Podtacular

With our first look at Forge in Halo Infinite, the potential for new user generated content is very promising for custom games and hopefully the refresh and longevity of matchmaking. With the ongoing content drought and time it’s going to take before our next season, we are eagerly awaiting the Forge beta this November. In other news, Bonnie Ross has left 343 Industries after starting the company and continuing the journey from Bungie over the last 15 years. We wish Bonnie the best and thank her for the wonderful experiences we’ve had under her tenure.

After months of Season 2 being out with no look ahead at what we could expect for future content, 343 finally provided a roadmap for the next year of Halo Infinite’s multiplayer experience. With this update, we’ve got quite a while before we see the next season, but the upcoming Winter update in November is bringing a lot of features that has garnered a lot of community hype including the Forge Beta and Network Campaign Co-op. The unfortunate announcement that came with this update is the tough decision for 343 to cancel Couch Co-op. While this is a tough decision, many of the community’s responses has been less than ideal. We’ve got a while before the seasonal tempo the studio wants will be realized, but we’re hoping the long term benefits of Forge will be a quick win for the livelihood of multiplayer. Big thanks to XLR8 for stepping in to guest host this week’s podcast.

Halo Infinite is into week four of Fracture: Entrenched featuring Land Grab and another Community Spotlight has been spotted for this month. While we have a lull in new stuff going on with Halo Infinite, we take this opportunity to have Installation00 on the podcast to discuss the latest progress on Project Mjolnir. He’s released a couple videos with the helmet prototype, the brains of the operation (literally). There’s still plenty of time to help out with the project through his Go Fund Me campaign and several open calls he will be posting soon looking for help with the next parts of the project.

The latest Halo Infinite drop pod has landed bringing the first cross-core customization to multiplayer along with laying the groundwork for a whole lot more improvements to the game overall. The under-the-hood changes should help address things like generating new playlists, match XP and quicker content delivery in the future. Also dropping this week was the latest Halo novel, Rubicon Protocol.

It’s done; what most though impossible has crowned a champion as JerValiN has stepped up to Moistcr1tikal’s challenge and claimed a much deserved $20K and recognition throughout the community. This challenge brought together the Halo community together in brand new ways and it is truly an amazing accomplishment. On the tails of this accomplishment, we have the next Halo Infinite drop pod, new Halo novel, and next HCS event coming up all in the next week.

This week’s short show covers the latest Halo Infinite Season 2 event, Alpha Pack that’s taking place alongside the campaign co-op network test. Along with the multiplayer event is a bucket of lore around our two Spartans front and center in this season. We’re off next week, but have several guests lined up for next month.

The time has finally come for our review of the Halo Series on Paramount+. While the story portrayed is a significant departure from the game and book cannon of the Halo franchise, it was surprising to see how much of the structure and mechanics of the universe were utilized in bringing this story to life. Some story beats felt out of place and other parts of the TV show didn’t make sense, but overall, we enjoyed the plot and are excited for what the next season will bring. Also happening this week is the Halo Infinite Co-op Network Test for the Insiders.

Halo Infinite is finally get co-op campaign in the coming weeks, but before the world gets hand on with this feature that the community has been waiting months for, Halo Insiders will get a chance to play an early build to help finalize several key features. We’ve also got the upcoming HCS qualifiers and the World Championship fast approaching. If you’ve got plans to be at HCS Worlds or Pax West, Dust Storm will be there.

Not a lot of news for this episode, but we have the honor of having the creator of Halo 3 Sunrise on the podcast, CraftyCodie. Through their efforts, Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 has matchmaking restored through a mod that looks to restore the entire matchmaking experiences. They are working on bringing back original launch playlists, ranks, file shares, working achievements and more. The plans don’t stop there so take a listen to see what the future of Xbox 360 matchmaking mods are from Codie.

One of the more frequently consistent streamers as of late is XLR8, who streams exclusively Halo, but does what a lot of large streamers don’t do as often: play with their viewers. Just about every night, he’s rocking out Big Team Battle games with viewers and has a positive, uplifting attitude towards the game. Entertaining to watch and fun to play with, XLR8 has grown pretty rapidly on Twitch starting just about two years ago and has participated in some official Halo streams and events. He was also a Pilot for Halo Infinite before it’s launch last year. You can find him streaming Halo Multiplayer on Twitch nearly every night over on his channel.

Patches made in Season 2 for Halo Infinite left a lot of players frustrated over some quality of life changes 343 implemented. After the community outcry, a few items have been restored to their pre-patch state, namely the Tank Canon in Campaign and some of the skull jumps in multiplayer. Along with changes to the game, there’s some studio changes as well as Jeremy Hook has departed the studio.

Over the last week, we got plenty of hands on time with Last Spartan Standing introduced in Season 2 and, while it may not be everyone’s favorite game mode, it’s a fresh addition to the matchmaking experience. 343 has heard the feedback from the community and are undoing some of the fixes bringing back some skill jumps and the tank gun in the campaign. Speaking of campaign, we pick up where we left off at Outpost Tremonius and make it through The Tower.

Season 2 of Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is out and with it, new narrative beats, battle pass, maps, modes and controversial updates to the campaign. This one’s short so we could play the new maps and modes, which we’ll have more to talk about next week.

Season 2 of Halo Infinite is just around the corner with two new maps, three new modes a full 100-tier battle pass, Campaign Co-op and Forge Beta. Many of these things have been demanded by the community since the release of the game and while it’s a but of a disappointment things weren’t there at launch, 343’s commitment to keep pushing towards these features is noteworthy. Along the lines of customization, there’s a lot of changes planned for how things are earned or purchasable along with an overhaul to the armor core system. Hopefully time will tell if these changes are what we’re all hoping for.

Halo Infinite isn’t the only game getting some major content love. MCC is also getting some attention as the introduction of FloodFight is already available in Halo 3: ODST along with several other lifecycle improvements and additions to the experience. A major shift will also see changes to the challenge system and future customization unlock paths as the traditional season releases are being retired for a new 4-week cadence at some point in the near future. Modding tools, cross-platform campaign, addition of skulls and more are all part of the new roadmap of content for this year and MCC.