Halo is a fictional universe. However, the place where it’s created is not. Serving as home to both Mister and Master Chief, little else is known about the inside of our studio…until now. Enjoy a teeny tiny peek inside 343 industries, and if you have a hankering to see or learn about something that isn’t overly top secret, send it to bsangel[at]halowaypoint.com and we’ll see what we can do! This week, FistOtheUnicorn wanted to see “the inside of the break room fridge or your morning coffee-making wares with donuts”. We went with our version of the latter.

From Rooster Teeth:

This week’s episode of Halo HORSE brings you a gripping match between Miles and Patrick.

Editor’s note: Language is mature. Proceed with caution.

From HaloCustoms:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about our ongoing minigame competition, the quest for the penultimate minigame. There were 32 submissions, but only one can be crowned champion, and win the title of “The Best Halo 4 Minigame”. There are, however, real prizes to be had for our fair contestants.

The person who wins the title will be awarded a unique and custom modded controller, courtesy of GamerModz.com. It’s Halo-themed and optionally includes their SPS-X2 rapidfire modification. They’ll also win a Halo-themed Xbox skin (shown below), which is super sick. You should click through to that link to find out more about them, because they’re awesome. Really. In total, this top prize is worth roughly $200. PRIZES! YEAH!

Second, the top FIVE maps will win a Ghost prop for their Xbox avatar dude, courtesy of 343 Industries. In addition, in each round of voting, one person who has playtested the maps and then voted will be awarded a Ghost prop, coming out to FIVE more Ghost props.

I like to imagine now you’re asking yourself: “So how do I participate?” The answer is quite simple! Just head on over to the minigame boards on the site, download the maps, and vote for your favorites. There’s also a live bracket that will update with each round, so you can track your favorite map. I encourage you to bring your friends in, help your favorite map win the contest and the goodies involved! The more votes you can get, the more chance your favorite map has to win!

From HT Edge:

Here is the third episode of Halo 4 Plays of the Week. This episode goes over a few Team throwdown clips. Enjoy!

Halo is a fictional universe. However, sometimes we catch sight of things in real life that remind us of our favorite science fiction video game franchise. This particular series, titled Halo in Real Life, showcases those very moments. Enjoy the subtle Halo references sometimes spotted when out and about in the real world, and if you have a picture you’d like to submit for possible future inclusion, send it to bsangel[at]halowaypoint.com!

From Indirect:

The eighth installment of my new Halo 4 top ten series is now live. I hope you all enjoy!

From AgentPaperCraft:

Hello, Waypoint goers! With the addition of community-made content into Matchmaking, custom maps and game types have become an integral part of Halo’s Multiplayer. Forgers and game type creators often work hours, days and even months on their content before it’s considered for Matchmaking, and it’s usually the lack of having a ready player-base to test their maps that it takes so long. So I offer an option to our Forgers, a place to bring your maps and game types to have them tested and reviewed by a group of the top Forgers around. You’ll receive top-notch forging tips and tricks to wow your players, improve map spawn and flow, provide a better map experience and get your name out there. You’ll also get to work directly with the Community Cartographers, a select group of community Forge enthusiasts who work with 343 Industries in the search of top-quality content for Matchmaking consideration. Every Wednesday night at 6PM ET, get an invite by sending “AgentPaperCraft” a message over Xbox LIVE, or leave a comment in the Test Night Thread.

Hope to see you there!

From TheHarbinger427:

“Awesome Kills and Funny Deaths” is all about showing off you, the community. Check out the second episode of this series!

Some people show their love for Halo by playing the games. Others get a relevant image permanently placed upon their body. Enjoy this particular example of a Halo-related body modification, and if you have a picture you’d like to submit for possible future inclusion, send it to bsangel[at]halowaypoint.com!

From AmbushHalo:

Check out the second installment of our new Top 5 Plays of the Week series!

From cruelLEGACEY:

CruelLEGACEY is teaming up with Podtacular for a very special event: a live broadcast of the entire Playtime machinima series! We will be screening all 4 seasons the way they were meant to be seen: as single, continuous videos. No episode breaks or interruptions.

Watch the broadcast at TwitchTV.com/Podtacular. The show will be hosted by Dust Storm and CruelLEGACEY. We’ll be chatting about the show and introducing each season. We’ll also be taking questions from the viewers in the breaks between each season, so this is your chance to learn more about the making of Playtime right from the creator!

From Andrew Gagnon:

In this episode, Wiener Dog Team, now captured by the evil Lego forces, are taken to their leader, Sk1ll4xed, to learn of their fate.

Every 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, is a positive and active member of the community, and/or sends me mass amounts of cat pictures. This week our Community Member of the Week is Ozzy Onya A2Z. Read a little more about this particular fan below, then hit their profile to learn even more!

Gamertag: Ozzy Onya A2Z.

Origin of Gamertag: “Oddley”, when “Toddley” was taken years ago, my real life nickname. My name is Todd. Ozzy Onya A2Z has a nice play on words for “on your -Yoink!-” and “A to Z” meaning I’ve got you covered for anything you try. Oh, and I’m proud to be Australian so Ozzy is a nice slang for my heritage.

Current clan/community: Australian BTB was my previous clan and Bungie.net my previous community.

Halo game(s) you are currently playing: Halo 4, of course! I move to the latest Halo game every release…who doesn’t?

Favorite map, game type and playlist: Objective, HaloCharts had a series of silly statistics for me as #1 objective player in Australia for standard matchmaking ranked objective in Halo 3. Stats like most flag captures, most bomb arms, most flag kills, most bomb kills, etc. I love Zanzibar, Burial Mounds, Coagulation, High Grounds and flag/bomb carrying/arming.

Least favorite map, game type and playlist: Swordbase Oddball. *shudders uncontrollably

Preferred control scheme: Recon, inverted, sensitivity 2 for Halo 4 and default inverted for all other previous Halo games.

Halo playing style (offense, defense, sniper, driver, etc.): Objective/support, jack of all trades, point man, foot-soldier, anti-vehicle guy and love offensive stealth, counter caps plus taking one for the team. I also should be known as meat shield as I protect our objective carriers intensely.

Favorite Halo character: The Chief, of course, with Halsey a close second.

Favorite Halo book: Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund. Please 343i/Eric, do another Nylund trilogy and get him writing for the games, too!

Favorite Halo quote: Halsey talking to Noble Team…”you were wondering why you were created, what your purpose is…this is the reason.” Similar to that quote but the whole speech is excellent.

Halo Creations Nothing particular but a pinned topic in Halo 4 forum. Topic Title: Nothing But Facts, Unbiased Confirms. I have also created some wallpapers, other thread concepts for matchmaking systems and generally just soapbox’ing to the Halo forums.

War Games Weekly Challenges

Spartan Ops Weekly Challenges

Campaign Weekly Challenges

From Beyond Entertainment:

Phurion just released a brand new Halo 4 montage titled “It Gets Better”. With slick editing and great music, it makes for a great montage to check out. Make sure to watch the full montage here. Enjoy!

This Monday, several updates are coming to Halo 4 Matchmaking. In Spartan Ops, we’ll be showcasing a Designer’s choice medley, SWAT will be updated with new game types and maps, the brand new game type Mini Slayer will be premiering, Team Throwdown will be updated to the most current tournament settings, and more. Check out the full details of the update below.

Mini Slayer is a brand new game type that will be added to Action Sack! This mode has only been played by 343 staff and some lucky studio visitors, and we are excited to premiere it this coming Monday. The Spartans are scaled smaller than normal, but the weapons are normal size, creating fun, hectic, and often hilarious game play. The game type will be available exclusively on the map “Rail” at launch. Here’s what to expect from the game type:

·         All Spartans are mini!
·         All players have the “Mobility” tactical package
·         All players spawn with Assault Rifle
·         Killcam disabled
·         Melee disabled
·         Due to the scaling of character models, corpses become stretched

In SWAT, we’ve added two new Slayer game types. These game types will add new ways to rack up absurd amounts of headshots and good times. Because they are new, we will be offering them exclusively in the third voting slot and keeping an eye on the voting data to see which are most popular. The game types and settings are as follows:

Forerunner SWAT

·         Starting weapon: LightRifle
·         Secondary: Boltshot
·         Pulse Grenades
·         Infinite ammo
·         No weapons on map (Standard SWAT maps)
·         No Armor Abilities
·         Regular map rotation

Covenant SWAT

·         Starting weapon: Carbine
·         Secondary: Plasma Pistol
·         No grenades
·         Infinite ammo
·         No weapons on map (Standard SWAT maps)
·         No Armor Abilities
·         Regular map rotation

Team Throwdown, our premiere competitive playlist, has been updated to Gh057ayame’s “v4” settings. These updated settings include altered weapon and power-up locations, optimized spawn points, and a new 11-game type layout that will be found in the playlist. All “TD Pro” game types have been removed from the playlist – these new settings will occupy all three voting slots come Monday.

·         Abandon Team Slayer
·         Adrift CTF
·         Dispatch CTF
·         Haven Team Slayer
·         Haven Extraction
·         Onyx Team Slayer
·         Simplex Team Slayer
·         Simplex CTF
·         Skyline Team Slayer
·         Skyline CTF
·         Station 9 Extraction

In Big Team Slayer Pro, we are disabling the killcam and enabling motion trackers. We will continue to monitor community feedback regarding these decisions. In Spartan Ops, we’ll be featuring a Designer’s Choice medley from 343 Industries designers Jayce Diaz and Matt Geer. The line-up for Spartan Ops Matchmaking is as follows:

·         Episode 7, Chapter 2: Home Field
·         Episode 8, Chapter 3: Lancer
·         Episode 2, Chapter 3: Hacksaw
·         Episode 9, Chapter 1: The Search for Halsey
·         Episode 9, Chapter 5: The Hammer

Lastly, we’ve fixed up the Shutout version of Team Snipers to ensure that there aren’t any weapon additional spawns outside of the Beam Rifle spawn on the Sniper Rifle Tower, and balanced the Warthogs on Meltdown. We hope you enjoy these updates and new game modes! Be sure to hop into the War Games feedback section to share your thoughts with us.  See you on the virtual battlefield!

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