Halo Online Announcement Trailer

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Dust Storm

4Game has released an official announcement trailer for Halo Online including game play and customization options that will be in the game. Halo Online is a PC Halo experience based of a heavily modified version of the Halo 3 engine that will be free to play with micro-transactions.  Micro-transactions include the ability to buy custom armor pieces and weapon upgrades for your Spartan’s loadout.  From the video, the primary weapons are the Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, DMR, SMG, Covenant Carbine and Plasma Rifle; the secondary weapons are Magnum, Plasma Pistol and Mauler; and grenades the original group from Halo 3: Fragmentation, Plasma, Spike, and Incendiary grenades.  The game play shows the maps Turf, Guardians, Avalanche without snow, and a few other ones we’ll have to wait and see.

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Halo Online coming to PC in Russia

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Dust Storm

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Halo veterans may remember a time when Halo was also a name on the PC side of gaming.  The last Halo title to release on PC was Halo 2 Vista, which, while mostly insignificant now still has a tiny player base and offers online play for classic Halo 2, MCC aside.  Yesterday, 343 announced Halo Online: a heavily modified version of Halo 3 designed to run on lower-end computers.  The game is an effort between 343 Industries, Saber Interactive and Innova Systems that will have a closed beta in Russia this spring through Innova’s 4game platform.  There’s no word on whether this will release in other parts of the world after the beta.

Here’s a little Q&A from Waypoint about Halo Online:

Q:           What type of game is Halo Online?

A:            Halo Online is a free multiplayer-only PC experience that we’re launching as a closed beta test in Russia.

Q:           Does Halo Online represent your future plans for the franchise on PC?

A:            Halo Online is a learning opportunity for us as we explore ways to welcome new fans to the “Halo” universe. We’re excited to release a “Halo” multiplayer-only PC experience tailored for Russian gamers.

Q:           When will Halo Online be available?

A:            The closed beta period will begin in Russia later this spring. There is no definitive launch date at this time.

Q:           Are you planning on bringing Halo Online to the Xbox One?

A:            Halo Online was built from the ground up specifically for the PC. There are no plans to bring Halo Online to the Xbox One.

Q:           Will gamers in other regions like North America and Europe be able to play Halo Online?

A:            Right now our focus is on learning as much as we can from the closed beta period in Russia. Theoretically, any expansion outside of Russia would have to go through region-specific changes to address player expectations.

Q:           Are you planning to officially launch this year?

A:            There is no definitive launch date at this time as we proceed in our closed beta period in Russia.

What do you think about Halo Online? Discuss in our forums!

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Podtacular 466: Halo 5 Beta Breakdown – Forge Mode

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Dust Storm

Our last Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta breakdown show focuses on the Forge maps we got to play in the final days of the beta, Pegasus and Orion.  In talking about the map design and flow for slayer, we talk about the new capabilities we’ve already seen and would like to see come to the final version of Halo 5: Guardians.  In addition to having traditional Forge canvases, the new game mode Breakout will have forgeable maps in the style of Crossfire and Trench.  We saw a significant jump in capabilities in Forge for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and we hope to see even more capabilities in Halo 5: Guardians.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:42 — 36.4MB)

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Hunt the Truth Teaser Video

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Dust Storm

Yesterday Frankie pointed us to a new promo Halo 5: Guardians Tumblr site with the hashtag #HUNTtheTRUTH.  After just a little over 24 hours, Xbox released a fifteen second teaser with the “TRAITOR” bullet blowing up what appears to be Master Chief’s helmet.  They symbolism behind it is still a mystery as we wait for the final reveal Sunday night.

Discuss in our forums!

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Halo 5: Guardians Matchmaking and Custom Games Will Run on Dedicated Servers

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Dust Storm

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Halo: The Master Chief Collection is the first time we’ve seen dedicated servers used in a Halo game.  At E3’s announcement last year, we were told that all competitive multiplayer games would use dedicated servers hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud powering Xbox Live.  Much to our disappointment, this only translated to matchmaking in the final version of the game.

The Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta ran on dedicated servers, which we know matchmaking would continue to use when the game finally releases later this year, but we have confirmation over on the Team Beyond forums from Josh Holmes that custom games will also use dedicated servers.  This doesn’t address LAN or local console multiplayer play or other game modes like Campaign, Cooperative and Forge, but it’s a great step for playing online where dedicated server games are much more reliable than peer-to-peer hosted games.  Dedicated servers removes the infamous “host advantage” many players are familiar with and reduces the effects of lag on a game for a more fair and overall better experience.

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Hunt the Truth – Halo 5: Guardians Teaser Site

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Dust Storm

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A new Halo 5: Guardians countdown teaser site was revealed by a tweet from Frankie earlier this evening.

Speculations are a teaser trailer of some kind will be unlocked at the end of the countdown which happens on Sunday, March 21st at 9:00PM Eastern, 6:00PM Western, 1:00A GMT Monday, March 22nd.  The site has an image with the word “TRAITOR” engraved on a bullet and the quote, “What seems like the end, is only the beginning”, when shared with the #HUNTtheTRUTH tag.  No additional information is available at this time, but it does beg some interesting questions like, who is the traitor being reference and what new stories will begin to unfold from this betrayal.

Discuss in our forums!

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Insane Sniper Kills on MCC

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Dust Storm

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Halo is filled with many moments of awesome kills, both skilled from the pros and the occasionally lucky kills from those not as skilled.  Then there are the ones that are just totally insane that you couldn’t plan even if you tried.  Early this month, a video surfaced by Lawrencce1 on YouTube from a Halo 3 game on Foundry of a snipe that ricocheted three times before connecting with his foe.  Rightly so, it has over a million views.

Not a week later, Jimmy Boswell on YouTube upped the ante with a two-for-one snipe ricocheting 6 times on Haven in Halo 4 connecting with the head of an extremely unfortunate enemy half way across the map.

Now since the MCC is working for more players, we would not be surprised to see more of these kinds of videos with being able to use Upload Studio to create videos from your saved films.  If you have an awesome moment to share, let us know about it in our forums, or share it with us on Twitter or Facebook.

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