It’s 2:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Friday, May 16. After about an hour of sleep, my alarm goes off, but for the first time in weeks, and possibly months, I don’t hit the snooze button. Instead, I jump out of bed, throw a hoodie on, grab my backpack and keys, and I’m out the door. After a quick, foggy-eyed drive down the road, I swipe my badge at the door, and find a (mostly empty) studio, with a few fellow members of the Community team already at their desks. It was time to announce the title of the next installment in the legendary saga of the Master Chief, Halo 5: Guardians.

Last week’s announcement was, as Frankie said, a big weight off of our shoulders. For nearly a year, you’ve been wanting to know more about the future of Halo on Xbox One, and being able to finally announce this title, along with releasing some visuals, was exciting to say the least. Seeing the immediate response, analysis of the visuals and name itself, as well as all of the new discussions that emerged was overwhelming. We were thrilled to join in on the long-awaited excitement and conversation for the first time since last year. We’ll be able (and can’t wait) to share details about what’s coming for the Halo franchise in 2014 in just a few short weeks at E3. 

Last week, we released some exclusive Halo 5: Guardians wallpapers (you can snag ‘em here), and today, due to requests from you, the community, we prepared wallpapers of Friday’s concept art from our very own Sparth. Download below, and beautify your screens.

Desktop – 1024×768, 1280×720, 1920×1080

 Windows Phone – Surface – Android – Android Tablet – iPhone 5 – iPad – iPad Mini – iPad 2

Next up, we’ve got some Matchmaking goodies as well as community creations. Let’s dig in!

Every other Monday, we feature a community member who does one or more of the following things: routinely goes above and beyond for their fellow forum members and/or is a positive and active member of the community. This week the spotlight turns to Mastrbiggy!

Question: What’s your gamertag and its origin?

Answer: My gamertag is Mastrbiggy. I’ve gone through a handful of gamertag changes. My first gamertag was zippy101. I ended up changing it to Mastrbiggy because I had a dachshund whose nickname was Biggy. I originally just wanted Biggy, but Xbox gave me suggestions like Misterbiggy. I decided on Masterbiggy because of Master Chief. If you read any of my posts or tweets you’ll know that I have a habit for making typos. Mastrbiggy was a $10 typo. Most people just call me biggy or buggy anyway.

Q: Tell us about the first time you played Halo.

A: The first time I played Halo was December 2001. I vividly recall seeing that very first TV commercial for the game and knew I had to play it. My friend and I made a deal that one of us would purchase a PS2 for GTA 3 and the other would buy an Xbox for Halo. He managed to get an Xbox and I spent the majority of my free time at his house playing Halo co-op. His parents weren’t exactly thrilled with the amount of lunches they ended up providing. I remember that I used to have dreams about having my own Xbox to play Halo. It wasn’t until the end of summer that I saved up enough money by washing neighborhood cars and trading in my PS2 for an Xbox and Halo: CE. Good times.