This week, we have a piece of Fan Fiction inspired by Joe Staten’s recent novella, ‘Halo: Shadow of Intent’. Grizzlei takes the perspective of Tul ‘Juran shortly before the events of ‘Shadow of Intent’ in a journal-like format. The piece does contain some minor spoilers for its source material, but is a short bit of text that sheds light on what might have been going through Tul’s mind within, and before, the events of Joe Staten’s novella. Take the few short minutes to give it a read when you can!(MacGyver10 18:49:33 UTC)

For those Forgers out there worried about hitting the limit, looks like 343 has upped it quite a bit for you!

We've just deployed an update to increase the amount of Halo 5 Map & Game Variants that you can save from 40 each to 100 each. Forge on!

— Halo (@Halo) January 7, 2016

(MacGyver10 21:11:17 UTC)

SexyMasterChief has put together a great ‘Duck Hunt’ map in Halo 5’s Forge with great use of scripted, moving parts. Go check out the video, then follow SexyMasterChief on Xbox to download this custom creation. (MacGyver10 20:58:09 UTC)

HugoCornellier of Reddit waded through the last month’s Halo 5 Forge creations and pieced together a pretty great list of previous maps from old Halo games in Halo 5’s new map-maker. (Thanks funkmon!)(MacGyver10 20:49:31 UTC)

munky-058 dropped a link to the Achievement Hunter crew’s top 5 games of 2015. Go listen to them rail on their own picks as they semi-explain why they are a top their favorites of last year (obviously, Halo 5 is in there somewhere!).(MacGyver10 20:44:10 UTC)

Xmoosev3 has had some fun in Warzone before, and he’s back with more garage fun. Check out the videos in his post where he plays a little chicken with the vehicles on the other side of a shield door!(MacGyver10 17:00:20 UTC)

Though we might have had an early preview, the FUD team has updated a piece on their site for the breakup of the Covenant called ‘Glimmer of a Dying Star’. Thanks to the reccomendation of one of their Community Evolved backers, they discuss the reasons for the breakup of the Covenant, and the various ways it has attempted to reform following the events of 2552. (MacGyver10 16:57:03 UTC)

Rockslider stopped by with some interesting, freaky elite behavior in the hangar after doing the Maw banshee snatch trick. He posted a few different ways to watch it in our forum!(MacGyver10 16:54:11 UTC)

Not only is the SPV3 crew remastering and reimagining the gameplay and graphic of Halo: CE, they are also going through and remastering all the music! Check out their remastered ‘Under The Cover of Night’ while watching some gameplay. (Thanks Masterz1337!)(MacGyver10 16:50:19 UTC)

The Halo Archive let us know of their ‘Shadow of Intent’ breakdown over the Christmas break, and unfortunately I’m just now getting to posting it. You can read their reflection on Joe Staten’s return to Halo, how they think it fits into the expanded universe and also what they feel would make it into such a great Broadway musical! Visit the Halo Archive for this and other great story pieces!(MacGyver10 16:44:56 UTC)

Gamesradar put up a list of ‘easy’ updates they feel would help take Halo 5 from good to great. Some of them I thought were great ideas (plenty there for you Warzone boss naysayers), and others seemed trivial to me. Go check it out and see what you think!(MacGyver10 16:42:33 UTC)

General Vagueness posted that Awesome Games Done Quick will be speedrunning Halo 4 this Thursday around 9:00a EST. In the past, AGDQ has raised large sums of money for great charities and this year they’re focusing on the Prevent Cancer Foundation that’s celebrating their 30th anniversary as an organization. Check out their schedule for more information on all the games they’ll be running this week!(MacGyver10 15:28:55 UTC)

With Halo 5’s Forge having been out for a couple weeks now, the community is just beginning to see some amazing maps come out (now if only we had those gametypes!). Some great places to check out new user-submitted maps are Forge Channel and Forge Hub among many others. If you have your own maps you’d like to play test, check out the Customs Night some of our forumgoers hold every Friday and they might be able to help you out!(MacGyver10 23:19:38 UTC)

cheapLEY brought the news to our forum that Joe Staten, the writer for much of the Halo games while with Bungie, has a new gig leading the writing for Microsoft’s upcoming new game, ‘ReCore’. (MacGyver10 23:15:51 UTC)

I had no idea what to expect at first, but after the first minute of Timgie’s ‘Rewind Paradise (A Halo 3 HMV)’ I was hooked! Timgie has done one of these for Reach before, so this is a kind of prequel/sequel he’s been working off and on for a couple years. Make sure you stop by our forum and let him know your thoughts on the video, and hopefully we’ll see more work from him before another two to four years!(MacGyver10 22:50:52 UTC)

While it’s the opening cinematic for Halo 5, you can get an idea for the new series, Halo: Believers, by checking out the voiceover they added to it. Hopefully we’ll see the meaty content of the series soon too!(via IESUProductions)(MacGyver10 22:42:42 UTC)

Polygon posted an opinion piece this week on why Halo 5 is the best multiplayer Halo game in years. You can give it a read on their site, but then be sure to check out cheapLEY’s post in our forum for some opinionated discussion. (MacGyver10 22:28:50 UTC)