Over the years, Halo has enjoyed, or endured, depending on your perspective, all sorts of socially cohesive tools. But back in the day, through the moist mists of time to 2001, Halo wasn’t even online. You see back in 2001, Social Media referred to a dirty old newspaper that four hobos had slept in.

Back in the day, actual humans used to put hundreds of pounds of CRT televisions into cars and drive them across town to somebody’s wood-paneled basement, and blow out the circuit breakers by playing System Link games (imagine the internet as a series of ACTUAL tubes) right there with each other.

Well times have changed. Internets have improved. Sounds are surround. Televisions have transformed from leaden Cyberpunk fishtanks into wafer-thin slivers of ultra high definition perfection. All of which allows us to engage with other humans, but eschew the smells and jockeying for Fritos and position. But there was something to be said for having a crew. For being unified in a single spot by a shared love of the game. So the spirit of those days, odors included, partially inspired our new feature, Companies.

For the launch of Halo 5 and beyond, we wanted to give players a simple way to gather, to share identity, to plan games and to orbit and connect around Halo’s multiplayer experiences.

Companies is that center of gravity, and we’ve created a short video to help explain how it works, and how you can use it to meet, recruit and organize players and matches in a single, custom-created “Company”.

We want you to try the feature – and to incentivize you, you’ll receive a free REQ Pack for either joining or creating a Company (of at least four bros or brosephines). After you open the pack, head over to the Spartan Customization feature - which also just launched today. Customization will let you check out your new cosmetic goodness and select, equip and preview your armor like the selfish, vain peacock you are, but companies are really designed as a communal gathering place – and each Company includes its own private forum for setting up matches, scrimmage, practices, customs and Warzone sessions, as well as providing a clean, well-lit place for planning and strategy. Heck you can even find victims for your next Legendary co-op attempt.

You can check out your Company members’ stats and activity. You can customize what your Company looks like, with custom logos, colors and graphics. You can plan how your team is going to win the Halo World Championship, or simply how to avoid a chinful of Darjeeling. We’ll continue to support, improve and expand Companies, and we hope you have fun with it. And remember, deodorant and pants are optional.