Podtacular

This episode is a little out of time from our previous live show with DJBlue PDX and John Friend. As we’re awaiting review, we got our first drop of new information regarding Halo: Outpost Discovery. We have two characters that have been revealed that will be present at the Outpost to enhance the experience: Spartan Owen, who we were introduced to in Halo: Battle Born and Spartan Hazel. We have a few community updates as well.

This week saw another MCC update come across our consoles this week adding the much needed IP masking and some social matchmaking changes requested by the community. In addition to some major additions in January, we asked our community what additional things would we like to see in the future added to MCC. This week’s Community Spotlight features some Valentine’s Day goodness, which also adds a cool name plate to MCC as well.

Continuing to ramp up 2019, we receive our first Community Spotlight of 2019 with the latest addition to the community team, Snickerdoodle filling us in on some community creations shared on the Waypoint forums. It’s no question that the community has some very talented artists out there, which strangely enough goes with our proposed question for this episode. While we didn’t have many responses to our question and the one we stole from Unyshek last week, we did have a small conversation about what we would like to see when more Infinite concept art comes out. We will be off next week while Dust Storm is away on work travel, but stay tuned to the topic for the next episode and an announcement of our first guest of 2019.

We are very excited to see the community rallying behind the promise of Halo Infinite; and while there’s still room for healthy speculation, the flighting program described by 343 is sure to help the community feel at ease when helping 343 make small, yet impactful changes to the game. We asked the community what they would like to see in Infinite’s flighting program and the response was outstanding with almost 20 replies on Twitter. 343 has returned from their holiday slumber, which means we’re back into covering official and community news again as well.

I’m not one to normally be on the new year’s resolution train, but the Infinite hype has grabbed a hold and it’s finally time for a new coat of paint that’s been peeling for several years now. We’re excited to see what 2019 has for the Halo community and we want to gear up for its arrival over the next year. Our first podcast of 2019 covers just what we want to accomplish for the podcast, community and rebranding. We appreciate all the support we already receive and we hope you’ll support us this year.

2018 has been a wonderful year for us here at Podtacular and for Halo fans alike. We saw the announcement of Halo Infinite and the reveal of the new Slipspace Engine, the Halo World Championship taking place in Seattle earlier this year, MCC receiving some TLC, and a few of our own accomplishments here. We would like to thank all our fans who continue to support our little community and listen to the show. We can’t wait to keep fraggin’ trucks with you all next year.

We’ve been in the dark about Halo: Infinite since E3’s tech demo of the Slipspace engine, but that all changed with the past week’s 343 social stream. While there’s still a lot left in the shadows, we received official confirmation on a few community desires, like 4-player split-screen and PC play and a few more hints like Reach-style customization and playable Elites. We’ll undoubtedly hear more about Infinite in 2019, but based on the flighting program they described, this game will not see store shelves until 2020 at the earliest. A lot of buzz has been generated around Infinite now and now it’s time to take a look back at 2018. On next week’s show, we’re asking listeners of the show what their most memorable or favorite moments of 2018 are for Halo. We’d love to year from you on social media, our Discord or via email at podtacular@gmail.com.

Apologies for the delay in the release of this episode. Between technical difficulties during the stream and the business of the holidays, it took a bit longer to get this one out. With that said, we have a couple of special guests with us this episode behind the community project Downfall. We learn about what the game is, the goals of its development and what’s been done thus far.

As if we didn’t have enough news to cover from the community already, this week we get a double portion with updates from projects, HCS Grassroots events/streams, matchmaking updates and a late posting of the Halo Spotlight from Unyshek. We really thought we were out of the dark ages of having to worry about covering Thursday postings, but alas, here we are mid-show with the latest Waypoint update. This week, being the first full week of December, Uny was joined by James Monosmith to review the latest Halo Gear to pick up for your Halo fanatic this holiday season. Did you know you can actually buy Halo: Fireteam Raven? Just pull out $67K and you’re set! Despite the length of this podcast, it’s a packed one. Podcast artwork provided by VinWarrior, and created by BossVeteran and Joshua Ezzell.

A new season calls for a few changes to our normal Halo content. Unyshek has taken over for community updates and social streams as we enter the winter season (for those of us in the northern part of the world). There’s a December update poised for MCC, some upcoming holiday playlists for Halo 5, digital goods and a few highlights from the Grassroots program partners.

The final Halo 5 HCS tournament has taken place and TOX has been crownded the undisputed champion. Not to worry as HCS Grassroots will continue to support the competitive Halo scene in addition to community content creators. MCC has received its latest update bringing new features such as the Match Composer and controller customization options. Halo 5 also has received a new community-curated social playlist for Team Doubles.

One week of and we’re slammed with another news and community content filled episode. The final HCS Halo 5 event is taking place at DreamHack Atlanta, MCC is getting an update soon after, Grim’s final Community Update and so much community created content. Among the latter, two new community projects have surfaced to create fan-made Halo FPS games: Coral and Halo: Downfall. Also, the world of nerdom has lost an incredible hero this past week as Stan Lee has passed away. Podcast artwork provided by greywolfxn on Instagram.

This week, the Community Spotlight returns with some ghoulish delight as we pass Halloween here in the states, or Halo-ween as we like to call it. The community creations does not cease to amaze us from artwork and forge creations to renders and videos. Some casting positions have been revealed for the Halo TV series confirming the Master Chief as a main recurring character, Dr. Halsey and a new character, Jenny. Sadly, this week on the Social Stream, Grim announced we will be moving onto a different position within 343 and will no longer be hosting the stream or posting the community spotlights and updates after next week. We will still be around, but not as public facing as he has been. Podcast artwork by Primordial117 on Twitter.

This weekend is Halo 5’s Birthday and it’s bringing out all the stops with Double XP across all playlists and bringing in Warzone Turbo, Mythic Warzone Firefight and Grifball with a chance to earn a Greatest Hits Customization REQ Pack for playing. The HWCL Season 2 also wraps up this weekend, production start for the Halo TV show has been announced for June 2019 in Budapest and we get a small look at what the future of HCS holds. There’s a lot in the jam packed episode.

This podcast comes riddled with technical difficulties, but the show goes on. The MCC Insider is back to test a couple of new features including the Match Composer and Controller Customization. We also have another Community Spotlight more amazing community creations including artwork, videos, forges and more. A new book was also announced coming next year, Halo: Renegades available for pre-order now.