Entrenched Endeavors
Welcome back, Spartans!
Season 2 of Halo Infinite has landed with a new event, the first season of the Halo television series has come to an end, HCS Kansas City reached an explosive conclusion, and there’s a whole lot more to recap from the last month—it's time for a Community Update.
HALO INFINITE
Season 2 of Halo Infinite, titled “Lone Wolves,” dropped out of slipspace at the start of this month and brought with it a suite of new content—new story elements, new armor cores, new maps and modes, and more.
FRACTURE: ENTRENCHED
The latest among these offerings is Fracture: Entrenched, our second free “Fracture” event in Halo Infinite which looks at an alternate dieselpunk-themed Halo universe where Earth had been ruined by superscience aether-bombs and alchemically-enhanced soldiers are the last line of defense against the rad-poisoned mutant zealots of the Covenant.
The Entrenched event centers around the Land Grab playlist, a new objective-based arena mode where both teams fight for control over three neutral zones. Players score one point for each successful capture and will trigger intermission after the successful capture of all three zones. After intermission, new neutral zones become available for capture. The first team to score 11 points wins.
Log into Halo Infinite during the first week of this event to acquire the Entrenched Spartan backdrop...
...and then get to work on that free, 30-tier event pass featuring unique dieselpunk-themed cosmetics by completing event challenges. Each week of Entrenched, you can earn up to 10 tiers of rewards.
Complete all of your weekly challenges to unlock the Amber Yesterday Visor for the EAGLESTRIKE Armor Core.
The shopfront is also themed for Fracture: Entrenched, and you can expect to find additional offerings there throughout the week. Be sure to grab the Legacy of War FX set, which you can purchase in-game Shop or on Waypoint!
The Entrenched event will return for a total of six times in Season 2. For the five recurrences yet to come in the months ahead, we’re levelling up Fractures with a five-part tie-in story set in the Entrenched universe which we’re calling Story Shards, and it’s directed by the community—by you!
LONE WOLVES
Lone Wolves, Season 2 of Halo Infinite, launched May 3 and brought fresh content including new maps, modes, story elements, an all-new Premium Battle Pass that never expires, and more.
Season 2 also brought with it a continuation of the story that began in the Avery J. Johnson Academy with Spartan Commander Agryna—and with your own Spartan. This ongoing, multi-season story kicked off with the Interference event, which featured a 10-tier event pass based around event challenges for the new mode Last Spartan Standing.
Spartans Hieu Dinh and Sigrid Eklund arrived at the Academy in a captured Phantom after a mission to the Banished shipyards on Camber led to the discovery of something remarkable: Iratus, a Banished AI—the first of its kind. While Dinh managed to trap the AI, Iratus has compromised his neural matrix and armor systems, so it’s up to us to outsmart this threat and save Dinh’s life.
Head over to the Halo Waypoint Seasonal Hub to learn more about this new story—catch up on what’s happened so far, discover more about Spartans Dinh and Eklund, and get acquainted with your new enemy.
And to stay looped-in about additional narrative breadcrumbs rolling out this season, be sure to check out the new INTEL section, where you’ll find excerpts of conversations and communiques providing some background lore for the goings-on in the seasonal story.
The next narrative event, Alpha Pack, which will feature a new 10-tier event pass, will be active July 19 to August 1.
FEEDBACK & UPDATES
As ever, we greatly value the feedback that the community provides to ensure that we can make Halo Infinite the best game it can be. When Season 2 launched, it brought with it some changes to map traversal concerning skill jumps, campaign speedrunning, and players encountered issues with “weapon jamming.”
An update deployed on May 25 to address many of these issues, reverting previous skill jumps, bringing back the tank gun in campaign, and more.
NAMEPLATES
In recognition of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month, you can acquire nameplates for both by logging into Halo Infinite and Halo: The Master Chief Collection at any point during the month of May.
HALO THE SERIES
Season 1 of the Halo television series has come to its climactic conclusion!
We’ve been keeping track of the series every step of the way through our weekly Silver Debrief issues, which have recapped and broken down the events of each episode, as well as highlighted the Declassified after-show, Dr. Halsey’s computer (an official website full of Silver Timeline lore), and various community creations.
For fans living outside the countries in which Paramount+ initially launched, the streaming service will be available in the UK and Ireland on June 22.
Paramount plans to add more territories over the course of this year, stay turned for more news on that front!
And on that note: Paramount + invites you to attend the very first UK screening of the Halo television series at this year’s MCM at ExCel London. Report in at 0900 hours to Paramount+'s operating base stand located in Hall 1 to receive your very own personalized UNSC ID card, giving you exclusive access to the screening room and experiential photo opportunities.
And don't forget that we’ve added some limited time tie-in content to Halo Infinite in the form of various weapon charms and emblems.
Simply log into the game and you'll be rewarded with the following:
- Together We Rise emblem
- Sword of Mercy emblem
- Artifact (AKA Keystone) emblem
- Artifact (AKA Keystone) weapon charm
- Silver Team weapon charm
- Silver Team emblem
Next stop, Season 2!
MCC
THE THINKING DEAD UNLEASHED
“The Gravemind’s most fervent wish is for a galaxy united in unlife, where it can look on the stars through every sentient being’s eyes and raise a chorus to everlasting victory through their tortured and twisted throats. ODST forces who train to contain and eliminate the Flood have passed their first trials, but the parasite is always adapting, learning, and massing in hidden hives. To prepare for the inevitable return of the thinking dead, the UNSC has ordered an update of the War Games training simulations and a new round of containment exercises.”
In April, we released an update for MCC which brought the Flood to Halo 3: ODST’s fan-favorite Firefight mode. Earlier this month, we dropped a balance patch which you can check out here!
Highlights include:
- Increased amount of Flood enemies in each wave—increase varies for each map but equates to roughly 20% more Flood enemies.
- Various Flood waves have been tuned to make the Combat Forms more common relative to the Carrier and Pure Forms.
- A new Stealth Combat Brute enemy has been added to various waves. This enemy has Active Camo and light shields. Any Brute Stalker infected by the Flood will transform into this character as well.
MCC SERVER INCIDENT SUMMARY
“So, who spilled coffee on the MCC servers on Friday 04/01?”
Halo Publishing Team engineer Dana Jerpbak, who responded to a recent incident which affected matchmaking and custom games browser in the MCC, has delivered an extensive breakdown of the server incident, diving into the details of what happened and how the team moved to fix it.
HALO ESPORTS
HCS MAJOR KANSAS CITY 2022 RECAP:
Kansas City, MO was the third stop of the HCS Halo Infinite program with teams from all supported regions competing in the final event of Split 1.
This highly anticipated event saw 135 teams register and vie for the largest share of the $350K prize pool boosted by $100K by in-game crowdfunding. Overall, the event saw more than 2600 players and spectators attend the 3-day event, which also happened to be the first esports tournament in the city.
Fans in the community expected CLOUD9 to continue their season dominance, but in the end, it was SENTINELS that took the top spot with a clean 4-0 sweep in the Grand Finals.
RETURN OF FACEIT ONLINE TOURNAMENTS
With the program officially in Split 2 and the back half of the inaugural season, players have a lot to play for over the next few weeks with online tournaments across all regions hosted by FACEIT. Jump in with your team of 4 and challenge for the top spot in the weekly HCS FACEIT Pro Series.
Don’t have a team? Jump into the official FACEIT Halo Discord to connect with groups looking for that last spartan, or two, ahead of the next event.
UPCOMING REGIONAL EVENTS
The competitive community in Europe and Mexico each have their own LAN events to look forward to this July! From July 1-3, Dreamhack will be hosting the HCS EU Regional Finals in Valencia, whereas Gaming Partners will be doing the same at the HCS MX Regional Finals in Mexico City. General Admission and Teams Passes are both on sale. Visit the links to learn more.
*MX Team Passes on sale on MAY 23.
SEASON 2 PARTNERED TEAM BUNDLES
In case you missed it, as part of the season 2 update, HCS announced the availability of brand-new cosmetic items for each of the 9 partnered teams.
Each item in the bundle was designed by the partnered team which includes coatings for the AR, sidekick, warthog (and variants), and a weapon charm. All items are available now in the in-game store or on Halo Waypoint.
RADAR BLIPS
- WE'RE HIRING: Come join us on this great journey to build the future of the Halo franchise—check out our available roles and apply!
- CANON FODDER: Our latest issue dives into the story and lore of Halo Infinite Season 2. Explore the history of the new map Breaker and the term “lone wolf,” discover the character bios and intel of the seasonal story hub, and ponder the existential poetry of the dust and echoes of Cortana imbued within Zeta Halo.
THE ARTIST’S CORNER
This month’s piece for the Artist’s Corner is a favorite scene of mine from Halo Mythos, depicting a scene from Greg Bear’s Halo: Cryptum, the first book of the incomparably brilliant Forerunner Saga—the depths of which have only continued to grow over the last eleven years.
Here, we see Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting, a young Manipular, guided by Chakas and Peter Dinkl—I mean Riser, to Djamonkin Crater on Earth.
Where Bornstellar sought the greatest treasure of all, the mythical Organon, which was said to be able to reactivate all Precursor structures from their inert state across the galaxy, he was instead guided to the warrior keep of an exiled Forerunner known as the Didact.
These events had been set into motion by the Librarian as the time of the Forerunners drew to a close, the final pieces put into place as an ancient game of vengeance would lead to the galaxy itself being silenced by a weapon that Bornstellar would himself go on to ignite. Halo.
Oh, and here’s a fun fact! That construct on the right? Yep, that’s part of a war sphinx—will send 800 Microsoft Points to whoever has noticed that before!
Thank you all for joining us for another Community Update.
Whether you’re knee-deep in the trenches of Land Grab, working your way through that Entrenched event pass, or jumping feet first into the simulated blightlands against the Flood, be well and enjoy Halo!