Podtacular

Halo is staying in house with 343 industries as Pierre Hintze announced last week after more than 60 full-time employees were let go, but with that many people gone, there’s sure to be some slowdown of certain development and support at the studio. We know the roadmap for Halo Infinite has been laid out for a few more seasons at least with Season 3 still on target to release March 7th, but past that, what does the future of Halo Infinite look like? We’re still living in some uncertainty in the aftermath of this loss and we’ll probably never know the full extent of the impact, but there will be one regardless. That’s what we’re talking about in this episode.

Hard news hits this week as a result of Microsoft letting go 10,000 employees over the next six months, starting this week where over 60 343 employees, mostly from the campaign team, were let go. This sudden announcement has a lot of us in shock and anxious about the future of Halo, let alone the impact this has on all the folks who suddenly find themselves without a job. We hope all our friends who were let go are able to bounce back.

The Halo Championship Series for Season 2 is kicking off in Charlotte, NC in February as balance changes and new maps enter in for the latest competitive Halo experience. We also take a look at the next two missions in our Halo Infinite campaign discussions: Spire and Pelican Down. Got a topic for us to discuss, want to provide your input to our next topic? Hop in our Discord: https://podtacular.com/discord

It’s been a quiet few weeks as 343 is finally starting to come back from the holidays. This gives us a chance to take some time to reflect on the first year of Halo Infinite and the roadmap that we know of so far. Overall community vibes are better now than they were at launch, but there’s still a fair amount of the community that still feels there’s a lack of fresh content to keep things interesting. We’ve got your responses to talk through this episode.

We draw upon the close of 2022 and a year of Halo Infinite. After a tumultuous launch for Halo Infinite, we have Campaign Co-op, Forge, Custom Games Browser and a whole lot of quality of life improvements that we’ve received. Competitive Halo is alive and thriving and we continue to see some amazing community content. We appreciate everyone that continues to listen and are looking forward to what 2023 brings us.

Halo Infinite has now been out for a year and through the ups and downs, it’s safe to say we’re finally at a point where we’d consider it a full game with Forge, Campaign Co-op and the surprise drop of the Customs Game Browser. This is probably the most accessible Halo Multiplayer experience now and this is only the beginning. Along with updates to Halo Infinite, The Master Chief Collection has also received quite the update this month with the release of the final mod tools for all the games in the collection and integration with the Steam Workshop, making mods even more accessible as well. It’s certainly a great way to kick off the holiday season.

Forge has been out for just a little over a week and the amount of content the community has come out with in such a short time has been incredible! From remakes to mini-games to prefabs to new maps, forgers, seasoned and new are coming out with amazing stuff giving Halo Infinite a new life! We’ll undoubtedly be talking about more as content comes out and look to have several forgers on in the coming episodes. We’ll be off next week for Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, so we’ll talk to you in a couple of weeks.

The biggest update to Halo Infinite is finally here and it’s bringing a fresh wave of players back as campaign co-op and Forge are primed and ready to run! So many great customs are already made and a tons more are in the works by some of our favorite Forgers and more people are trying their hand at it as well. We’re excited to start incorporating custom games with up to 24 players into our Friday night game nights. If you want to come play with us, check us out Fridays at 8:30PM Eastern and make sure you jump into our Discord.

Halo Infinite has finally received the Winter Update introducing the Forge Beta and ForgeHub has some exciting new developments with their community, website, Discord and announcing their biggest prize pots for their first upcoming Forge contests. We’re pleased to have SIR IRON WOLF and Captain Punch on for this special episode, with plenty more to follow.

We’re just a few days away from the largest update to hit Halo Infinite since release. While it’s been tough playing out the lack of content, we’re finally Campaign Network Co-op, Forge Beta, new maps and modes, overhauls to weapon balancing, progression and matchmaking, and so much more! We haven’t been this excited for Halo content in a while, so we’re looking forward to what Tuesday brings next week. Not to mention all the cool new Forge customs and maps we’ll be getting.

Live from Halo World Championship 2022, we are joined by Drax, Greenskull, Wardog, Halo Legacy, HiddenXperia, and Laird talking about the event, Halo Infinite and much more!

Not a lot of game news this week, but as we wind up to HCS Worlds next weekend, we’ve got panels, cosplay contests, meet and greets, drops and more happening next week. A whole slew of new partnerships with apparel, food and other brands has also cropped up as is the time of the year. We have one more Forge video before the winter update drops in November and we’ll be off of the live stream recording until that time. We have several other podcasts lined up between now and then though. This week, we reminisce our journey through the Conservatory.

Counting down the weeks to HCS Worlds and the Halo Infinite Winter Update, we’re looking forward to some great entertainment and content in the next month. Bringing some small pieces of Halo Outpost to Worlds will make it a wonderful event to attend (let Dust Storm know if you’re going) and Forge along with Co-op is going to breathe a new breath into the game. Our latest look at Forge is also bringing even more capabilities than ever before with the Slipspace engine.

With just a couple months before the Winter Update drops, the newest achievements coming with Halo Infinite’s Network Campaign Co-op has been delivered over on Halo Waypoint offering up 24 new achievements for 420 Gamerscore. Since we both missed out on the flight, we’re excited to get in and experience the story with friends and families. This past weekend also saw Optic Gaming take home the trophy for the NA finals leading into worlds at the end of October. Some exciting new updates to the Exchange and Season Points in MCC also has us tempted to dip our toes back in.

Our next look at Forge is finally here and it’s probably one of the biggest upgrades to the multiplayer experience Halo has seen! From expanding game mode functionality to interactive elements and even more wacky possibilities, scripting in bots will bring exciting new experiences to Halo like never before. Also happy birthday to Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST.