343 Industries, X35 Earthwalker

Halo Infinite was announced and teased at E3 2018. Halo Infinite is the latest major Halo game developed by 343 Industries and man are we at X35 Earthwalker excited. Now very little information, in fact minimum information has been given but that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything. Let’s take a look.

Many fans are excited. The flagship of Xbox is here and there’s not a single thing Playstation or anyone can do about it. Now this blog post will be mostly on using what we know to come up with ideas and theories of what is going on because we just got a teaser trailer but it already rises up questions and theories from gamers already. First of all, check out the trailer down below before reading the rest of this blog.

Okay, now straight away we know that the story will be based back on Master Chief again, as it should be, after all everyone loves the Chief. The main action will take place on a Halo ring which has many different environments ranging from ice mountains and forest to sandy deserts and what looks like a savannah. Pay attention as all this links together. We spot some wild animals like some hench deers and even rhinos showing this Halo ring is alive and wildlife will be a factor in this game which is awesome. We also know that vehicles and travelling will be a part of the game because of the warthog vehicle that was having a nice cruise through the area. Off course we know that Halo Infinite will has a new art style. The developers 343 Industries made that clear and that’s thanks to their new engine called ‘SlipSpace’ which is something they have been working on parallel with all the post release content for Halo 5 Guardians.

Halo Infinite

What we just mentioned isn’t everything from the trailer but let’s start making some connections. We at X35 Earthwalker believe that Halo Infinite is going to be an open world game. Doesn’t sound that crazy, does it? There’s no better game to be open world than Halo. Look at the Halo universe with many alien species with alien names, their own history, background, wars and more. A large Halo ring planet will have enough room to hold all of them. We can tell this because of the different environments shown in the trailer. There could be underground areas which will bring back the drones from Halo 2. We hope they bring them back a that will be a unpleasant surprise. The Warthog acted as a main form of transportation there which suggests that the Master Chief will have to explore these different environments by traveling, both In vehicle and on foot. Imagine how awesome it would be if drove up to a ruins to investigate but a predator animal comes out of nowhere like a tiger and the Master Chief punches it in the face and then finishes it off with the assault rifle.

Halo Infinite

At the end Master Chief is putting another A.I disk or whatever into his helmet which suggests that maybe he has a new partner now. We know that Cortana been having some issues lately and needs to cool off somewhere else. Is the Master Chief here to look for his old A.I companion or did they pick up traces of Guardians being here? Either way it’s a huge mission which supports the open world genre direction. Different wildlife, different environments, warthogs for travelling, big mission and a huge world all screams open world to us. We seriously hope it does. So let’s assume that it’s going to be open world that would mean that an old enemy will come back. Oh you know what we are talking about…

Halo Infinite

The flood. Think about it. Like with the other Halo ring planets, the flood have always been present there, either contained or hiding sort of. It could be like Terraria where if the flood is released they will slowly spread and take over the planet, meaning she areas will become flood territory. maybe there will be a planetary display systems that shows the state of the whole ring maybe. If so there is opportunities for global random events where maybe an over powered covenant team shows up to do some scouting for digging and it’s up to players if they want to take on that team. There even could be covenant outposts of different strengths and defensive capabilities that grants big rewards for overtaking. The possibilities are infinite… well maybe not infinite… but a game as big as Halo has so much potential with a game like this.

Overall we like many fans are excited for Halo Infinite. We know these are all just theories and ideas brought forth from a. short trailer but that trailer revealed quite a lot when you think about it. Even the name ‘Halo Infinite’ suggests a massive size and possibilities. Open world is become more popular and sort of like a trend. Why not Halo? What’s that? At least it isn’t a battle royale? Well Halo has the weapons and large spaces to pull that off if it wants too. Maybe that will become a multiplayer mode. Who knows. Either way, Halo Infinite looks like it wants to make a massive impact. Now Halo Infinite isn’t truly Infinite but but one thing that’s infinite is the awesomeness of… the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

More information

The halo 5 ‘Monitor’s bounty’ came out on the 8th of December 2016. The big update on halo 5 is so far excellent. ‘343 Industries’ has done a lot of things right with this one indeed. Let’s start with the Warzone updates. The fact that they finally added difficulty modes that we can choose for Warzone firefight makes a big difference. There is now ‘heroic’, ‘legendary’ and the terrifying ‘mythic’ firefight modes. ‘Heroic’ is much easier and allows for casual games in your fight against both covenant and Prometheans alike. ‘Legandary’ is the mode we all know and love. Mythic is the mode that spartans have learnt to fear. It’s basically legendary but they have added some skulls from campaign mode into this, which makes all the difference here. In round one of firefight the skull tough luck is activated which means that all enemies will continually dodge grenades and don’t run away. Round two has tough luck and black eye which means that your shields never recharge until you melee an enemy (good luck doing that on legendary). Round three has tough luck, black eye and thunderstorm which means that all enemies have been upgraded. For example casual blue elites get promoted to red or above elites which have more shields and at times better weapons. Round four has the previous skulls plus catch which means that the enemies are now grenade happy, constantly using grenades. Round 5 has all the previous skulls plus mythic which increases the health of all the enemies, including the bosses!

We must say though that mythic firefight is really hard and creates a good challenge. Two team mates and I had tanks (one of them was a Hannibal scorpion) and were hitting the grunt mech boss hard and it was doing very little. Most likely because of the mythic skull. X35 Earthwalkers first attempt at this was a fail.

We was also very glad to see the grenade launcher from halo reach show up to warzone. This weapon makes handling those vehicles easier as when you hold the trigger and then let go, it becomes an emp grenade disabling all vehicles it hits. This weapon is also great for harassing enemy bases as you can bounce shots around corners to hit hiding Spartans who think they can recharge their shields. Not gonna happen. The second tier grenade launcher aka ‘Pro pipe’ is really cool and it adds more skill to the weapon. It has an enhanced bounce trajectory. Basically the grenade bounces towards enemies after hitting a wall or the ground. The sentinel beam from halo 3 is something I wanted for a long time in Warzone and it’s finally here, dishing out laser burns and death. I hope they bring a level 2 and 3 tier sentinel beam as the current one just makes enemies panic (as it should).

There is now also the Oni and Hannibal wasps (tier 2 & 3 wasp vehicles) which so far the most popular things that I see in the skies of Warzone matches. They aren’t too tough and just add more variety to the game. The designs look very nice, easy to identify them and there upgraded weapons look deadly enough. We like them, especially destroying them. We haven’t tried the anti-air wraith yet but seen it in action a bit. I hope the fuel rod shots home in on air. It looks vicious though and truly hope that it can clear the skies.

The update also brought in character voices like the monitor, grunt and buck from halo Odst. Basically when you have spartan Palmer doing announcements like a base has been captured or a boss appear, you can unlock and choose what voice you want. It’s a nice addition and idea (personally I just want the monitor voice).

They split up the game modes in arena into two groups: social and ranked. This makes things better, especially for newer players. Both have different types of game modes. So go take a look.

I must say though that even with all these added features and improvements they forgot to make the one thing that is truly needed. A feature that allows us to sell multiple req cards at once instead of one by one which gets annoying as it is long. Please can this get changed.

Overall we are happy with this big update and want to see more in time. Keep up the good work 343 Industries, you are doing a great job. For more information check out the link below:

More information

Halo Infinite. Infinite possibilities?

Halo 5 Monitor’s bounty update