Podtacular

With Halo Infinite taking a step back into its roots, it’s only fitting to take a look at the face (or visor) of the franchise for the past twenty years, The Master Chief. Instantly recognizable by just about anyone in the gaming industry, John, Spartan 117 was made to be a shell that we could fill with our own perspective on the universe that Bungie created filling in details with the mystical environments, supporting characters to invest in and larger-than-life odds that gives us as players the conquering feeling against a formidable foe. Over time with the caretaker of the franchise transitioning to 343 Industries, we’ve seen Chief develop to be more than just a man in a piece of power armor. There’s a character we’ve all come to learn and love and invest in the franchise. With the next installment of the games, we eagerly await the continued development of the icon of humanity in the Halo universe and the stories that will unfold on the mysterious Zeta Halo. Join us as we celebrate the 117th issue of Canon Fodder!

As Halo Infinite launch approaches, we’re starting to take a walk down memory lane as we approach the 20th anniversary of the Halo franchise. There are many things we love about the games, lore and experiences that keeps us coming back to Halo again and again and we want to share in that experience as we prepare for the next installment in this legendary universe. This week, we talk about the beginnings of Multiplayer and what it means to hop on with our closest friends and play for hours on end. As we delve into this new series of topics, we want to hear from you as well: your topics of conversation you’d like us to talk about and your own experiences. On our next episode, we’re going to explore supporting characters, like Cortana, Johnson, Arbiter, etc. Reach out to us on Social Media, our Discord or send us an email: submissions@podtacular.com

In partnership with ForgeHub, we are pleased to announce the Fiesta Frenzy event consisting of a Forge Contest and Competitive Tournament around the Super Fiesta game modes in Halo 5: Guardians! We’ve always wanted to do a Podtacular hosted tournament and for anyone who has joined our Fraggin’ Fridays, we love our wacky and fun game modes. With that said, we’ve concocted something that probably shouldn’t see the light of day, but we’re charging head first mixing the casual and competitive with one last hurrah before Halo Infinite comes in full force. Both the Forge contest and the tournament have $2000 prize pools and the tournament will be open to everyone. For more details on the Forge contest that starts today, check out ForgeHub for the announcement and come back in September to register for the tournament!

The Infinite hype train keeps going as this podcast started out on Twitch with a level 5 hype train. No doubt the community is looking forward to the game this holiday season. Halo Waypoint has the latest Inside Infinite providing a few more details around the Live Service experience for Halo Infinite and our first look at the upcoming new Halo Waypoint experience. To go along with Inside Infinite, we’ve got season 7 of MCC launching with Elite, bringing more customizations for Halo 3 elites Halo: CE modding tools, the Halo 4 Champions Bundle content and more. It’s also time for the third DreamHack Grifball tournament meaning DJBluePDX and Rage More Nerd are back for another drawing and recap before the final event next month.

It’s been quite the week for Halo Infinite news and the overwhelming positivity is certainly a nice change a scenery and breath of fresh community hype! For those playing along at home, we got a Infinite Campaign feature lead in by Joe Staten and our first looks at Multiplayer and the widely anticipated Big Team Battle 2.0. Needless to say, the native support for BTB along with the Academy, Customization and crazy game play we saw this past week was enough to get us very excited for the holiday release and flighting later this summer. If you haven’t registered for Halo Insider, now is the time to do it! Joining us again from the 405th is NobleofDeath16 and MightyMarkProps, and we’ve also got some returning guests CIA391, Ducain23 and Writing Spartan, and new to the guest list is Patman Gaming.

Due to some unfortunate technical issues, this podcast that was originally supposed to release on Friday is being posted on the Monday after the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase. So, while this is coming out after the showcase, here’s our pre-E3 thoughts on what we were hoping to see from the showcase related to Halo Infinite. We were joined by 405th members NobleofDeath16 and MightyMarkProps along with some special returning guests CMNeir, Fuchs, Hoss Sauced and from the Podtacular community, MHCosplay. Tune in later this week for our post-E3 thoughts and reactions with even more guests!

We were anticipating the latest Inside Infinite update this week on Halo Waypoint, but the surprise announcement of the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase coming up on June 13th has made other plans. Although we were hoping to welcome back Godzilla T with some new juicy Infinite news, we take a look at the latest official updates and some initial thoughts on what we hope to see during the showcase.

After the smashing success of the first of DreamHack’s DJBluePDX Grifball Summer Series, it’s back this weekend with Halo: Reach. Back in his co-host seat, DJBluePDX is joined by the owner of PlayGrifball, Rage More Nerd again to draw the bracket for the second tournament in the series. After an action packed Halo 4 tournament, we’re looking forward to seeing what the differences in Reach will bring to the game play. Tune in on Saturday over on DJ’s stream on Twitch for the best in Grifball action.

This week is a bit of a slower news week, so we reached out to probably the biggest and longest time supporter of the show, PensHalo. While this isn’t his first time on the show, he’s been single-handedly supporting the podcast and community and is big into the lore of Halo. Pens has an extensive timeline that breaks down the chronological order of the games, novels, comics, ARGs, audio recordings, movies/videos and anything related to the official lore. We’ve got the playlist updates for the month of June, a sneak peek into Season 7 flight content and a new Canon Fodder. Next week, DJ and Rage will return for the second Dreamhack Grifball draft, so tune in live on Twitch at 8:30P Eastern on Thursday if you want to be part of the recording.

Halo figurines is nothing new and taking pictures of scenes with them in battle scenes is always a treat, but our guest for this week takes it to another level with practical battlefield effects and the latest Jazwares figures has spiced up Mooreshots‘ pictures to be a truly unique work of art in the Halo community. Join us as we explore the person and the method behind the practical art that makes up some truly inspiring photos and even get some hints about his upcoming big shoot.

Every once in a while, the community takes it upon themselves to pursue an ambitious project let alone make something that nearly every Halo fan has dreamed of. Installation00 has taken on the monumental task of attempting to create a Mjolnir Mark IV suit of armor with modern technology. With his continued growth on YouTube and the major success of his various video series, he’s taking his experience in mechanical engineering to attempt something that has never been done before (as far as we know). On this episode, we talk to Installation00 about the inception of the project and what he hopes to accomplish throughout the 18-24 month journey. If you want to help him bring the Mark IV to life, head on over to his Go Fund Me campaign and show him some love.

It’s the end of the month, which means another Halo Infinite update. This month, we get our first looks at the first class treatment Halo Infinite is getting for PC, from super ultra-wide support to triple key-binds. This will be the first time a Halo FPS title will get a simultaneous PC launch with console, let alone undergoing the same development process and not being a port. While this update is PC focused, not all of the information is PC specific, but shows how they’ve approached development for the entire platform supporting the game. Nuances in development that were not of major concern for console get a new perspective and PC will coexist with console natively out of the gate.

It’s time again to take a look at the latest updates from our favorite franchise and what’s happening in the community as we look forward to the next Inside Infinite next week. A new #Ask343 from the Audio Design Team, Community and Playlist updates, and some community musings where we learn that ForgeHub has once again selected Arpod as the first pick of their community spotlight (something’s sus).

The greatest game since itself, Grifball is getting some premiere treatment as DreamHack has partnered with PlayGrifball.com to host a summer of draft tournaments and we get to play a part! Making a return to his co-host seat, DJBluePDX brings along Rage More Nerd to draw the bracket going into this weekend’s Halo 4 Grifball tournament. DJ and Rage give us the details about all the upcoming events over the next four months and the roadmap to the final tournament in July. You can catch the first three events over on DJ’s Twitch channel: https://twitch.tv/DJBluePDX.

As the months keep ticking away, we get ever closer to the release of Halo Infinite and this month, we are graced with our first sounds of the Halo Infinite soundscape. A blast of nostalgia mixed in with improved sound design certainly gives Halo that ancient, but powerful feel to compliment the heroic music the audio team is striving for. If you haven’t read up on the latest Inside Infinite, it’s worth the read and listen. We’ve also got another Community Spotlight, the latest from Tashi on designing the Halo Esports ecosystem, Grassroots partners and more!