Community

Community Update

Alex Wakeford

Bonus Bonanza

Games

“Spartan Chatter” is a new avenue we are exploring to provide direct updates to the Halo community through the Discord Stage feature on <a href="http://discord.gg/Halo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">the official Halo server</a>.



In our latest episode, Sean Baron, Head of Halo Infinite Live Service, stopped by to answer community questions, discuss player customization, and share new details on what to expect when Season 4 arrives on June 20.



The full conversation is available below which includes several notable bits of information for Halo Infinite players:



<ul><li>Halo Infinite’s take on the fan-favorite mode Infection arrives with Season 4 on June 20</li><li>Beginning with Season 4, all new premium coatings (Premium Battle Pass and Shop) will include individual versions compatible with all armor cores.</li><li>Career Rank is also coming to Halo Infinite on June 20, giving players an all-new progression system with military-style ranks</li><li>343’s official Forge remake of the Halo 5 map “Plaza” is targeted to be released early in Season 4</li><li>Attendees of the upcoming <a href="https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/dhdallas2023">HCS Dreamhack Dallas</a> event will get a chance to go hands-on with new Season 4 content</li><li>Halo Infinite’s first Bonus XP Weekend will take place over June 2-4</li></ul>



Check out the full Spartan Chatter episode below for additional insights into the studio’s priorities, where Infinite’s player customization systems are headed, responses to community questions, and more.



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And, in case you missed it, <a href="https://youtu.be/7QNHxDg0c9A">the first episode of Spartan Chatter with special guest Michael “Forge Lord” Schorr is now available on the Halo YouTube page</a>. In it, we discuss Halo Infinite’s playlists, Forge improvements landing in Season 4, and tackle a variety of community questions.



<a href="http://discord.gg/Halo">Join the official Halo Discord server</a> to continue the discussion and participate in future Spartan Chatter conversations.



Stay tuned to Halo Waypoint in the coming weeks for more details on Season 4.



You can also grab a full 4K-resolution version of the Infection concept art image (made by artists Jeff Simpson and David Heidhoff) by clicking the image below!



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="2560" height="1440" src="https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-scaled.jpg" alt="Halo Infinite concept art for the Infection mode showing three Spartans infected by Iratus" class="wp-image-67421" srcset="https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-300x169.jpg 300w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-768x432.jpg 768w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/S4Infection4KWatermarked-1568x882.jpg 1568w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></a></figure>

343 INDUSTRIES

Season 4, Infection, & Career Rank | Spartan Chatter

Book Preview

Fiction

Over ten years ago, the Master Chief awakened from cryo sleep as the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn approached a mysterious shield world known as Requiem.



Within this hollow sphere was an ancient Forerunner warrior—the Didact. Imprisoned a hundred millennia ago by his wife after being driven to madness, he emerged to continue his campaign against the humans that he saw as unworthy of the Mantle, the responsibility of guardianship over life in the galaxy.



Seeking to imprison humanity as his army of machine thralls, the Didact was defeated by the Master Chief and Cortana as he led an attack on Earth, casting him into slipspace. A further confrontation on Gamma Halo would see the Didact’s physical body disintegrated by the destruction of his Composer devices, sending the scatterings of his consciousness into the Domain.



It is here that <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Halo-Epitaph/Kelly-Gay/Halo/9781668017531">Halo: Epitaph, the next novel from acclaimed author Kelly Gay</a>, begins. Here’s the official description of what is to come:



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Stripped of armor, might, and memory, the Forerunner warrior known as the Didact was torn from the physical world following his destructive confrontation with the Master Chief and sent reeling into the mysterious depths of a seemingly endless desert wasteland. This once powerful and terrifying figure is now a shadow of his former self—gaunt, broken, desiccated, and alone. But this wasteland is not as barren as it seems. A blue light glints from a thin spire in the far distance…



Thus begins the Didact’s great journey—the final fate of one of the galaxy’s most enigmatic and pivotal figures.



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<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Halo-Epitaph/Kelly-Gay/Halo/9781668017531"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1675" height="2470" src="https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront.jpg" alt="Front cover of Halo: Epitaph depicting the hooded figure of the Didact, his face half exposed by his broken helmet" class="wp-image-67220" srcset="https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront.jpg 1675w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront-203x300.jpg 203w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront-694x1024.jpg 694w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront-768x1133.jpg 768w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront-1042x1536.jpg 1042w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront-1389x2048.jpg 1389w, https://wpassets.halowaypoint.com/wp-content/2023/05/HaloEpitaphCoverFront-1568x2312.jpg 1568w" sizes="(max-width: 1675px) 100vw, 1675px" /></a></figure>



We are thrilled to reveal the cover art of Halo: Epitaph, beautifully illustrated by Chris McGrath, depicting the Didact in a vast desert within the Domain, where fans of Halo 3 may recognize a certain tower in the background.



Published by Gallery Books and our friends over at Simon & Schuster, Halo: Epitaph is currently scheduled for release in early 2024.



Stay tuned later this year for chapter previews that will provide a closer look at the last great journey of the Didact.



<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Halo-Epitaph/Kelly-Gay/Halo/9781668017531" target="_blank">PRE-ORDER HALO: EPITAPH</a>

The Didact returns!

Halo: Epitaph | Cover Reveal

In September of 2021, 343 Industries launched the official Halo Waypoint app for iOS and Android platforms which have served as native mobile companions offering the same features and content as the Halo Waypoint website. Over time, we’ve seen usage patterns shift away from the apps while the mobile version of halowaypoint.com continues to capture the vast majority of site engagement.



As we look to the future, our focus is on the products and experiences that are most impactful and beneficial to our players and community.  To that end, we have made the decision to cease support for the Halo Waypoint iOS and Android apps and officially sunset them on approximately June 7, 2023.



Going forward, all the same content and features will continue to live and grow on halowaypoint.com. The Halo Waypoint website on mobile and desktop will remain the home for Halo game service records, file shares, leaderboards, franchise news, HCS, code redemption, and more.



Thank you to everyone who has supported the Halo Waypoint app and provided feedback along the way. We hope to continue enriching your game experiences and celebrating the Halo franchise with you on halowaypoint.com into the future.

Halo Waypoint App Sunsetting

Site Seeing

Educational Echoes

February Flavors

January Jottings

Happy Halodays!

Yuletidings & Yonder

It is with great sadness that we report that Greg Bear, one of the giants of science-fiction and author of Halo’s Forerunner Saga, has passed away at age 71. Greg is survived by his wife, Astrid, and their two children, Chloe (co-author of Halo: Rebirth) and Alexandra.



Greg Bear was one of the world’s most prominent contemporary science-fiction authors, having written over forty books—including original hard sci-fi works as well as contributions to Star Trek, Star Wars, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, and countless others. He was one of the architects of the San Diego Comic-Con event that has been running since 1970 and, every year, brings together over a hundred thousand people in celebration of pop culture entertainment and literature.



In 2010, as Halo 4 was on the horizon, Greg was brought aboard to write a trilogy of novels that would dive into the deepest mysteries of the Halo universe concerning the Forerunners.



Worshipped as gods by the Covenant, their immense constructs and weapons strewn across space, and possessing a strange connection to humanity, the ancient era of the Halo universe was the perfect playground for Greg’s decades of sci-fi experience. Ever has Greg’s literature been at the cutting edge of dealing with real questions of science, technology, society, and culture—from exploring compelling answers to the Fermi paradox in The Forge of God (1987) to being the very first sci-fi author to detail nanotechnology in Blood Music (1985).



It was these gripping and unique elements of his oeuvre that he brought to Halo, weaving a vast tapestry of rich history spanning countless millennia that begins from the perspective of a young Forerunner—Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting—who embarks on an adventure that leads him to awaken the Didact and set into motion the final movements of a cosmic game of vengeance by those who created us all, reborn in the terrifying shape of the Flood.



From the shores of Erde-Tyrene to the palaces of pain on Zeta Halo; from the hallowed halls of Maethrillian to the sealed-off tomb of Requiem, and beyond the expanse of our galaxy, Greg took us on a journey unlike any other.



As Halo was on the cusp of celebrating its tenth anniversary, it was Greg who played no small part in building elements of the universe that would not only see the series continue for another decade, where we are today, but also all the years we have yet to come. In truth, we may never hit bedrock with the breadth and depth of history his imagination gave to this series.



We wish Greg’s family and friends all our love as they grieve and mourn his passing. May his spirit—which has inspired generations of minds with wonder and wisdom—be as the namesake of his protagonist: eternal and lasting.

In Memoriam

Greg Bear (1951-2022)