Howdy folks!

It's been a wild ride since we opened the doors to the Halo Insider program and you've BLOWN US AWAY with your interest and excitement! We knew there was a lot of interest out there but it's awesome to say the number of folks opting in has blown away our expectations. So, thank you!



Now the question on everyone's mind is of course WHEN WILL THE FLIGHTING BEGIN? I wanted to give a quick update today but spoiler: you won't find a date in this post.



The team is currently working on a number of fronts - first, work is underway digging into the Insider database to build out the flighting group for the first flight. Here's how this process generally works - first, the game team identifies what content is coming and what their specific needs are for a flight. For example, with many of our MCC flights last year, the primary focus was on testing the updated matchmaking services and underlying technical overhaul, so matchmaking was priority #1 and the audience was built to help hit a required number of concurrent players for a specific window of time to ensure the team got good enough data to validate the test. As the MCC flight goals are established, folks start to dig into the database to find players who opted-in, who have availability, who maybe have specific experience or history with a specific prior title or experience, maybe folks across a specific cross-section of locations, etc... all building up to a target population number that the game team feels is needed to execute a successful flight. Sometimes the team may feel they need additional information about players to segment them into even finer buckets, in this case, some Insiders might get emailed a follow-up survey (don't worry, you're not missing out, nothing has been sent out to anyone yet).



Meanwhile, the game teams are hard at work on the build itself. In this case, it's Halo: Reach that will lead the charge and the 343 publishing team along with our partners at Splash Damage and Ruffian are working through milestones and test passes to get closer to what will become the first flighted build. I don't have visibility into the final plan yet, but we'll certainly share specifics on what's being flighted and what the goals are prior to pushing out builds. A small, private flight then occurs using internal people and some external testers which is basically a "pre-flight." Once that happens successfully, then that becomes the same content and build that rolls into the first Insider flight.



One thing we can confirm is that as of now, we're targeting leading with Halo: Reach flighting on Xbox One. This is simply due to the fact that the console version is a bit further along than the PC version and will be ready to flight sooner. PC, as you can imagine, is a different beast, and we want to ensure that the first flight has adequate PC-specific UI in place, which takes time. We don't expect a particularly big gap in time but we are going to flight on Xbox One first (possibly even another flight on there too, depending on timing) before Halo: Reach PC flighting begins.



All this said, we're tracking towards kicking off the FIRST flight, on Xbox One, in a matter of weeks. So, it's not that far off. Keep in mind that we always want to be as open and transparent as possible but that does sometimes mean we will share what our intent and targets are but they could change. If, for example, a pre-flight doesn't go as planned or new bugs are discovered, the schedule shifts out. This makes it really hard to pin down exact dates for flighting - especially when the deeper we go into the process, we're dependent on every prior flight running smoothly and hitting specific dates and outcomes.



Lastly, part of being open and transparent is also about properly managing expectations and your understanding of how things work. While it's awesome to have such a massive group of people eager and ready to jump in and help us flight, it's important to remember that not everyone will get into every flight. In fact, we can say with certainty that the majority of Halo Insiders will NOT get into the first flight, or maybe even the second or third.



This doesn't mean you're less worthy than anyone else or that you're not going to get into future flights. It does mean that we will absolutely have people waiting "on the bench" who are super eager to flight but don't get in when they want. We know this will be disappointing to many and we do value your time and interest and hope you will stay interested and answer the call when the time comes. In general, each flight will start small, with a subset of the Insider opt-in group (determined by the types of segmentation factors noted up above) and then grow over time. So, flight #1 will be a smaller subset, flight #2 will include more people, etc.. until we get to a point in time where eventually we want to provide an opportunity for everyone who's interested and eligible to participate - but that will take time.



We start small and grow over time primarily to ensure that the game experience is as positive as possible and can scale accordingly and ensure that we're able to receive and process all the data and feedback that comes at greater and greater volumes of participation.



We're eager and excited to get the first flight out and officially start on this journey together. We're blown away by your outpouring of support and look forward to partnering to bring Halo: Reach to MCC and bring all of these great experiences to PC in the right way. Thank you for opting in and for your patience - we'll have more to share soon!