Thanks, Grim! Now before we change clips and set our sights on Halo 5, I did want to remind everyone to mark your calendars and plan to join us for Halo Wars 2 Live next Thursday, Feb. 16, at 4PM PST. Tune in to Twitch.tv/Halo or Facebook and join the 343 team as we celebrate Halo Wars 2 with behind the scenes special features, special guests, gameplay, giveaways and more!

Halo 5 Classic Helmet REQ Pack

Today’s the day many Spartans have been waiting for – at long last nine glorious, classic and iconic helmets are available in Halo 5. The Classic Helmet REQ Pack includes all 9 helmets and can be purchased for 150K RP or for $9.99.

By now you probably know that we’ve tapped some friends in the community to help us build up hype and promote this latest REQ pack. To commemorate today’s release, Riley Hastings (@HastingsEditing) has been working with us behind the scenes to create a sweet hype montage. Check it out!

For the past 9 days, RECEPTOR17 has been lighting up Twitter with a daily barrage of glorious, eye-melting screenshots to help us get the helmet hype cranked up to 11. A huge shout out to him for some truly great screenshots and his help launching the Classic Helmet REQ Pack. You can see his full portfolio a little further below in our Community Spotlight.

Timmy Time!

The community has been abuzz with whale tales since the Timmy helmet mysteriously began appearing in player inventories last week. Many eager fans have been trying hard to crack the code and solve the mystery of how one receives this cetacean headwear and today we’re happy to reveal the requirements.

The Timmy helmet has been granted to all players who’ve played at least 50 hours of custom games in Halo 5. From now through March 31st, we’ll be running a query on a weekly basis and granting the Timmy helmet to players who have hit the 50 hour mark. Please note that we plan to run this process once a week (and not necessarily a fixed day of the week) so you won’t immediately receive Timmy the instant you reach 50 hours played.

So, buckle in and start playing those custom games! A magical helmet, and a whale of a good time, awaits.

WARZONE MYTHIC FIREFIGHT WEEKEND

This weekend’s Mythic Firefight playlist will take you and your Fireteam to Temple to battle against the most difficult foes Halo 5 has to offer. You know the drill – round up your fellow Spartans, stock up on REQs and venture forth for glory.

Warzone Warnings

Recently it has come to our attention that players are working together to manipulate Halo 5’s matchmaking system to get 12 friends into a single Warzone team to wreak havoc on their opponents. In nearly every case, the intent is clearly malicious as these phantom 12-man Fireteams are farming their opponents and generally creating a bad experience for other players.

Please note that attempting to manipulate Halo 5’s matchmaking and bypass party-size restrictions will result in a cool-down ban being applied to your account. The 343 team will be monitoring this situation closely so please play by the rules.

Arena Update

Online players will notice a few changes afoot in the Arena this week (actually these changes happened before we were able to publish this update, our apologies for catching players off guard!). The Halo 5 sustain team is working on more frequent, regular updates to matchmaking including consolidating some of the existing playlists to help maintain a positive player experience. While it would be great, in theory, to have tons of playlists spanning every possible niche of gameplay, the reality is some playlists just don’t have a consistent enough population to support a good matchmaking experience.

With this in mind, the team is looking closely at usage and will be doing a bit of optimization beginning this week. Triple Team and Shotty Snipers are being removed from matchmaking (for now) in part to make way for a new rotational playlists. We know there are players who enjoy the gameplay these two playlists offer but overall each of these hoppers attracts a tiny fraction of the online population and as a result can’t really sustain a permanent position in matchmaking.

A key focus for the team is developing rotational playlists that can roll into matchmaking on a regular cadence to keep the experience fresh and interesting while also allowing an opportunity to try out new ideas and explore oft-requested additions from the community (*cough* classic throwback *cough*). The first rotational Social playlist to get added is Assault, which hasn’t been featured as a standalone offering in quite some time. While it will essentially mirror the last version of Assault, one key change is upping the player count to 5v5 and of course the maps in the hopper will all reflect the most recent seasonal refresh.

Going forward the team will be building out a variety of rotational offerings in addition to looking for opportunities to inject fresh content into existing playlists. These decisions will be driven by usage data in addition to fan feedback and generally monitoring what the community is actively building in Forge and playing in custom games. Ultimately, we hope to be able to share a calendar of upcoming rotational events to help the community plan and rally their Fireteams (similar to how Warlords was handled). Speaking of calendar, we can let you know that a special Team Doubles refresh is planned to coincide with Valentine's Day next week. A few 343 squads will be pairing up and rolling through the playlist next Tuesday afternoon and we’d love for you to join us. Stay tuned for more details!

Halo World Championships 2017

In case you missed it, there were two big items of news this week on the competitive Halo front. First, final details were announced for next weekend’s HaloWC 2017 London Qualifier. The next stop on the HaloWC tour will bring players and fans to the hallowed grounds of The Great Hall in Wembley Stadium. With $25,000 and two invitations to the Halo World Championship Finals on the line, the stakes and competition will be fierce when the action kicks off on Feb. 17. Team and Spectator tickets are on sale now. Stay tuned to Halowaypoint for an event preview blog coming soon!

Second, details for the Halo World Championship 2017 Finals have also been released! This epic showdown is set to take place March 24-26 at the ESL America Campus in Burbank, CA. Tickets went on sale on Feb. 7 and are going fast! We hope you’re able to join us either in person or virtually on our Twitch stream.

343 Team Spotlight

This week’s spotlight shines bright on the Halowaypoint team and software developer Simon Gordon who has been hard at work bringing the Halo Wars 2 companion experience to life on the web. Be sure to check out yesterday's "Waypoint & Halo App Features" blog for a preview of what's to come!

Hey Simon, welcome to the Team Spotlight! To kick things off, can you tell us a little about yourself? What’s your current role with 343?



Simon Gordon: I am a software developer on HaloWaypoint.com. My main focus has generally been to work with other internal teams on showing stats and delivering an out-of-game companion experience for the Halo games.

How long have you been with the team? What prompted you to join 343?

SG: I have been on the 343 team for three and a half years. My wife and I moved to Seattle and while I was looking for a job I heard about a job positing at 343 for a web developer. Having just worked on developing a website, I figured it was a natural fit.

What’s your background prior to joining 343?

SG: I earned a Bachler of Science in Computer Science at Washington State University. I had an internship while at college and several years of job experience before applying for the job at 343.

Did you always aspire to do be a software engineer in the gaming industry? If not, how’d you make the jump?

SG: Actually no. My father was a software engineer in the gaming industry and warned me of getting involved with it as it can lead to very long hours. However, when the 343 job came up it was too good to pass up.

What’s a typical day entail for you?

SG: My typical day changes quite a lot depending on the season. Right now, as we are getting close to shipping the Halo Wars 2 features on HaloWaypoint and the Halo App, it involves a lot of writing, debugging and testing code. A lot of that testing means playing the game and making sure the stats show up correctly on HaloWaypoint.

What are some of the biggest challenges associated with being a web and app developer inside a game development studio?

SG: The majority of the studio’s focus is on the game itself and this can create challenges as we have to prioritize the most compelling features for the web and app while being mindful of available resources and game team dependencies.

For Halo Wars 2 we decided to allow users to create and edit their Blitz decks on the web. However, in doing so we had to ensure that editing your deck on the web would not result in any scenario that would negatively affect the game. Halo Wars 2, just like Halo 5, creates the card images dynamically. They are not simple images as you see on the web. We worked with the development team to figure out how the game dynamically creates these images and then we created a service that mimics that behavior to create each card and then save off an image we can display on web.

Can you describe the process of how you and your team interact with the game development teams to build complimentary experiences for fans outside of the core game?

SG: During the development of Halo 5 we had a meeting with several people on the game design team and they described their design for the Halo 5 Requisitions System. They suggested that a complimentary experience on the web where one could buy and open REQ Packs as well as view their inventory would be very beneficial for our fans. Our team then got to work building that system.

During the development of Halo Wars 2 we met we several people on the game team to discuss the possibility of getting a deck editor on the web and possibly the Halo app. After several discussions with everyone involved we decided that a deck editor on the Halo app wasn’t particularly compelling since users will most likely have Halo Wars 2 already installed on the same device they’d use to access the app. Since they could use the game itself to edit their decks, building out this feature in the app didn’t really add to the experience in a meaningful way so we decided to focus on developing a more compelling stats package for the Halo app instead.

As we were building the complimentary deck editing experience on Waypoint we decided that to fully support the feature, players should be able to create and edit decks on the site in addition to viewing cards, buying card packs and opening packs. We worked with the services team to integrate with their systems for deck editing as well as the game team to fully understand and support their scenarios. I hope all of our fans will really enjoy the work and effort we put in to create the Blitz Deck editing feature on Waypoint for Halo Wars 2.

When it comes to designing features for the web and app, where do you go for inspiration? How does fan feedback come into play?

SG: We try to determine what fans would want to do and what features would be the most helpful to our fans in doing the things they already do or helping them do it in a better way. Our entire team plays our games as well so we also have a sense of what we, as players, would like to get out of a Halo web or app companion experience. We always look at fan feedback to see what features they want on each platform and prioritize accordingly.

How does development for a game website or app differ from the engineering work done on the game itself?

SG: It actually differs quite significantly. The game focuses most prominently on 3D rendering while 2D interactions, such as the main menu, are the exception. Web and app development is mostly 2D and in the rare occasion 3D. This can cause unique challenges when trying to display something that’s in-game on the web and app.

A good example of this is displaying a player’s Spartan on Halowaypoint. The game team hadn’t planned on us showing the player’s Spartan on the web and with the customization of the Spartan being a big part of Halo games, especially in Halo 5 with the REQ System, we wanted to be able to show the player’s unique Spartan on Halowaypoint. I worked with the lead character artist on figuring out how they made the Spartan models and how the game rendered them. I figured out how to take their process and branch off it to create models that could be rendered on the web and our team figured out how to get them to render on Waypoint to look as close as possible to what they look like in-game.

You’re currently working on building out the Halo Wars 2 experience for fans on Waypoint and the Halo App. Are there any features you’re particularly excited about?

SG: I am excited that we will be able to deliver game history and a PGCR on both Waypoint and the Halo App. This is a great example of how we can extend and enhance the game. There are some features coming to PGCR that I am personally really excited for being a competitive RTS player myself. I hope our fans will love them as much as I do and that they enhance the competitive scene for Halo Wars 2.

Do you have a favorite Halo game and/or mode?

SG: My favorite Halo game is Halo 2 but my favorite game mode has to be Halo: Combat Evolved CTF on Blood Gulch

Fans always ask us how they can get a job in the industry. Any advice for aspiring software engineers? What kind of special training or experience did it take to get where you are today?

SG: I would highly recommend a Computer Science degree from any accredited university for anyone looking to become a software engineer in any field. If you are looking to become a game developer I would highly recommend making and releasing a mobile game. The mobile gaming scene is really a microcosm for “triple A” game development and through building and releasing your own mobile game you’ll get to learn about all aspects of developing a game from initial concept to release and even sustaining a released game.

Any final thoughts or parting words for our community?

SG: During my Summers while I was in high school I would lug my 20-inch CRT TV and original Xbox to my neighbor’s house where we would invite over all the kids in the neighborhood to play Halo. I have played every Halo game and beat all of the numbered Halo games (Halo 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5) on Legendary.

Thanks Simon! While I personally think you should give Halo: Reach a play-through, it’s easy to see that your longstanding history and passion for Halo has inspired great work expanding the game experiences onto new platforms. I’m looking forward to checking out the new Halo Wars 2 Waypoint and Halo App features first-hand when the game launches next week!

Now to kick it over to Uny for this week’s Community Spotlight and another spectacular Play of the Week!

This week, the Community Spotlight shines on the two Classic Helmet REQ Pack content creators, Hastings and Receptor 17. Hastings, a Halo montage editor, produced the Classic Helmet REQ Pack Trailer that you watched this morning (and above). Receptor 17 took all of the screenshots that you saw during the nine days leading up to today’s release. Together, these two helped us give these helmets the feature that they deserve. Let’s take one more look at what these creative community members were able to do!

You should check out more of their work, because they are both so good at what they do. Following Hastings on Twitter and subscribing to his YouTube channel would allow you to see his montages at the exact moment that they are released. And, of course, following Receptor 17 on Twitter and Xbox Live to see his screenshots is definitely a wise choice as well. Please send them your thanks, because they put a lot of work in this announcement over the past few weeks, and we couldn’t be happier with the results!

Play of the Week

We know that some marines think that a tank beats everything, but Warhead2220 goes pretty far to prove that Spartans beat tanks… and pretty much everything else.

[tweet]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Spartan. Beats. Everything.<a href="https://twitter.com/Unyshek">@Unyshek</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ske7ch">@ske7ch</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/GrimBrotherOne">@GrimBrotherOne</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Greenskull">@Greenskull</a> <a href="https://t.co/4Ny1WeCuIe">pic.twitter.com/4Ny1WeCuIe</a></p>— Warhead2220 (@Warhead2220) <a href="https://twitter.com/Warhead2220/status/826971351852445696">February 2, 2017</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/tweet]

Thanks, Uny! And with that our ammo is spent, our targets in ruin and our update is concluded. Thanks for joining us and we hope you enjoy rocking some classic Helmets in Halo 5, plant many bombs in the Assault playlist and prepare your body for next week's Halo Wars 2 Live and early access game launch!

Before we go, we want to give a special shout-out to our own GrimBrother One who is celebrating a birthday today!

Have a great weekend!

-ske7ch