announced an exciting new multi-year partnership with Halo developer 343 Industries. As part of the agreement, Skullcandy and ASTRO Gaming will develop several new products including branded headsets, speaker tags and more in support of the latest releases within the Halo universe.
“Few game franchises have ever pushed the boundaries of our imagination quite like Halo. With its robust online multiplayer features, compelling storyline, incredibly detailed gameplay audio and inspiring musical score — Halo delivers at every level,” said Aron Drayer, VP of Marketing, ASTRO Gaming/Skullcandy Gaming.
Details relating to specific Halo headsets and accessories from ASTRO Gaming and Skullcandy will be announced at a later date. ”
I”M SO PUMPED FOR THIS ANNOUNCEMENT!!! I’ve used an Astro A40 for quite some time now and I must say it’s one of the best headsets I’ve used. Cannot wait to have an official Halo 5/H2A/Halo Collection (whatever gets announced at E3) headset!
I’ll be following this subject and bring you updates as they occur!
Not much has been known about this project to date except that Ridley Scott, whose famous for working on Blade Runner and Aliens, is going to be producing the short.
According to the Belfast Telegraph the feature has begun filming in the Titanic district of the city. It’s also being noted that Battlestar Galactica’s, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan is directing the feature. An unnamed spokesperson for the company behind the feature confirmed these details
“343 Industries, Xbox Entertainment Studios and Scott Free Productions are currently working on a Halo digital feature project to be released later this year. The project will be executive produced by Ridley Scott and Scott Free TV president, David Zucker. Sergio Mimica-Gezzan will direct.“
I for one am super pumped to learn of this news and hope to hear more soon. It’s been said by this nameless spokesperson that more details about the feature are coming next month. I imagine we might also hear something about it at E3 as well.
There is also a video that appears to be recorded from afar, that I was not able to put in this post, however you can view it on the link at the end of this article. It does not show much, except a crew and a boom microphone following a man who’s carrying something and looks to be wearing some sort of police/army gear.
See for yourself here: http://bit.ly/1tHR7XQ
Some of you may or may have not seen this, but I figured I would bring it to your attention. Yesterday Bonnie Ross (@PlutonForEver) tweeted the following picture.
Pretty normal day at the 343i office right? Look a little closer to Neighbor; second to the last guy. Does that look like something familiar?
So the 343i staff is playing an internal tournament and this is the “Gold tier finals”, on the Xbox One. It was not mentioned what game they were playing, but they didn’t mention any current gen titles in the tweet. This leads most of us to believe that this was a testing session for the next Halo game. The way the picture was taken leads me to believe that this is a project not yet released.
Does this mean we might see a alpha or a beta program rolling out soon? I for one sure hope so. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
As some of you may be aware, OpTic Gaming is one of the premier CoD eSports organization teams in MLG. Currently their squad is coached by Halo Pro Flamesword aka OpTic Beard. Yesterday it was announced that Flamesword will be competing in Halo again. He hinted possibly putting together a team for the Iron Gaming finals at RTX.
However him and his squad, which is still TBD, will no longer compete under the Status Quo name. They will be competing as OpTic Halo. This is a huge crossover as OpTic currently has 514k followers on Twitter alone, and some of the biggest names in the MLG eSports community. What this means for the future of Halo and competitive Halo is yet to be determined.
What I would like to see is MLG pick up whatever iteration of Halo that is released and see it back on the circuit. If it is Halo 2 Anniversary then we could see the return of some legacy Halo 2 MLG squads. All speculation at this point however.
Here’s the full video by OpTic Beard himself:
The Halo Array 