There and Back Again - A ske7ch's Tale

Hey folks, wow it feels like an eternity since the last time I was writing words for a community update! With Grim at the helm waxing poetic like he does so well I’ve kind of been relegated to editor (and to be honest I’ve had all sorts of other stuff going on so hooray for teamwork!). In any case, Grim thought it’d be cool for me to drop in and share a few thoughts on my recent E3 adventures now that I’m finally caught up on sleep and my liver has (mostly) recovered.

That was some kind of crazy week, eh? This was the first time returning to E3 in a few years so I was personally super excited to get the opportunity to go back – even though it was going to be an odd show for Halo and 343 and I fully expected a lot of disappointed fans at the lack of new hotness in the keynote. That opening Xbox One X hype video that showed Master Chief’s helmet was pretty awesome though!

Even when it’s not a banner year for Halo, E3 holds a special place in my heart. Ever since I was a gaming-obsessed teen I remember rushing to the store to pickup the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly to read all about the new games that were shown at E3 (shout out to "Sushi X"!). See, back then there really weren’t a lot of options when it came to following game news and there certainly weren’t any fancy 4K streams so we just had to wait and wonder until we could flip through pages of glorious screenshots and editor insights. I always dreamt of someday getting a job in gaming and going to E3 in person and after a long, winding road I eventually found myself at my first ever E3 as part of Bungie’s first Halo 2 delegation ("Space Pickle" anyone?).

I’ve had my share of crazy huge shows (Halo 2 theater, Halo 3’s Chinese Theater reveal for example) and some smaller shows (the year ODST was cut from the keynote last minute comes to mind) but I’ve loved E3 each and every year. It’s usually a tremendous amount of work – both at the studio leading up to a big show and the grueling schedules of the week itself – but there’s no place I’d rather be! For me E3 has always been the ultimate celebration of my favorite hobby, industry, entertainment medium and a chance to reunite with friends and colleagues I’d not see otherwise.

So this year’s E3 was still awesome and special to me, personally, even though the Halo community at large had a slightly different take. I get it though, really, we’re all passionate about Halo (right or I assume you wouldn’t be here reading this?) and we want to root for the franchise we love and have always associated with Xbox platforms and keynotes. Don’t worry, Halo will have its grand moments again for sure, but it’s actually kind of nice to have a breather and let the team stay heads down working on what’s next that’ll be ready when it’s ready.

I didn’t get to attend the keynote itself this year since seating is always super tight and since Halo had no presence there was no real justification to be in the audience. Instead, my day kicked off across town at the venue that would host a special Xbox FanFest later in the day. I gotta say it was super awesome of Xbox to throw this great fan-centric event and invite 500 lucky fans to be their VIP guests for the entire week. They were bussed over from the keynote to a private party where they had unlimited Mt. Dew, Doritos, and other treats while grooving to a DJ, playing some games (including Halo: CE on original Xbox consoles) and mingling with Xbox staff. Bravo joined me on stage to ‘cast’ two matches of Super Fiesta that were a lot of fun – it’s not often I’m in a position to brag but my team won in dominant fashion in both games. The audience was led to believe that only the winners would be receiving prizes but actually, it turned out that in true Oprah-like fashion, EVERYONE GETS A PRIZE! The fans were loaded up with swag from partners and left a little woozy from overindulgence of sugar, snacks and freebies. I also want to give a shout out to the 405th who showed up in full force and full costume to help make this event extra special for fans!

Monday was the Showcase event at the USC Galen center which was pretty awesome – they basically cleared out the floor area from the prior day’s keynote and setup a bunch of hands-on stations for all of the key Xbox titles. This is where Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare made its debut as we had six stations with the new Terminus Firefight mode running in glorious 4K on some tricked out gaming PCs. Two waves of media passed through during the day and later in the afternoon Kiki, Barry (the EP on the Halo Wars team) and myself joined Major Nelson on the Xbox E3 Daily Show to officially reveal the new Awakening the Nightmare trailer and speak briefly about the upcoming expansion.

Later at night those same lucky 500 fans from Sunday were invited back to have the whole venue to themselves for a bona fide party. Again, huge kudos to the Xbox team for going above and beyond in taking care of these fans! It was a great time to meet great folks and it was especially awesome seeing the likes of Phil Spencer and other senior Xbox folks mingling with fans for nearly four straight hours. An entourage of 343 folks also rolled through over the course of the event and we all enjoyed the chance to talk with some very passionate fans.

The expo itself finally kicked off on Tuesday when, for the first time, the doors were opened to the gaming masses as 15,000+ fans were given a chance to buy a ticket and crash the once-exclusive E3 party. And boy did they. The mob to get in wrapped around the block and it was a real Herculean task just to fight through the sea of bodies to get to the booth and report for my shift. The show was crazy packed. It become apparent that the traditional show and booth layout might not have been particularly well suited to 15,000 extra attendees. Thankfully(?) I was more or less stuck in the Xbox booth in one spot so I didn’t have to fight through crowds too much.

The booth was jam packed and abuzz with energy the whole time, which was great, and despite the claustrophobic and crammed conditions did bring a good boost of excitement that has been lacking at E3 over recent years. We had six stations of Terminus Firefight playable on the floor with a steady line of players all day every day. As the show went on it was great seeing some of the same fans come through over and over to replay the demo. As the days went by we were wondering – what is the highest possible score someone could theoretically get in this 5-round fixed demo? At first the bar was set around 300K which proved to be a comfortable ceiling on day one. However, by Thursday a few hardcore fans had blown us away with a brand new record of 459,000 points! This was significantly higher than even the HW2 team had been able to do in their occasional hands-on sessions.

Wednesday afternoon Max (HW2 Design Director), Greg (HW2 Senior Producer), and I joined Major Nelson for another Xbox E3 Daily Show segment to play through a game of Terminus Firefight. Greg was off camera most of the time but had the critical job of delivering an exciting play through and while I think he was a little nervous, he pulled it off like a champ (especially once I reminded him to actually spend his Leader Powers). To wrap things up I was put on the spot to pick a fan out of the audience to give away a replica Plasma Rifle signed by the 343 team. Thankfully, I spotted a true fan right in the front sporting an ODST shirt and Halo hat that turned out to be none other than Dust Storm! You can check out the video of that entire segment right HERE.

Despite the sentiment storm erupting across social and in forums the mood on the floor in the booth was pretty great and it was really nice to talk and play with fans – old and new alike. We had many folks who were getting their first ever hands-on with Halo Wars 2 and it was awesome to see them having fun and quickly picking up the controls. Likewise, it was great to see fans coming back repeatedly because they enjoyed the mode so much and became obsessed with setting a new high score. Creative Assembly and the 343 team worked hard to get everything ready for the show and it’s always ultimately worth it when it comes together well and players are having a good time. Shout out to everyone here and back at CA that worked hard to make it all possible! (and shout out to HW2 Tech Director Isaac Bender for providing some of the great photos above!)

On behalf of the team, thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth and to all the great folks I had a chance to meet and speak with over the course of the week! Next stop: RTX! Back to you, Grim!