Podtacular

At Halo: Outpost Discovery, we had the opportunity to host several panels with Halo machinimators. The Halo universe has exceptional lore for people to build on and the tools to craft inspirational stories. In coordination with The Hub, we’re happy to have all these guests on the show: Ay Star, Pep, Beaminator, AngelOnMyShoulderProductions, GrumpyElite, OutletChief729, EchoLightMedia & Matteoarts. We talked about their start in machinima, their process for creating machinima and their wishes for support with Halo Infinite and the possibilities that could be supported with mods.

We kick off 2020, the year of Halo Infinite catching up on the community news and Halo updates. As we march closer to Holiday 2020, we’re continuing to revamp our podcast outline to showcase more of the news and discussions happening in the Halo community along with seeking out help with running Podtacular and getting podcast guests lined up. It’s going to be a big year for Halo and we’re thankful you’re along with us for the ride.

Our final episode of the year wraps up the second part of Halo: Broken Circle, which we started last week. The final Community Spotlight and Community Update are also available for discussion as we round out the decade with this episode. It’s been a crazy 2019 and we all have a big hear ahead of us. Happy Halodays from us here at Podtacular.

Wrapping up our final book of the year, we take a look at the first part of Halo: Broken Circle. Taking place over 3000 years ago in the current Halo timeline, this book takes a look at the earliest days of the Covenant during the time the Writ of Union was being signed between the Sangheili and the San’Shyuum and the events transpiring to a sect of Sangheili breaking off in the belief that joining the Covenant was dishonorable. We also talk about the latest feedback and reactions to Reach on MCC and take a look at some community creations!

Halo: Reach on Halo: The Master Chief Collection is finally here and as Tartarus said, “[It’s] drawn quite a crowd.” Being one of the most successful Steam launches, Halo fans have flocked to its release. In this episode, we go over initial reaction to the release, outstanding issues to be resolved, new achievements, and more!

Although we recorded this podcast in anticipation of it coming out before Thanksgiving, due to the delay of the previous episode, this one got delayed as well. In addition, Dust Storm’s audio wasn’t set up correctly to record, so we’re stuck with stream audio on his side. Since the previous episode was long, we took a shorter approach to cover what we’re thankful for relating to Halo and go over the latest Community Spotlight.

Apologies for this episode taking so long to release. Various issues arose gathering recordings and finding time to edit this show. We’re going to change the way we do big round-table discussions going forward so we try to avoid these long delays in the future. With that said, let’s get into the episode! Though Halo: Outpost Discovery left us about two and a half months ago, we are still finding things to talk about. This will be our last Outpost related podcast however. Joining Dust Storm and Godzilla T this week, we have returning guests Toa Freak, Sovth, Laird & Bobby, and new guests HUNGRYxB3AR, Legacy B312 & Daemon Zod to talk about what we, as attendees to Outpost Discovery, though of the experience. We also take time to talk briefly about the latest news regarding the cast and backstory of the Halo TV Show.

Halo has had quite a few innovative and impactful marketing campaigns for game launches, some of the more memorable being Hunt the Truth, ilovebees, Iris and Believe. With Halo Infinite launching in just about a year, we asked you, our listeners, what kind of marketing you would like to see for Halo Infinite. There’s a lot of similar responses, so let us know if there’s anything you think didn’t get addressed. We’re happy to formally have Late Night Gaming on this episode for this discussion. HCS also celebrates 5 years of providing competitive Halo experiences and lays out what to expect for when Infinite launches next year.

It’s Haloween night and the latest Community Spotlight is filled with plenty of Halo-themed pumpkin carvings, ink-tober drawings, and ghoulishly inspired artwork. The latest Reach flight, and possibly last is also out on PC including Campaign, Firefight and PvP Multiplayer! It’s a packed weekend of Halo spookiness!

Even though Halo: Outpost Discovery ended nearly two months ago, we can’t stop talking about it and the memories it gave us over the summer. Earlier this year, we invited DJBlue and John Friend on the show to tell us more about the announcement in February. To round out the experience, we decided to ask them back on for one more show to talk about their experience on putting on the show this summer and hear about some of the feedback and perspectives they gained that will hopefully influence future outposts (if we’re fortunate enough to get more).

This week we’re swapping in our regular end-of-the-month community update to cover the last three months of updates from other Halo communities, podcasts and projects. In addition to the Community Spotlight from this week, we have updates from most all of the community projects, other Halo Podcasts, PlayGrifball, ForgeHub and Halopedia. And there was something about Pizza Hut being the best pizza chain.

The latest Reach flight for MCC came to Xbox this past week with a lot of Halo Insiders on to play a full week of competitive game modes. We asked the community for their input, but we guess everyone just had so much fun, that we got no responses, so we just got to share our experience as well as covering the latest community update.

We’re bringing back weekly discussion topics starting off with hearing what our community wants to see come back as game modes in Halo: Infinite. With the light launch in Halo 5: Guardians, there’s plenty that the community would like to see return. As usual, we cover the latest weekly updates for playlists and community. A few technical difficulties arise for this episode, so apologies for the quality this week.

Halo birthdays are plenty over these past two weeks with Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. There is a lot happening in celebration, including Halo 3 playlist updates in MCC, the ODST slayer playlist on Halo 5: Guardians and even an inside look at the progress of Reach’s PvP flight on one of the Halo Social Streams. As we enter into the next hundred episodes, we’re wrapping up the news from the past two weeks and are bringing back in the discussion topics of the week and looking to get some featured and community guest hosts on the show in this coming month. If you have any ideas for topics or guests you would like to see, reach out to us on our social media or Discord server.

In celebration of our 700th episode and the feedback received on this panel at Halo: Outpost Discovery, we are pleased to invite the Event Programming Staff on the show to play in the Halo Game Show, featuring our Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud games. This panel was one of the most entertaining and well received panels on the content stage and we’re pleased to give it one final appearance. A word of caution, there is some suggestive language that may be unsuitable for young ears, but we have bleeped out the profanity as we normally do.