Bonus Bonanza
Welcome to June. We are officially half-way through The Year of Our Arbiter 2023—isn't the passage of time terrifying!
Let’s get you caught up on all the latest happenings in the worlds of Halo, from Season 4: Infection news, an upcoming bonus XP weekend, getting your own Husky Raid maps into matchmaking, MCC modding, HCS DreamHack Dallas, and much more...
HALO INFINITE
BONUS XP WEEKEND INBOUND
Looking to finish up that Battle Pass before Season 4: Infection arrives later this month? Bonus XP has come to Halo Infinite to help you out.
Alongside the HCS Global Invitational at DreamHack Dallas, spanning June 2 through to 10AM on June 5, you can earn bonus XP for completed matches in Halo Infinite.
COMMUNITY DOUBLES MAPS
This week, the Community Doubles playlist arrived in Halo Infinite and we’ve added four new community-made Forge maps for you and your partner. Jump in to test the strength of your teamwork and skill.
The maps added are Daimyo, Arrival, Dead Water, and Last Broadcast.
SPARTAN CHATTER
“Spartan Chatter” is a new avenue we are exploring to provide direct updates to the Halo community through the Discord Stage feature on the official Halo server.
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—including Infection and Career Rank.
MAY UPDATE
On May 10, an update was released to address various community-requested quality-of-life improvements, sandbox tuning updates, and bug fixes, featuring developer commentary to break down each of these elements in further detail.
This blog details updates to modes (such as Super Fiesta’s addition of the campaign’s unique weapon and Equipment variants), sandbox balance tuning (including changes to the Disruptor, as well as Spike and Dynamo Grenades), Forge updates, and more.
INTEL
The Season 3 run of Intel data drops came to a close this week, providing some additional lore and context to certain narrative elements of the season—from Spartan Dinh’s backstory, to Created activity on some of the new maps, and disruptions caused by Iratus.
FRACTURE: FIREWALL & PRECIPICE
The Fracture: FIREWALL event will return one last time on June 13, giving you a final opportunity to earn customization rewards for your CHIMERA armor as part of the free 20-tier Event Pass and claim your FIREWALL Logo Pin as part of Season 3’s Halo Gear Rewards.
Alongside that, the accompanying Precipice Story Shard series will also conclude when the event returns. In the latest chapter, High Auxiliary Sloan has learned of the Assembly—a clandestine cabal of AIs we discovered in data pads back in Halo: Reach. What does this uncovered mystery mean for the future of the Created?
FORGE FEATURES & HUSKY RAID
Wanna get your maps into matchmaking? Well, we’re on the lookout for your best Husky Raid arenas as we look to bring the fan-favorite mode to Halo Infinite.
If you’re feeling up to the creative challenge, you can start your map from scratch, or if you’re looking for some prefab templates you can download and utilize these in the creation of your Husky Raid map.
Once you feel your map is ready to be published, don’t forget to tag it with 343ask-HuskyRaid and be sure to include a screenshot. Have ‘em ready for June 30!
For more information (and a showcase of more amazing community maps), check out our latest issue of Forge Features.
SHOP & ULTIMATE REWARD
Complete all of your challenges this week in order to unlock the Ultimate Reward: the Orchid Cluster visor.
And head over to the Shop to grab the Synthetic Dawn bundle, featuring the following items for your CHIMERA armor:
- Noob Cube stance
- Flayer Crysknife shoulders
- Synthetic Dawn armor effect
- Flayed Nerve armor coating
UNITY
Happy Pride Month, Spartans! LGBTQIA+ Pride Month is a global celebration of self, identity, love, and freedom to be who we are. In the words of Steve Downes, the voice of Master Chief himself: A Spartan's job is to fight for all of humanity. We're all stronger together, celebrating the things that make us unique as the foundation of our community.
Log in to Halo Infinite and MCC at any time during the month of June and you’ll receive the free Unity emblem and nameplate in each respective game.
MCC
In case you missed it, we’ve been spotlighting a bunch of community-made mods for MCC.
We released our first issue back in April, where we looked at the likes of Cursed Halo Again, Halo 3: Combat Evolved, Halo 2 Uncut, Ultimate Forge, and more.
In May, we jumped feet-first into Flood-infected city streets. We unleashed mayhem on Sandtrap, battling against hordes of enemy AI—even the Didact and Gravemind showed up to the party! We saw Halo reimagined in Minecraft, and we fought the most terrifying boss of all... the Halo 3 rat.
HALO ESPORTS
HCS GLOBAL INVITATIONAL AT DREAMHACK DALLAS
With online competition complete in split 1, we have determined who will be participating in the HCS Global Invitational at Dreamhack Dallas from June 2-4.
The top 16 teams (10-NA, 4-EU, 1-MX, 1-ANZ) based on HCS points from all events year to-date will be competing for their slice of the $125K prize pool.
Catch all the action, including your chance to earn new Twitch Drops, by watching Twitch.tv/Halo.
Learn more by visiting halo.gg and by following HCS on Twitter!
For you fine folks who are heading over to HCS DreamHack Dallas this weekend, you’ll be able to get hands-on with some Season 4: Infection content coming to Halo Infinite on June 20.
For those of you at home, tune into the stream to get all the event exclusive news on Season 4. Whether we’re seeing you in chat or at the event itself, we hope you’re ready to go once more unto the breach for an exciting weekend of competitive Halo (featuring the new Ember Hex weapon coating Twitch Drops).
HALO GEAR
PRIDE 2023 - HALO GEAR SHOP
Celebrate and show your support with the new 2023 PRIDE collection in the Xbox Gear Shop!
DR. SQUATCH x HALO
We partnered again with our friends at Dr. Squatch to re-release the legendary Halo Spartan Scrub and introduce the Spartan Shield deodorant. Hopefully, you were able to snag the new Spartan Shield deodorant before they sold out! If not, stay tuned for more availability later this year.
There’s still time to secure the Spartan Scrub and receive a code to unlock the exclusive Smellbringer Armor Coatings.
HALO: EPITAPH
In May, we revealed the cover art for Halo: Epitaph, illustrated by Chris McGrath.
Halo: Epitaph is the next novel by Kelly Gay, which will explore the final fate of the Didact in the wake of his defeat at the end of Halo 4—and his subsequent composition in the Halo: Escalation comic series.
Scheduled for release on January 2, 2024, stay tuned for chapter previews later this year!
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.
RADAR BLIPS
- CANON FODDER – DIDACT'S DELIGHTS: In the May edition of Canon Fodder, we take a closer look at the cover art of Kelly Gay’s upcoming novel, Halo: Epitaph, featuring the return of the Didact, and dive into some other lore goodness.
- COMMUNITY CORNER – MOTOSTREAMS: In our latest Community Corner issue, we're joined by Moto Streams to learn about her history with Halo over the years and how she cultivated one of the most wholesome streaming communities out there!
- WAYPOINT APP SUNSETTING: The Halo Waypoint app for iOS and Android platforms will officially be sunset on June 7, 2023. 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.
THE ARTIST’S CORNER
This month’s piece from The Artist’s Corner is an illustration by David Heidhoff from Halo Mythos, depicting the Desecration of Ulgethon—a first contact encounter that would ignite decades of conflict between the Sangheili and San’Shyuum known as the War of Beginnings.
When the San’Shyuum landed on the desolate world of Ulgethon, a planet that appeared entirely uninhabited, the first pioneer detachment identified a repository of Forerunner relics. Upon arriving at the site, however, they found it inhabited by the Sangheili, and they spoke with their leader—an Arbiter known as Vema ‘Togad, who would come to be known as the Prophet’s Bane.
After learning of their intentions to excavate the ancient relics, ‘Togad slaughtered the San’Shyuum delegation and sent their severed heads back to the Anodyne Spirit as a warning. And so, the War of Beginnings erupted, with the San’Shyuum taking their dreadnought to the skies where it was met by a blockade of Sangheili ships, which is the scene depicted in the artwork below.
You can learn more about this fascinating period of early Covenant history in the Halo 2: Anniversary Terminals, the novel Halo: Broken Circle, and in the 2022 edition of the Halo Encyclopedia.
That brings us to the end of this Community Update.
Get started on those Husky Raid maps, check out some fantastic MCC mods, tune into the HCS stream this weekend, earn some bonus XP in Halo Infinite to round off your Battle Pass, and carve out some time in your calendar for January 2024 to reunite with the Didact in the Domain.
And, of course, prepare yourself for the wrath of Iratus when Season 4 arrives on June 20. The anticipation has been, shall we say... infectious.