Podtacular

It seems like the Halo Infinite promotion cycle is finally in full swing with the latest introduction of the UNSC Archives series, the beginning of IGN’s month-long coverage of Halo Infinite with our first look at the multiplayer map, Streets, and the celebration of Halo turning 20 in a couple weeks. It’s hard to imagine that were just a month away from Halo Infinite launching and finally get to experience the latest installment in the Halo saga. Two new Canon Fodders and a new Inside Infinite makes for most of the discussion on this show, and just a reminder, registration for the Fiesta Frenzy Tournament closes November 6th.

Our hopes have finally been delivered on as 343 released a new look at the Halo Infinite campaign. A fresh coat of paint on the environment is making the open world of Zeta Halo an amazing place we’ll get to explore with new enemies and upgrades to give Master Chief the tools to take down the Banished. Thankfully, there is not a lot of story that’s spoiled with the campaign overview so for those wanting to avoid any narrative spoilers, this video is pretty safe. We discuss all we learned in the overview and our excitement growing for the upcoming December release.

The second Halo Infinite Technical Preview has concluded along with our first exposure to the newest renovation to Big Team Battle in Halo. We’ve had a couple of weeks to digest what we’ve played and have our impressions ready to discuss. Only having one map on replay makes it hard to properly put into perspective what the overall experience will be at launch, but it does give us some things to think about before launch in December. Season 8 also dropped for MCC with the introduction of new maps, customization, challenges and more!

The Halo community is a passionate one: each person has their own features and pieces they love about the games and franchise and unique opinions can lead to passionate discussions. While we all as players hold our own beliefs as to how we think best contributes to the franchise we all love, it’s important to remember that, despite our differences, we are all Halo fans first and we celebrate our fandom together. As we race to the launch of Halo Infinite, it is a perfect opportunity to show the rest of the gaming industry that the Halo community is a place of acceptance and unity in our common interest. For this impressive milestone, we’re happy to have DJBluePDX and HiddenXperia join us for an engaging discussion on what we’re expecting with the inclusion of the next Halo title into the history of the franchise and how we discuss our differences in a meaningful and understanding manor.

The first week of the latest iteration of Halo Infinite flighting has concluded with Arena PvP giving us our first glimpse of the Arena Matchmaking experience we can expect with the launch of the game this holiday season. Just around the corner the flight continues with the Big Team Battle PvP sessions finally getting our hands on the revamped party multiplayer experience. We’re planning on playing all weekend and will recap our experience in a couple of weeks after taking next week off. The first HCS event for Halo Infinite is December 17th in Raleigh, North Carolina so if you want to get first-hand experience on what competitive Halo Infinite is going to be like, head over to aka.ms/Raleigh-Info for details and tickets. Also, since we forgot about it last week, we do touch on the HCS Top 25 Halo Competitive players list.

The next Halo Infinite flight is nearly here and not one, but two weekends of PvP matchmaking will be available with our first hands on the new 24-player Big Team Battle! While we’re getting hyped for the incoming flight and waiting for downloads to become available, we take a look at the Inside Infinite 343 dropped just before this weekend’s session. Also, thanks to Dust Storm’s trainer, both he and Godzilla T were able to secure the Halo Infinite Xbox Series X consoles during the podcast, hence the distracted recording.

Just a little more than a month after our first hands on Halo Infinite, 343 has unveiled the outcomes of what insiders deem unfriggin believable and what still has room for improvement. A very positive first experience with Halo Infinite multiplayer is hopeful signs for what we will get at release, but there’s still room for improvement as the days grow shorter. Thankfully, our next Halo Infinite flight is not two weeks away and we’re currently wrapping up Season 8 flighting for MCC. And it wouldn’t be the Halo community without some kind of “fanaticism”, this time around HCS’ top 25 Halo competitive players of all time. Strap in for a diverse show this week.

The Infinite news has certainly continued to roll in and the Halo community is going through a roller coaster of emotions with each passing week and new piece of the puzzle. In the latest saga of Halo Infinite news, we’ve learned more about the XP progression system, partnered teams with HCS going into Halo Infinite, and Season 8 flighting for MCC with more customizations, features and a new map from Halo Online! We certainly sympathize with the tough position the studio is to make sure features are complete at launch, but with a lack of features, that will challenge the longevity of the game after launch. Only time will tell, but we are eagerly waiting to hear more.

We’ve got a lot of Halo news this week, unfortunately, a lot of unfavorable news as we come off the latest Halo news from Gamescom, Inside Infinite update and a bombshell last week. We do finally have a release date of December 8th, breaking the norm of Tuesday releases, but the game will release without campaign co-operative play of any kind and Forge at launch, but will come later. We also have a little multiplayer cinematic for the first season of free-to-play multiplayer and just as quickly as it was announced, the Halo Infinite Limited Edition Xbox Series X and Elite controller pre-orders are already out of stock. As a perk of his Patronage, we have a special guest, PrestigeAce on the show.

No story is complete without a complement of characters, environment and world building that supports the narrative leading a player through a compelling campaign. With the Halo franchise, we’ve been beyond fortunate to have a diverse and rich number of supporting aspects to the Halo Universe, making Halo a truly unique experience. In this episode, we continue our walk down memory lane with previous installments in the Halo saga and reminisce what makes Halo a truly awe inspiring franchise to keep coming back to, looking into characters like Sgt. Johnson, Rtas ‘Vadum, the Didact and more. Have suggestions on what we should discuss next? Let us know in our Discord or send us an email.

The time has come and gone so quickly for the first Halo Infinite flight and the overall reception has been overwhelmingly positive. For our first hands on experience with Halo Infinite, it certainly feels like we’re getting a good mix of what made Halo great in the Bungie years with a few of the improvements and evolutions that 343 Industries has brought to the franchise. It’s certainly not perfect and with the game still in pre-production, plenty of bugs still need squashing, but for the most part, the multiplayer is very enjoyable. We talk about the weapons, equipment, maps and more. If you didn’t get invited to this flight, don’t worry, your time will come. Make sure your Halo Insider profile is up to date at https://haloinsider.com.

It’s finally happening! Halo Infinite flighting kicks off this weekend with the first Technical Preview happening right now! Getting our first hands on experience with Halo Infinite, even if it’s not fully representative of the final product is so exciting and we can’t wait to see what 343 has been cooking up over the past five years! It sounds like nearly everyone who as signed up for the Halo Insider program with an up-to-date profile will be getting hands on this weekend so we look forward to playing with you all this weekend. As such, we want to hear what you have to say about the Tech Preview (not a beta) on our next podcast. Reach out to us on Discord, Twitter or sending us an email to submissions@podtacular.com.

Being a community built around a podcast, we’re very excited about productions like Hunt the Truth and I Love Bees. There’s just something about an audio drama that has unique characteristics to how you consume the content and how it has to be crafted to make up for the lack of visual representation. That why, when our friends over on the Coral and Downfall projects referred the team at Tarkov: A Halo Story to us, we got very excited at the sound of a community-based Halo audio drama. This fan-based project takes the introduction of Tarkov, the young ODST that we follow in this Halo 3: ODST Trailer. The project has been in development for about five years and has a lot of tie ins to the Halo Universe and just from what we’ve heard from the project, it’s gonna be good. Tarkov premieres on July 30th across most major podcast services and YouTube.

It’s the final event in the DJBluePDX Grifball Summer Series – Presented by@DreamHack & Powered by Play Grifball and we have DJBluePDX and RageMoreNerd joining us to draw the final bracket. The final Grifball tournament of the Summer series kicks off on Saturday on Halo 4 as part of DreamHack Beyond, a virtual summer event with everything you’d expect from a DreamHack event. We also get into a heated debate about how easy it is to register for the Halo Insider, which just so happens to be the topic of the next Inside Infinite. After this podcast, DJ is stepping down from his co-host seat, but he’ll be back for future Grifball event announcements and certain topics around Halo Infinite as the release continues to draw closer.

Long time listeners of the podcast will remember back in the early Halo 5 days one of our previous co-hosts stepped down from hosting. Starting with this episode, we’re happy to welcome back to the co-host chair, Hoss Sauced! He’s back permanently to ride out the hype through to Halo Infinite. We were also invited to participate in celebrating Canon Fodder: Issue 117 where we talked about the man himself, John Spartan-117, in our previous episode.