We wanted to roll it out in this PvE experience first to have a safe testbed to see how it behaves at scale before enabling it in a PvP mode. However, after listening to player feedback and getting many requests to try this in multiplayer, we decided to expand the experiment to the Squad Battle playlist.
That’s right, the Squad Battle experience you know and love has been updated to run on our updated networking model for a limited time in the Combat Workshop. The Combat Workshop is your one-shop stop to check out work-in-progress maps, modes, and other new experiences. In this playlist you'll be able to enjoy a mix of Slayer and objective modes on fan-favorite maps while we gather feedback and data about the online experience.
If you’ve already jumped in to play in the Workshop: Squad Battle Networking playlist, we want your feedback!
And, if you experience any technical issues, please be sure to report them to us by using the Halo Support site at aka.ms/HaloSupport.
Thank you for the continued feedback, and we’ll see you online in Squad Battle!
Halo: Trial of Reckoning
“February 2560. The wreckage of the UNSC Mortal Reverie served as a central rally point and home to human survivors on Zeta Halo, but it was only a matter of time before it was also overrun by the Banished.
A handful of survivors from the battle have been brought to the iron halls of the House of Reckoning where they are forced to take part in a twisted new war game…”
Halo: Trial of Reckoning is available here, on Halo Waypoint, as a free PDF, and in audiobook format on YouTube.
Historian's Note
Trial of Reckoning takes place in February 2560, immediately following the Banished assault on the crashed UNSC Mortal Reverie which served as a central command post for UNSC survivors on Zeta Halo.
“Awaken, valiant warriors!”
Gunnery Sergeant Elena Bobrov winced as she slowly regained consciousness. Everything had happened so fast since the Banished had descended upon them—the attack on the UNSC Mortal Reverie had spanned two harrowing days of almost ceaseless combat. Even though they had known the battle was coming, they’d had only hours to prepare.
The Reverie had been downed during the initial Banished naval assault, but the Mulsanne-class frigate’s surviving wreckage had become a fortified rally point for the UNSC personnel stranded on this local fragment of Zeta Halo. The installation itself had been violently fractured as a result of the escalating conflict on its surface and the accompanying emergency slipspace jump to who-knows-where. Under an unfamiliar field of stars, the Reverie had quickly become the only thing that resembled a “home.”
And in the blink of an eye, the Banished had taken that too.
Bobrov had been in the thick of the fighting when a group of Brute Berserkers were set upon her squad, tearing into them with mindless abandon—driven by a violence-fueled disregard for anything but their next target. She recalled hearing the dire sound of bones snapping, feeling the spray of Ensign Daniels’s blood across her face, and the next thing Bobrov knew she was drifting in and out of consciousness, recalling only fleeting impressions of being dragged across the verdant terrain of Zeta Halo before being loaded onto a skiff and taken to… wherever the hell this place was.
“Hey,” a man’s voice cut through her musings. “Gunny’s waking up, Doc.”
A medical scanner passed over her a moment later, followed by a small shot of fast-acting morphine which quickly and mercifully diminished the throbbing in her head.
“Can’t see.” Blinking rapidly, she tried to quell the rising panic in her chest.
“Be calm, your eyes will quickly adjust,” a deep voice soothed. “I suspect the lights will soon come on.”
Squinting through the darkness, unable to see much further than three meters ahead or so, Bobrov relied on her other senses. Beneath her hands she felt the roughness of dirt-covered ground, but the sound of movement around her echoed in ways more indicative of being inside a large building. A hangar, perhaps? That didn’t make any sense.
But then again, nothing did anymore.
As her vision continued to adjust, Bobrov was able to finally make out the one who had been seeing to her injuries.
Being tended to by a Sangheili was certainly one of the stranger wake-up scenarios she had ever experienced. Clad in simple armor, its saurian face barely seemed to register her as he decided he was satisfied that his patient’s wits and faculties had returned.
“Roll call,” Bobrov said through a strained grimace as she shifted herself into a sitting position. “Who have we got here and what the hell is going on?”
“Lance Corporal Singh,” came the voice that had first announced her awakening. “And we’re, uh, pretty much screwed, ma’am.”
“Spartan Hedge, Fireteam Lancer,” came another, causing Bobrov to swell with a momentary flutter of hope. On any other day, she’d have passed it off as an involuntary reaction, but she knew more directly of Spartan Hedge, as the two of them had fought on Requiem.
Bobrov had served two tours of the Forerunner shield world, having been aboard the UNSC Infinity when it was first pulled into the hollow sphere back in ‘57.
Terry Hedge had joined the UNSC Infinity crew as a Spartan recruit soon after the New Phoenix incident. Bobrov had read some of the mission debriefs on Fireteam Lancer’s activities, where they had been led by Hedge and taken part in some of the thickest fighting against Promethean and Covenant remnant forces.
“And our medic?” Bobrov asked, turning to the Sangheili. “You’re a warrior, right?”
The Sangheili appraised her and closed his first aid kit with a crisp snap, the case comically small in the alien’s large hands.
“No.”
Firm. Definite.
“No?” Bobrov repeated, her brow furrowing.
“I am a healer of wounds, not a deliverer of them. Not anymore.”
“You got a name?”
“Yes.”
When he did not continue, Singh interjected. “We just call him Doc. He seems alright with that.”
At that moment, the lights lining the ceiling above flickered on and the truth of their situation was laid acutely bare.
They were indeed inside a room as large as a hangar bay, but there were no vessels docked here. Instead, the area was akin to a UNSC field base—a flat prefabricated structure covered in sand and dirt, a couple of large rocks on the outer edges where groupings of sandbags were haphazardly laid out.
A small building nearby housed a handful of ammunition and weapons crates, prompting Bobrov to grab an assault rifle, sidekick pistol, and a couple of grenades. As she had been the last to awaken, the choices were slim, but the familiar weight of the rifle in her hand returned some semblance of comfort to her.
Beyond the base structure, a series of doors covered the boundaries of the room—two at each edge. They at least knew where their enemy would come from… but with only three fighters among them, and limited ammunition and cover, things certainly weren’t looking good.
“Ah, there you are.”
The booming, sonorous voice that had originally awakened her now returned, this time accompanied by a hologram at the far edge of the room, resolving into the blood-red image of an aged Jiralhanae. His right eye was milky and clouded, but the other—even in holographic form—glinted with malice as his mouth curled into a sharp-toothed smile. A grey beard covered his chin, and his forehead was branded with a symbol of his kind.
“I am Escharum, War Chief of the Banished. I welcome you to the House of Reckoning.”
“Ugly bastard,” Singh spat on the ground, tightening his grip on his battle rifle to mask a fearful tremor.
“Within these iron halls, through the Trials of Atriox, all shall know what it is to be Banished—our living history, how we once served the Covenant. All shall know what it is to be meat.”
Wasting no time, Spartan Hedge sprang into action, signaling Doc to assist in fortifying their position with sandbags and anything else they could grab with what little time and resources they had at their disposal. It wasn’t going to be much protection, but under the circumstances it was the best they could get.
“The trial is King of the Hill. One side holds the advantage of territory and must hold it while forty Banished brothers are sent to stake their claim. Survive, and you shall be granted a boon. You have played your little war games long enough. Now, you will play mine.”
With a final sinister grin, Escharum crossed his arms over his chest and the hologram faded.
Spartan Hedge motioned for Bobrov and the others to join him. “No retreat, no surrender, and no quarter. That’s what’s on the menu for us today, and it’s our job to damn well make sure it’s the same for them.”
“Four of us against forty of them,” Singh interjected and made an exaggerated show of counting on his fingers. “We’re outnumbered ten-to-one, man.”
Bobrov considered what she had read on military maneuvers back in basic training. As the ancient military strategist Sun Tzu had roughly put it: when surrounding an enemy, leave a way of escape. A retreating enemy is one that isn’t putting everything they’ve got into retaliation, but an enemy that knows they’ve been forced into a position to make a final stand is going to fight with every ounce of strength they have to the bitter end.
Either Escharum hadn’t figured that out, or—more likely—the Banished war chief was perfectly aware and that was exactly what he wanted from his captives.
“Let’s be real,” Bobrov interjected. “It’s entirely likely that none of us are making it through this. So you’d better make peace with the prospect of an unceremonious death right now, because if you freeze up and fail to make your shot count, you might as well be on their damn side.”
Doc fidgeted with his medical vambraces, his mandibles tightly formed together, giving way to a sigh. “I shall ensure that you are each stocked with ammunition, and provide you with the enemy’s weaponry when yours runs out. There is no honor in allowing one’s allies to perish for the sake of vanity.”
Bobrov couldn’t help but wonder what this guy’s story was. She could read the subtext as well as anyone and it seemed that even now, even when facing such crushing odds, the good doctor was firmly set against doing harm.
In her experience, the Sangheili held martial prowess and their concept of “honor” as a matter of life and death. Decades of fighting against them had taught her that. Her more recent years, doing training drills with some of the Swords of Sanghelios personnel, had just confirmed that knowledge. Perhaps Doc had been amongst that cohort aboard the UNSC Infinity? Bobrov drew a sharp breath at the thought.
Infinity.
The name alone conjured an unexpected stab of nostalgia.
How she missed that ship.
UNSC vessels of all kinds throughout the Covenant War had been hell to live on—strictly utilitarian in design to serve as cold metal coffins ferrying troops from one battlefield to the next, never knowing how far you were going to make it. But the quiet hum of the Infinity’s engines, the beauty of the atrium park while cruising through vibrant nebulae in deep space that formed the “night sky” through the transparent observation dome, the chili cook-off that she and Lieutenant Gomez had attained a respectable fourth place in…
That had been the first ship she had ever been able to call home.
She thought back to the first hard touchdown on Requiem. The Covenant faction they’d fought there had thrown themselves at defensive lines they had no tactical chance of overcoming, driven by a zealous fervor that came from the belief that they were literally serving one of their gods in the flesh. She’d been the designated driver for the six-wheeled death machine that was an M510 Mammoth, which had been deployed to destroy a network of particle cannons, ferrying the then-Commander Lasky and the Master Chief himself towards a gravity well that was keeping them grounded.
It had seemed like a lifetime ago… and nobody knew what had happened to either of them. As far as Bobrov knew, no word from Captain Lasky had reached the Mortal Reverie, and the Chief had been missing-in-action since the ambush on Infinity.
All she could do—all she knew how to do—was keep fighting. Whatever hopes there had been for an age of peace after the fall of the Covenant had been shattered, and between remnant factions and rebel groups, ancient Forerunner constructs, renegade artificial intelligences, and now the Banished… “king of the hill” seemed a remarkably apt summary for the state of things, jockeying for power over the biggest and baddest guns in the galaxy. And to what end?
“Hey, ugly,” Lance Corporal Singh called out into the emptiness, knowing Escharum was still watching. “You said we get a boon if we win.”
Escharum did not reappear, but his voice snaked its way across the walls of the House of Reckoning—lowered, as if to confide a secret. “It is the same prize that Atriox received for surviving the countless battles that claimed his brothers.”
“And what’s that?”
“A new day shall dawn over the House of Reckoning. You shall be fed and watered, and tomorrow… you will fight again.”
“You bastard.”
“Take heart, human. With every moment you stand and fight, you shall know Atriox. You shall know the Banished. You shall know the Jiralhanae way of immolation.”
As the war chief’s words faded, the doors around the edges of the room slid open.
Bobrov tensed, fearing that they were about to get instantaneously swarmed from all sides… but the passages remained clear.
Then they heard it.
Like the thunderous start of an engine in the depths of an ancient machine—a dreadful, clanking heartbeat from what must have been a dozen or more gravity hammer pommels striking the ground in unison.
They began slowly, Bobrov counted the seconds between beats…
The sound filled the air around them, rolled through the space with the insistence of a rising tide.
Powerful. Unstoppable.
It was not long before four seconds became three.
One, two, three – clang! One, two, three – clang!
Bobrov felt the tension twist in her gut, felt the hair on the back of her neck stand-up as the three beside her shifted, bracing for the inevitable.
Three seconds became two.
One, two – clang! One, two – clang!
Their enemy would be upon them soon.
She knew it.
And yet, in this whisper of time, Bobrov found reality crystallized with a sudden serene clarity, even as she knew this invocation was soon to culminate in a furious release of barbarism. As a Marine who had fought through the Covenant War and had known only a fleeting glimpse of peace before she had been called upon to serve once more, she greeted this moment as a friend.
The choice was simple. The priorities were clear.
Adapt. Survive. And…
She exhaled, glanced at her fireteam, and saw her own grim resolve mirrored in their expressions.
Accept whatever may come.
The pounding reached fever pitch, the hammers clanging repeatedly as the sound drew closer, grew louder, reaching its crescendo.
One second.
One. Final. Exhale.
Then came the stampeding feet. Bloodthirsty roars. The sudden sharp crack of firepower as Bobrov and her team made their stand.
Escharum’s voice echoed above it all.
“Fight hard. Die well.”
December Mid-Season Update Launch
The December Update for Halo Infinite has arrived!
Firefight: King of the Hill, the new Repair Field Equipment, huge additions to Forge with new bosses and High Value Targets added to the Forge AI Toolkit, Custom Game Browser and Ranked improvements—and more.
Here are the highlights of what await you today in Halo Infinite…
What's New?
Firefight: King of the Hill
The latest incarnation of Firefight has come to Halo Infinite—Firefight: King of the Hill.
You and three other players face off against waves of Banished baddies as you fight to capture hills in this PvE experience, featuring nine maps—including the House of Reckoning from Halo Infinite’s campaign.
The nine maps featured in the Firefight: King of the Hill playlist are:
Also, coming this week is a new Waypoint Chronicle (our last one for 2023) themed around Halo Infinite‘s Firefight experience, so keep an eye out!
Repair Field
Need to conduct some repairs while out in the field? We’ve got the perfect Equipment item for you…
Introducing our latest sandbox addition to Halo Infinite, the Repair Field—a neutral piece of Equipment that heals allies, enemies, and even vehicles. It can even revive Spartans in select modes like Firefight: King of the Hill.
Forge Updates
Forge continues to be enhanced and improved with exciting new additions, including:
High Value Targets and bosses from Halo Infinite’s campaign added to Forge AI Toolkit
Skull modifiers added to node graph
Quality of life updates (global material allow list, scalable blockers, auto turret allegiance options, and more)
Ranked
Based on player feedback, audio and UI elements for Ranked Extraction have been improved. The Ranked experience will also be getting some quality-of-life updates around CSR.
Audio from the Extraction device is no longer global, it is emitted from the device itself which means you’ll need to be in its vicinity to hear whether it’s being converted
UI will no longer show the Extraction device actively being converted
Once you rank up a tier, you will get three games, win or lose, before a loss will rank you down to the previous tier. Additionally, if a player in the match (who is not on your fireteam) quits, you will not lose CSR if you decide to quit as well.
Custom Game Browser
With this update, the Custom Game Browser received some improvements and fixes:
As long as enough slots are open, the Fireteam leader can bring their entire party into a CGB session
Issues blocking players from joining CGB sessions and unclear messaging have been resolved
Stability & Networking
The online experience for Halo Infinite continues to be improved upon and we have been looking to address that even further with this update.
A new networking system has been implemented into Halo Infinite that will be tested in the Firefight: King of the Hill playlist (as PvE is a safer environment for us to test this overhauled system at scale) and will later be tested further in the Combat Workshop
That closes us out for this latest update. Jump into some Firefight, try out the Repair Field, enhance your Forge maps even further with newly added bosses, test your communication in Ranked Extraction, and enjoy a smoother ride with your friends in the Custom Game Browser…
The December Update for Halo Infinite is live now!
Bip. Bap. Bam. Welcome to Firefight in Halo Infinite!
With the December Update dropping on December 5, the latest incarnation of Firefight will arrive in Halo Infinite—Firefight: King of the Hill.
Before we dive into the details, let’s take a quick look back at the long history of Firefight, all the way back to its origins…
Firefight: A Brief History
“It’s a mess, sir,” Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson said. “We’re scattered all over this valley. We called for evac, but until you showed up, I thought we were cooked.”
“Don’t worry, Sergeant,” Cortana replied. “We’ll stay here until evac arrives.”
The Master Chief looked up at the strange alien tower that was currently serving as a rally point for this group of Marine survivors who had made it off the UNSC Pillar of Autumn. There were only a handful of them, ammunition was low, and—as Private Mendoza’s voice came over the comm—it was clear that they were out of time.
“Heads up! I got a Covenant dropship headin’ in, over here!”
The conceptual origins of Firefight in Halo can perhaps be traced back to this very moment, near the start of the second mission in Halo: Combat Evolved. After coming across a group of Marine survivors, you must protect them from waves of Covenant reinforcements before they can be picked up by Foehammer.
Firefight itself would debut in 2009’s Halo 3: ODST as a cooperative mode where you and up to three of your friends could put your skills to the ultimate test, experiencing Halo sandbox encounters in the form of a survival-based “horde mode” that was becoming increasingly popular in games around this time. No doubt, many of you reading this today will recall the late nights spent on the Alpha Site map attempting to get the Vidmaster: Endure achievement as you sought to complete your Road to Recon…
From there, Firefight would go on to take several different forms in subsequent Halo games. In Halo: Reach, players were given extensive customization options to edit many aspects of the experience, which was also available in matchmaking.
In Halo 5, Warzone Firefight was introduced as a pure PvE version of the new PvPvE Warzone mode. Eight players could come together on large-scale maps to unleash their most powerful weapons and vehicles against Covenant and Promethean enemies.
And then, Halo Wars 2 introduced Blitz Firefight and Terminus Firefight. In the former, players had to defend and control three zones from waves of UNSC and Banished forces; the latter, meanwhile, was more of a “tower defense”-type experience where up to three players could work together to defend their bases and a Forerunner tower, with Flood enemies added into the mix.
And so, the time has come for a new Firefight experience in Halo Infinite…
Firefight: King of the Hill
To delve deeper into this new incarnation of Firefight, we’re joined by Connor Kennelly, Technical Designer, for a Q&A breakdown.
What is Firefight: King of the Hill and how does it work?
Our take on Firefight is in many ways close to the previous iterations of Firefight you remember. You and three other Spartans will face waves of Banished foes until you prevail… or die trying. The experience is entirely PvE, so there are no other human players to sweat against—just you, your fireteam, and Halo Infinite’s awesome cast of campaign enemies.
When the game starts, a hill will spawn, and waves of progressively harder Banished enemies will try to capture that hill. Your job is to take the hill from them and hold it until you capture it. A Boss Wave, filled with tougher than usual enemies (and spearheaded by a named High Value Target or Boss), spawns once you’ve reached a certain amount of hill progress.
You score a point when you both finish capturing the hill AND defeat the Boss Wave. Then, just like in other Firefight iterations, you’ll get a brief respite to resupply your weapons and equipment, which only respawn in between hills. After that downtime, the hill will begin spawning in a new location, and the cycle repeats.
The Matchmaking modes will have exactly five hills for each match, and you’ll get a win if you capture at least three of them throughout the round.
The timer in the mode is technically unlimited, but games tend to run between fifteen-to-twenty minutes depending on how well your team is playing. We totally expect the speedrun-oriented folks to be competing for lowest time for each map, though.
So you get points by capturing each hill and defeating its Boss Wave. And it takes 5 points to win. How do you lose?
Well, the enemy team can capture the hill just like you can, so if you can’t hold the waves off, you can lose the point to the other team. And since there’s a fixed number of hills to play, you don’t want to lose that bonus XP, so don’t let them capture those hills!
Also, just like in previous Firefight iterations, death can wipe out your squad. More on that in a minute, but keeping everyone alive is very much a focus of this mode.
In past Firefight modes, players have limited respawns. How do respawns work in Firefight KOTH?
The matchmade version of Firefight: King of the Hill will NOT be using a pool of lives. When designing this mode, we read a lot of community posts on old Firefight iterations, and we saw a common frustration with matchmade experiences where players felt that matchmade teammates often “wasted” the team lives. To address this, we brought in an elimination mechanic instead. When a teammate is killed, they go down where they fell and are given a lengthy respawn timer—the duration depends on the difficulty you are playing. And if ALL the Spartans go down simultaneously, you’ll instantly lose the game.
Your teammates can bring you back to the battlefield immediately by reviving you, just like in Attrition, but as mentioned above, the Banished will be making hill progress the whole time… so you’re going to need to balance revives against the enemy capture progress.
The tension between going for a revive or contesting the hill has made for some of the most delicious moments in our internal playtests, especially on the Heroic difficulty where the respawn time is longer. Do you play it safe and give up some enemy hill progress to bring your teammates back, or does your Last Spartan Standing try to contest a Banished-owned hill alone and risk the entire game? I guess it depends on how greedy heroic you feel…
We hope utilizing revives will reduce frustration for the players that want to solo-queue but will keep the co-op sense of shared fate we loved in both survival Firefight and Warzone Firefight.
One last thing on the death mechanics here: since this pain point was mostly a matchmaking concern, we added Custom Game options that will let you use the traditional lifepool. We also have a separate option to turn off revives, so if your lobby wants classic mechanics or you just love roasting your buddies for wasting lives, we’ve got you covered! Because we do not have lives in the matchmade version, we do not have the old Bonus Rounds to earn extra lives. However, we think replenishing the lifepool is a vital mechanic for those endless runs like in ODST and Reach, so we have another Custom Game option that will let you replenish the shared lifepool if the Spartans win the point.
Season 5 is all about letting people play Halo the way they want to play, and we’ve tried to support that as best we can.
Why Firefight: King of the Hill instead of a new iteration of specifically survival-based Firefight?
“Firefight” encompasses a lot. Firefight is about surviving waves of enemies with your friends. It’s about tracking who’s alive and who’s dead. It’s about managing limited resources. It’s about Skulls ratcheting up the difficulty as rounds progress.
And, at the core of it, Firefight is about having your back up against the wall and coming out on top through teamwork.
So, when we wanted to bring that back-against-the-wall feeling to Infinite, we landed on the King of the Hill mechanic. The hill started out as a way to organize combat on big maps. It provided that “wall” your team put their back up against when the maps were particularly large. Plus, it brought the added bonus of letting us move that spot around the map so the experience was more varied within each game.
That was just our starting point. As with everything in game development, you learn a lot as you playtest. And sure enough, as we spent more time with the hill mechanic, we realized it was adding an unexpected dynamic to the experience. Players who ran and hid when a tough wave of enemies appeared couldn’t stay hidden and pick shots at enemies until they had thinned their ranks—since they couldn’t progress the mode without having at least one player occupy the hill, the Spartans had to band together to retake the point and begin scoring again.
We really enjoyed “the flip” between attacking and defending that emerged from this dynamic, and we also enjoyed the additional cooperative moments this created. Some of the most fun we’ve had in past Firefight modes are when you’re completely overrun by the AI and have to scramble, and concentrating the AI squads in a way that demanded extra fireteam cooperation really seemed to enhance those moments.
Where it really started getting good was when we extended the hill code to let AI units capture them. Suddenly, there was tension when the enemy pushed your fireteam off the hill. The bar started ticking up. That drum sound played with each tick, letting you know the Banished were inching closer to victory. Your decisions were now constrained by time. Is pathing back to that rocket launcher you saw across the map worth the tradeoff on the enemy hill progress? Can you afford to let your shields come back up before contesting, or do you need to get in there now and buy time for your other teammates to arrive?
Even in the course of regular combat, when the Spartans have control over the field, the hill shapes how you play. Because a single enemy AI can contest the hill and halt your progress, the fireteam needs to work together to keep the zone clear to draw the Boss Wave out. We indexed into larger hill volumes on each map so that there are multiple fronts to defend. Coordinating with your team to sweep the firing lanes, rotating from one sight line to another as you cover a friendly revive, choosing when to send players out of the hill to return with a power weapon or snipe from a vantage point—these are some examples of the core decisions you’ll be making when you match into a game Firefight: KOTH.
To make a long story short: we love the extra decision-making, the additional cooperative elements, and the tension that the hill brings to the classic Firefight formula. We can’t wait to hear what you think when you jump into the mode tomorrow!
Are there other differences (besides the hill) from survival Firefight or Warzone Firefight?
Yes. The other major departure we made is how Skull difficulty modifiers are earned and enabled throughout the match. In past Firefight, Skulls got enabled in a fixed order. We wanted to make the Skulls a bit more dynamic to adapt to how well a squad is doing in the round.
The rules for Skulls in Firefight: King of the Hill work like this:
If a team wins a point and nobody dies, one semi-random Skull gets enabled for the next hill.
Skulls stack over the course of a game. You can have multiple Skulls active if you keep winning points without any fireteam deaths. In matchmaking, the maximum is four active Skulls on the fifth hill.
Streaks can be dropped. Losing a hill to the Banished will disable your most recently enabled Skull.
We say a “semi-random” Skull gets enabled, because just like the classic modes, you earn easier Skulls before the harder Skulls. For example, the first Skull you earn will always be either Fog or Catch. But if you earn a second Skull, the pool expands to include Famine and Thunderstorm. The result is that fireteams who are able to earn Skulls will get a different experience from match to match, but the difficulty curve will still gradually increase in the same way as the match goes on.
We made this change because when we looked at how people talked about enjoying past Firefight offerings, we noticed two very different types of motivations, and the fixed-order Skull mechanics only catered to one crowd.
One type of player we saw was the challenge hound. They want to be pushed. They want to feel overwhelmed. They want their squad to really go through fire and flame because earned victory is all the sweeter. The fixed-order Skulls gave these players a foe worthy of their blade, since they were guaranteed to run into some satisfyingly brutal Skulls by the end of each round.
We landed on the “streak” nature of the mechanic as something to enhance the experience for these types of players. It feels great to have your Skull streak on the line when the Boss Wave shows up in the fourth hill and you really need to grit your teeth and keep your teammates alive without losing the point.
The other type of player we saw plays Firefight for a very different reason. These folks look to Firefight as an escape from the sweat of multiplayer. And while they do not want it to be so easy that it’s boring, they really just want to kick back with their friends and shoot the breeze while they shoot some aliens.
Unavoidable Skulls, especially the tough ones like Black Eye and Blind, cut against this player type. They make you focus 110% on the game by raising the stakes, but that can actually take the focus away from what motivates these players—having a relaxing time with their friends. We landed on the no-death mechanic as a means of keeping Skulls out of the way for these types of players, since players who are just around to goof off will naturally accumulate some deaths in regular gameplay (and therefore won’t encounter Skulls). In this way, the game tries to match whatever energy your lobby is bringing.
Since we saw PvE as a way to build on that “party shooter” vibe that brings people together and makes Halo feel so unique, we wanted to make a change to support this group without sacrificing challenge for the players who wanted it. The goal here is to give players that care about challenge something to strive for as a team, and at the same time to be mostly invisible to players who are just looking for a good time with their friends.
And finally, in the spirit of letting you play Halo the way you want to play—we have Custom Game options that will let you enable those legacy behaviors. You can use the Fixed setting to make the Skulls come on one at a time after each hill regardless of who got the point, and we also have a None setting that will stop the mode from enabling Skulls at all. That last option will let minigame scripters turn on Skulls with whatever logic they want using Node Graph. More on that in the Forge section below.
What Skulls are in Firefight: King of the Hill?
The Skulls available in this mode are as follows:
Fog – disables motion tracker
Catch – AI enemies throw and drop more grenades
Famine – weapons dropped by AI enemies have half the ammo they normally would
Thunderstorm – upgrades the rank of most AI enemies
Mythic – AI enemies have significantly increased health
Black Eye – your shields only recharge when you melee enemies
Additionally, there is a (very) small chance you’ll get one of the following Skulls enabled at the start of a round. These Skulls don’t increase the difficulty, but they do make for some fun moments!
Boom – doubles explosion radius
Cowbell – acceleration from explosions is increased
Grunt Birthday Party – Grunt headshots lead to glorious celebrations
Bandana – grants unlimited ammo and grenades, and removes equipment cooldown
IWHBYD – rare combat dialogue becomes more common, and vice versa
Note: the Blind Skull, which hides first-person HUD elements and view-models, is not in the pool for the mode, but it is available to Custom Games via Node Graph scripting.
TL;DR on the Firefight: KOTH differences from survival Firefight:
Players get points by capturing a hill and killing the Boss Wave for that hill, not just surviving
If the Spartans fail to hold the hill, the Banished will capture it instead
No more shared lifepool; You have only one life, but your teammates can revive you like in Attrition. All Spartans downed at the same time will end the round instantly.
You can use Custom Game options to get classic Lifepool settings
Players earn Skulls by winning hills without dying, and Skulls stack
How will Firefight: King of the Hill help me progress my Operation or Battle Pass?
In Matchmaking, you’ll get a small amount of Match XP just for playing. Additionally, you’ll get bonus XP for a win, which is capturing 3 of the 5 hills. Successfully capturing the fourth and fifth hill will each give an additional XP bonus.
Slaying Banished foes will award Personal Score throughout the entire round that will level up your Career Rank, and Skulls will also net players a stacking Personal Score bonus at the end of each round won for every Skull that is enabled.
What maps will I be able to play at launch?
We have nine maps available when Firefight: King of the Hill launches with the December 2023 Update, which includes three community-made maps, five existing developer-made maps, and the new House of Reckoning map from Halo Infinite’s campaign.
The nine maps featured in the Firefight: King of the Hill playlist are:
House of Reckoning
Behemoth
Deadlock
Launch Site
Live Fire
Oasis
Exiled (by Epetr0, SandoChokUN)
Kusini Bay (by Mr Kwatz)
Vallaheim (by HaiseOz)
What kind of Custom Game options are available?
We’ve mentioned some of the levers you can pull in Custom Games to change your Firefight: KOTH experience to suit your taste. We wanted to offer up a wealth of options to feed your Custom Game Browser nights and let you play Halo the way you want to play. You can decide what elements of the mode will be active; you can change how Lives, Revives, and Skulls are used; you can tweak hill capture timers, and even override which units spawn in each wave.
And for the Forgers out there, you’ll find that Firefight: KOTH is the most integrated with Forge and Node Graph scripting yet. You can set the mode to use the enemy definitions straight from your spawners and make the hills spawn in the fixed order, paving the way for linear, wave-based missions.
The Skulls we converted to multiplayer are also available through Node Graph to use in any game mode. And the AI Wave Manager nodes that we were able to get to players early with the launch of Season 5 is the same one we built for Firefight: KOTH. That means you’ll be able to hook into mode events to run custom logic when waves start or end.
For example, using the new Wave Type output pin, this sample script would run any time the mode starts a Boss Wave. Then it would pick two random units and send every Grunt in their squad into an explosive frenzy.
We can’t wait to see what horrors and delights you’ll inflict on all of us in the Custom Game Browser come launch!
Here we go! Next wave’s coming in. Get set, Spartans. This is gonna get hot!
December Mid-Season Update | Halo Infinite
The December Mid-Season Update for Halo Infinite arrives on December 5, just a few short days from now, and we’ve got the details of everything you need to know right here.
Firefight: King of the Hill, the new Repair Field equipment, Forge updates, Ranked and Custom Game Browser improvements, and much more are prepared to drop—let’s get you briefed!
Firefight: King of the Hill
Bip. Bap. Bam! Firefight is coming to Halo Infinite next week.
Over the years, Firefight has taken many forms across various Halo games. From its traditional survival mode in Halo 3: ODST to its more arcade-inspired incarnation in Halo: Reach, to Warzone Firefight in Halo 5: Guardians, along with Blitz Firefight and Terminus Firefight in Halo Wars 2 – it’s a mode that has evolved across games, and the time has come for it to arrive in Halo Infinite.
Firefight: King of the Hill will see you and three other players facing off against waves of Banished baddies as you fight to capture hills on nine maps when the playlist goes live – including the House of Reckoning from Halo Infinite’s campaign and three community-made maps.
We’ll have a full, detailed blog on Firefight: King of the Hill going live on December 4, ahead of its in-game debut the following day.
We can’t wait for you to get your hands on it!
Repair Field
Need to conduct some repairs while out in the field? We’ve got the perfect Equipment item for you…
Introducing our latest sandbox addition to Halo Infinite, the Repair Field!
Similar to the Regenerator from Halo 3, the Repair Field is a neutral piece of Equipment that heals allies and enemies within its radius. It’s also capable of repairing vehicles, and it can be attached to them (as well as most environmental surfaces). Additionally, the Repair Field can also revive downed Spartans in select modes such as Firefight: King of the Hill, Attrition, etc.
Are you the kind of player that prefers to provide support for the team? The Repair Field is a great complement to that particular playstyle and, used strategically, just might help give your team an edge in a firefight or vehicular showdown.
Ranked Improvements
The Ranked experience is getting some improvements in this December Update, starting off with updates to Ranked Extraction and CSR.
Ranked Extraction
At the moment, you can hear that your Extraction point is being converted by the enemy team from anywhere on the map. This meant players were able to leave the area around the Extraction device and use the global audio queue to tell them when to peek back out. With this upcoming audio change, the device itself will emit the audio, meaning you’ll have to be in close vicinity to hear it’s being converted. As a result, teams will need to pay closer attention to the Extraction device.
Right now, you can see in your UI when the Extraction point is being converted. Similar to above, this allowed players to leave the area near the Extraction device and only peek out when the UI showed it was being converted. With our upcoming change, this will go away almost entirely. The UI will no longer indicate to you when the Extraction point is actively being converted, and it will also no longer indicate to you how much time is remaining. It’s going to play a bit old school and hardcore, as players and coaches will need to time the Extractions like timing weapons and powerups in previous Halo titles.
CSR Improvements
There are some further improvements also coming to rank loss protection and teammate quitting. Once you rank up a tier, you will get three games, win or lose, before a loss will rank you down to the previous tier. Additionally, if a player in the match (who is not on your fireteam) quits, you will not lose CSR if you decide to quit as well. You can read more about these updates in our most recent Ranked Update blog!
Forge Updates
When Season 5 launched back in October, the Forge AI Toolkit quite literally changed the game for community creators, allowing players for the first time ever to place campaign enemies into multiplayer maps to build PvE experiences.
In the December Update, we have some more improvements to share with you that will enhance this feature even further…
High Value Targets & Bosses
In Halo Infinite’s campaign, there are various boss enemies that can be encountered on Zeta Halo, such as the High Value Targets that can be hunted down, each one rewarding the Master Chief with a powerful special weapon variant.
All fifteen of these HVTs will be added to Forge with the December Update – from the almighty Bipbap the Vanquisher to the very hungry Ik’novus the Devourer, and beyond.
Major bosses are also included in this line-up as well, such as Jega ‘Rdomnai, Escharum, and the Harbinger. The potential for what the creative cartographers in the community are going to make truly is endless (heh!)
Skulls in Node Graphs
With Firefight: KOTH on the way, enabling Skulls to modify difficulty is a notable part of the experience. With this update, Forgers will be able to use Node Graph to enable or disable any of the twelve Skulls, from Bandana to Black Eye.
Notably, Skulls are not just limited to the Firefight game variants. These difficulty modifiers will work in any game mode, allowing creators to use them to spice up ordinary multiplayer matches or extend their Season 5 PVE experiences.
Quality of Life Updates
The Global Material Allow list gives the player the ability to access all swatches contained in swatch groups added to the global allow list in all regions. This functionally gives the player access to a much larger pool of swatches for each region, and allows regions previously disallowed from using tiling swatches to access them.
Because hugs make everything better, we have also added the Trigger Grunt Hug node to Forge’s Node Graph. This will allow creators to make any Grunts in a squad pull out two plasma grenades and run toward the nearest enemy until the grenades explode. We sincerely hope this addition will make your Custom Browser experiences with Grunts more loving and friendly.
Scalable Blockers allow the player to place a single blocker object and scale it to the size they’d like it to be. This will help you save on object count and help clean up maps.
Auto Turret Allegiance has been updated, meaning the Auto Turret will now respect the Team setting it receives in Forge. When placed on a team, the Auto Turret will treat units (players & AI) as allies and will not target them. If placed on Neutral team, the turret will remain hostile to all units.
Custom Game Browser
When Season 5 launched, we introduced Custom Game XP and the addition of the Forge AI Toolkit opened up the floodgates for countless hours to be spent jumping from custom game to custom game – whether you’re looking for some of that classic Infection fun you’ve been enjoying since Halo 3, or the vast range of exciting new experiences that folks have been creating.
The team has been working on a variety of improvements to the Custom Game Browser which should make for a smoother ride for you and your fireteam.
Join Session as Fireteam
As long as there are enough slots available, the Fireteam Leader can bring their entire party into a CGB session. Upon joining the session, all members of your Fireteam will join together and merge into the Custom Game leader’s Fireteam.
While working on this, the team also made sure that it was enabled for lobbies. If you are playing with a friend and want to join another friend’s lobby, you can choose “Join with Fireteam” to bring your entire Fireteam into their matchmaking/custom game lobby.
Improvements
Several improvements have been implemented to the Custom Game Browser, resolving issues that block players from joining CGB sessions that were open when a backend change occurred; issues around unclear messaging when attempting to join a full session; and instances where attempting to join a session that was no longer active would not deliver any failure messages.
Stability & Networking
Along with all the additions and quality-of-life updates above, this update is also focused on increasing the game’s stability by addressing crashes and improving our online experience via updates to our networking.
Season 5 added more reporting information in the game, which helps us better detect when and why crashes happen. Using this data, the team has knocked out multiple crashes across PC and consoles, including the top crash on Xbox Series X|S devices.
As for improvements to networking, we’ve been working on a more comprehensive overhaul of the system. The first glimpse of this updated networking model will land on December 5 with the December Update. You’ll be able to jump into the Firefight: King of the Hill playlist and try out the new networking model in a safe environment. Enabling it in a PvE experience gives us a safe testbed to see how it behaves at scale before enabling it in a PvP mode, where the stakes would feel much higher for each player. Please be sure to dive in, blast the Banished, and let us know how it feels in Firefight: King of the Hill. If the results are promising, we’ll look to host a PvP experience in the Combat Workshop in the future.
While there should only be improvements in these areas, please be sure to report any crashes or networking related issues to us by using the Halo Support site.
That closes us out for this preview of 2023’s December Update for Halo Infinite. Stay tuned for a deep dive on Firefight on December 4 ahead of the update dropping out of slipspace on December 5!
BRXX Lightfire Bundle | PMC Emblem Suite
You've got the BRXX Lightfire, which means it's the enemy team's bedtime, and you plan to tuck them in... under six feet of dirt!
Secure the BRXX Lightfire bundle today for the following:
BRXX LIGHTFIRE weapon model
TORCHBEARER MARK VII helmet
UTIL/EmerSound Mark I shoulder pads
UA/Type DH MARK VII knee pads
Powerup Sights weapon coating for all weapons
Pacific Pitch armor coating for all armors
Horizons Beyond emblem
Radio Edit kill effect
Walk faster to the Shop and blind others with your cyber-style today!
For when no other faction is really your style.
Complete all of your Weekly Challenges and the Ultimate Challenge to earn this week’s Ultimate Reward – the PMC emblem suite.
A new Ultimate Reward will become available every week, so be sure to keep an eye on your Challenges and take advantage of these free rewards.
Bred for combat, built for war, you are the master of any weapon, pilot of any vehicle, and fear no enemy.
The Combat Evolved Mark V bundle contains:
Combat Evolved Mark V armor kit
Cinder Ring armor coating
Viridescent Ring armor coating
Aurum Evolved visor
Unseal the hushed casket and awaken the flawless cowboy within. Prevail through nerves of steel and a quick trigger finger.
Halo: Battle for the Blood-Moon
“2560. The Banished have come to Suban, the blood-moon of Sanghelios, seeking to claim the unique natural resource within its vast mines: the beautiful but volatile Subanese crystals.
The Swords of Sanghelios and their Spartan allies face an overwhelming force on the ground, while a Sangheili shipmistress in the skies above seeks to find a weakness in the enemy’s armor that might turn the tide against these invaders.”
Battle for the Blood-Moon takes place in early 2560, in the wake of the events of Halo: Outcasts and the opening of Halo Infinite where the UNSC Infinity is ambushed by the Banished and Cortana sacrifices herself, moving Zeta Halo into slipspace.
Scorrin's Blade
Shipmistress Mahkee ‘Chava scrutinized the large tactical holograph of Suban at the center of the bridge, a cavernous command chamber that shared a similar design model to the Ceudar-pattern corvette. The spacious interior was lined with several rows of control consoles for the various systems that defined the blockade runner as a strong and swift interdictor.
Unfortunately, that swiftness was not currently being put to use in the way Mahkee wished.
Instead of charging the Banished ranks with a coordinated assault, Mahkee had been ordered to hold her distance from the enemy dreadnought and comprehensively assess the situation.
Scorrin’s Blade, like all Hekar Taa-pattern blockade runners, was outfitted with advanced stealth generators and an onboard hyperscanner reverse-engineered from recovered Forerunner materiel. In theory, these systems could work in concert, allowing them to obtain detailed internal scans of unsuspecting enemy vessels, but their use had been limited during the time of the Covenant.
Hyperscanners provided an overwhelming amount of information, which Mahkee guessed would likely have been filtered by the Forerunners’ own artificial intelligences—something that the Prophets, in their infinite “wisdom,” had significantly curtailed.
The Swords of Sanghelios, on the other hand, bore no such prejudice against artificial life, even as the constructs had risen up against their human creators and sought to impose their own will upon the galaxy.
But Mahkee didn’t need an AI to operate that system. She had something just as effective.
“Status, Dibdib?”
The diminutive Unggoy almost jumped as Mahkee approached. Fortunately, this had become a common routine and Dibdib had managed to reduce her reaction to a slight jolt.
“We gots the latest knowins on the big bad dreadnought, Shipmistress,” Dibdib squeaked, her eyes still fixed on the hyperscanner. “Sendin’ it to the main holograph now!”
“Excellent news,” Mahkee continued on her way around the bridge. “’Tylk, bring Scorrin’s Blade back to minimum safe distance.”
“As you say, Shipmistress,” Xelq ‘Tylk dipped his head in acknowledgement. He was still quite young, a relative newcomer to the Swords of Sanghelios, and was eager to make a good impression on his superiors.
As Scorrin’s Blade pulled back, Mahkee returned her attention to the central holograph of Suban and tightened her jaw mandibles. That the Banished had dared to come to this system at all was galling enough, but the blood-moon of Sanghelios was her home. She and her brothers had been raised here since they were hatchlings, and she allowed herself a momentary feeling of relief that the two of them were currently on Sanghelios itself to inspect the latest products of the Kolaar Manufactorum. Wily though they were, neither Silset nor Oebrin were fighters, and they were certainly not what any Sangheili would call “traditional” in any sense.
Somewhat ironically, that had all gone to her…
Mahkee did not possess the patience for the political maneuverings, complex trade deals, and clan management that had largely served as the civil duty of Sangheili females. Ever since she had been a hatchling, her mother had said that her veins ran with the fire and blood of Suban itself, and her calling had come when the Arbiter declared that military service for the Swords of Sanghelios would be open to all.
Indeed, she had been surprised to learn that even the Unggoy could ascend to the rank of shipmaster upon querying why one of the Zanar-pattern light cruisers attached to their fleet was named Bad Gas.
Returning to the holograph, Mahkee flicked her wrist and the projected image of Suban dissipated. This made way for the latest tactical scans of the dreadnought that was the center of all Banished activity in this region.
Scannermaster Dibdib’s work on the hyperscanner had even identified the name of the vessel: Ghost of Barolon.
The holograph highlighted its suite of armaments, filling Mahkee with dread. Scorrin’s Blade was heavily outgunned by the monumental monstrosities the Banished had brought to bear, their dreadnoughts were a physical representation of their rapid rise to power, while many of the Swords of Sanghelios’s own warships reflected ancient patterns connected to their pre-Covenant history. Admirable as that pursuit was for the spirit of the Sangheili, these patterns were largely outdated and could not match either the firepower or tonnage of these crimson-armored ogres.
Suban was more than just a home for Mahkee, the onset of the Blooding Years that had come to define this period for the Sangheili had turned the moon into a place of neutral safe harbor. And before that, going back to a time before their millennia of service to the Covenant, Suban had been held as a sacred point of convergence for the wills of their most ancient gods—traditions, doctrine, and faith that had been secretly preserved from the long and treacherous reach of the Prophets.
But hundreds of drop-bases had already been deployed from Barolon’s underbelly, enough to establish immediate occupational infrastructure on one of Suban’s most fertile mining sites.
And Mahkee felt powerless to do anything about it.
She knew, of course, that every datapoint about the enemy was valuable, and that the time would come to coordinate a retaliatory strike. A competent shipmaster knew the value of patience, and the cost of acting prematurely before understanding the bigger picture. In this, Mahkee’s discipline did not blunt or sublimate her instinct for battle, but instead served as a whetstone for it.
For now, she would watch, she would wait, and she would find the gap in the armor of the Banished that would win the day for her people.
Until then, she turned her mind to the joint operation that was taking place on the ground. Spartans and Swords forces working together in a combined arms effort, their joint temerity and prowess would make its mark—of that, Mahkee was certain. She had, after all, fought alongside the humans’ living legends before, when she had ferried Spartan Jameson Locke and his fireteam into battle to help the Arbiter bring a decisive end to Jul ‘Mdama’s Covenant.
Scores of Banished troops against a handful of Spartans and Swords of Sanghelios warriors?
Centering her mind and mustering her confidence amidst the uncertainty, Mahkee thought with determined resolution that those were indeed sorrowful odds for their enemies.
Suban The Mines of Shua'ree
The density of conflict and upheaval on Sanghelios in the past several weeks had been unprecedented. Just a few months after Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam’s harrowing encounter with the Banished on the corpse-world of N’ba, the Created forces that had kept Sanghelios under a suffocating martial occupation suddenly relinquished their grip on the system. It was an unanticipated turn of fortune that quickly spiraled into a race to fill the power vacuum left on such an influential world.
While many of the keeps and kaidons on Sanghelios remained steadfast in their support of the Arbiter and his attempts to unify their people, others sought alternative divisions of power. The tensions were already beginning to boil over, and it served as an open invitation to any well-organized force to take advantage of—an invitation the Banished were more than eager to accept.
In their brazen encroachment into the Urs system, the Banished found no need to breach a barricaded door. The loyal Sangheili under their growing influence simply left the gate unlatched.
This latest chapter of the conflict had settled into the skies of Suban, over one of the many mining sites that had made the moon such a prized resource in the reign of the Covenant empire. Suban was the only known place in the galaxy to find kemuksuru—the energized crystals that powered several manifestations of “needle launcher” weapons employed by many of the former Covenant client species. That reality made the Sanghelios satellite a prime commodity to be controlled, and the Banished were making every effort to do so.
What must it be like? Fahl ‘Nto thought. To have a mind more like a machine?
The seasoned Evocati was sitting on a flat raised rock, but leaned forward to continue his observation of one of the human Spartans that stood with them. While serving in the Covenant as a distinguished Ultra operative, Fahl had encountered a scattered few “demons” during his deployment, most notably on their stronghold world near the end of the War of Annihilation. They were encounters he spoke little of since aligning with the Swords of Sanghelios, as his mind remained in a constant dance between resolution and shame—an ever-present personal journey towards purpose.
The Spartans of Fireteam Jorogumo were part of an allied attaché under the purview of Fleetmaster Arkad Nar ‘Kulul, who was one of the leaders of the Sanghelios home defense fleet. These augmented human warriors were part of an ongoing treaty between the human military and the Swords of Sanghelios, and remained at the disposal of Swords forces at the discretion of key kaidons and commanders to bolster their efforts.
Today, those efforts were focused squarely on the Mines of Shua’ree. The Banished had successfully managed to set up a rapid extraction site in one of the more remote quarry mouths—an impressive display of ruthless efficiency and cunning execution. It was an incursion that demanded an equally decisive response, but unfortunately deft coordination was not a trait Sangheili forces were able to muster in sufficient quantities these days.
Instead, Arkad Nar ‘Kulul had opted to enact a combined arms operation, attaching four Spartans from Jorogumo to a Swords taskforce led by Fahl ‘Nto and Orim ‘Kassan, a SpecOps warrior in service to the Arbiter.
The mission called for Fahl to lead an advance scout team that included two of the Spartans and a Kig-Yar named Dahks. As part of their integration into local forces, each of the Spartans had been given a Sangheili name—not quite a title and not quite a nickname, but terms that would give each human soldier a unique identity and stronger sense of inclusion among their ranks.
Fahl tilted his head as he surveyed one of the Spartans, the one they called Trell, who was looking through the scope of a rangefinder.
“What do you see?”
Trell’s voice came back through their helmet speaker. “At least two docking platforms. Regular cycle of fork-buckets coming in and out.”
Fahl’s mandibles twitched at Trell’s colloquial mention of the Banished siege-haulers. Every flight out could mean hundreds of the enemy alliance’s warriors armed with restocked needle-launchers.
“So much bounty.” The screeching statement came from Dahks. “Need no scope to see thisss.”
Dahks was unique among his kind, and Fahl was one of very few individuals who knew the Jackal’s past as a former member of the Jha’kaar—a Kig-Yar order of long-range assassins rumored to be able to remove a target’s head off their shoulders… from a nearby moon. Such exaggerated attributions did nothing to diminish Dahks’s true skills, however, and lately the Ruuhtian mercenary had taken up a particular fondness for human-built sniper rifles, resulting in more than a few lively discussions with Trell on best practices and past accomplishments.
The voice of Glyyss, another Spartan, broke in. “Nobody’s bending your quills, Dahks. Besides, we have more than one way to get a better look at things.”
Glyyss tapped two command buttons on a wrist-mounted survey drone and the small machine quickly departed, its flight trajectory heading straight for the mouth of one of the quarry caves.
Fahl stood up and placed the wide-crested helmet of his ivory raid harness back over his head. He had developed an odd fondness for the way in which Glyyss always returned the Kig-Yar’s needling with fair measure. “Dahks, sync your optics to the Spartan drone—they will be your eyes inside. Remain here as overwatch but keep communication channels active.”
“Ready to flag in Jaarov and Zhinn?” Glyyss asked, already prepared to ping the other two Spartans on the operation.
“Yes.” Fahl confirmed. “Let them know that we will be in position shortly and that Orim can bring his Phantom in—our time will be narrow.”
Scorrin's Blade
“Can you confirm its authenticity, ‘Tylk?” Mahkee was taking no chances when it came to ensuring the secure transfer of information regarding groundside operations.
“The signature is confirmed, Shipmistress. Orim ‘Kasaan is aboard the vessel of origin.”
Mahkee nodded a simple approval. “Contact the summit-masters, ensure we have Banshee talons in a ready formation at the appropriate coordinates.”
Her mind began to weigh the potential outcomes of their groundside efforts and how they might inform their next tactics in the grander scope of the conflict. She had barely begun calculating probability metrics when her bridge crew interjected once more.
“Shipmistress, we are receiving another transmission,” said Xelq, who paused and tilted his head in momentary confusion. “From the shipmaster of the Banished dreadnought…”
Mahkee braced herself for what was no doubt going to be an enlightening conversation.
“Put it through.”
The holograph of Suban and Ghost of Barolon disappeared and was replaced by a bulky, hunched figure clad in golden armor. A Sangheili… She had expected a Jiralhanae to be shipmaster of such a vessel, as dreadnoughts were not simply devastating occupational powerhouses, but since the razing of the Oth Sonin system they had come to represent something of a cultural monument to their species.
And the haughty look of satisfaction from the Banished shipmaster, whose head was tilted slightly upwards, told her that she had let this momentary surprise show through slightly parted jaws.
“Greetings, Shipmistress,” he said, as calmly and casually as if he were checking up on a friend. “I am Orna ‘Fulsam, High Warlord of the Banished.”
“I do not know of you, and am unmoved by any such title.” Mahkee responded, her tone clipped but not yet disrespectful. “What is it you want?”
“By now, you have undoubtedly grasped the extent of our current forces and firepower, and you know that there is no victory to be had through conventional battle.”
Mahkee held Orna’s gaze. “Your fleet possesses certain advantages, that is true. I hope you did not trouble my preparations to counter them just to inform me of this.”
“No,” Orna said. “I have come to ask you to avoid further unnecessary bloodshed of our own kind.”
“Peace talks with a traitor?” Mahkee narrowed her eyes. “So you have come here to jest?”
“We need not be foes. Step aside, give us Suban, and your forces shall be spared. Better yet, pledge your allegiance to the Banished, and the only ones that need perish are the demons that desecrate the ground of Suban.”
If nothing else, Mahkee had to admire ‘Fulsam’s audacity.
“The Spartans?” she asked.
“The humans,” Orna spoke the name as if he had choked up bile. “They are the true architects of the Blooding Years, along with the Arbiter who calls them allies and invites them to our home to solve his own problems.”
“Your hatred is tinged with madness, Shipmaster,” Mahkee said pityingly.
“You do not sense the truth of it?” Orna stood straighter, and Mahkee resigned herself to endure whatever speech the shipmaster had prepared.
Suban The Mines of Shua'ree
The plan relied on precision. It had to.
The first task at hand was removing the small perimeter patrol near the mouth edge of the mining site. Using his own line of sight and additional feeds from the Spartan’s survey drone, Dahks had marked the first two targets, one each for Fahl and Glyyss. Trell had taken up a second vantage point to ensure overlapping fields of sniper fire in tandem with Dahks, but at a closer proximity in case the situation called for more direct involvement.
Fahl crouched behind a small rock formation and waited for his prey to come within striking distance. It wasn’t long before a Sangheili mercenary stepped forward just close enough. The Banished Elite tried to react, but by the time he reached for his plasma pistol Fahl had buried a wrist-mounted energy dagger deep into the mercenary’s neck, indigo blood casting a spattered mist on the Evocati’s pale armor.
A quick glance up confirmed that Glyyss had successfully neutralized their own target as well. With the outermost lookouts removed, Fahl initiated the next phase of the plan.
“Certify stage completion with Scorrin’s Blade, talons are free.”
The response from the comms marshal aboard Scorrin’s Blade was nearly immediate. “Confirmed, honor to ‘Nto. Wings Zeshk and Siqtar are on approach.”
Moments later, the telltale wail of several Banshee attack flyers could be heard, but without the forward lookouts scanning the skies, the Banished response would be slightly delayed.
The Banshees opened fire with plasma cannons and fuel rod guns, both talons targeting the siege-haulers that were primed on the pads and freshly laden with raw kemuksuru. The resulting detonations were dramatic and caused immediate chaos within the mine itself. Banished warriors scurried through corridors and across gantries, furious but also confused in the immediate aftermath.
It was a confusion made all the more intense when the first sniper shots rang out.
“Headbursts cossst exxtraa.” Dahks gleefully exclaimed over comms as he and Trell took turns removing Banished pieces from the gameboard, alternating long-range fire into the mouth of the mine. Banished soldiers desperately tried to locate the source of the shots, but found the process difficult in the midst of the maelstrom.
“Orim… you’re clear.” Fahl’s latest communication was directed at Orim ‘Kasaan, whose Phantom had been hiding in the lower depths of the quarry until the opportunity was at hand. Moments later, the Phantom rose up to meet the cave mouth, its doors opening to reveal at least a dozen Sangheili warriors fiercely loyal to the Arbiter. Among them were two more Spartans from Jorogumo—Jaarov and Zhinn—ready to take the fight directly to the Banished.
As the forces departed the Phantom, each set immediately to the task at hand. They were easily outnumbered, but the Swords had taken advantage of the chaos and surprise to even the playing field as much as possible.
Jaarov and Zhinn had eliminated several enemy soldiers and were already engaged with the next incoming wave. They were joined by a hulking Elite named Koal ‘Mal, whose hunched form and slightly broader physique belied his deft skills with an energy sword. ‘Mal hailed from a lineage torn asunder by betrayal and civil strife, their keep in a constant state of upheaval and vacillating allegiance. It fueled his rage to an impressive degree, and it wasn’t difficult to recognize the somber joy he took with each traitorous Sangheili he plunged his blade into. Allying with the Banished was a choice he could not abide, and Fahl could not help but sympathize with how difficult this ongoing conflict was for Koal ‘Mal.
It was no surprise, of course, that the bulk of the local Banished forces they engaged with were Sangheili. The teroks weren’t just at the doorstep, they were already sleeping at the foot of the bed.
However, despite all this, while his own kind were indeed the tip of the Sanghelios spear, the truth was that at the beating heart of any Banished endeavor was the clenched fist of a Jiralhanae loyal to Atriox—today would be no different.
“All your antics… but all for nought.” A Jiralhanae’s bellowing could be heard before Fahl had actually seen him.
As Fahl turned around, a massive chieftain in Banished-liveried armor emerged from under one of the catwalks that crisscrossed the tunnels. He was flanked by two Brute Captains, each with a charged plasma tosser aimed in Fahl’s general direction.
Orim’s voice came over Fahl’s comms link. “Chieftain Ipso—it’s no surprise to see him so directly involved. We’ve had several teams tailing his extended pack, and it never takes long for us to lose his scent. He will not be a trivial opponent.”
Fahl’s attempted response was cut short once more by the chieftain.
“How does it feel? To see your world burn… and for your own kind to be holding the match while we bask in its glow.”
“You speak like one with experience in such a thing.” Fahl responded, though he knew such a retort carried little weight in the immediate age. The Jiralhanae had once been the architects of their own decline, but this truth had no tangible relevance in the moment—the fact was, Ipso was right, but Fahl would never offer the satisfaction of confirming so. “Have you become more comfortable with wielding words than heaving a hammer?”
The chieftain bellowed in laughter. “An excellent question to be sure.” The Jiralhanae bared his tusks in a triumphant smile. “Why don’t we find its answer?”
The two captains opened fire, their Ravagers splashing searing hot plasma across the quarry floor, prompting Fahl to dive into an evasive roll. Three allied Sangheili warriors leapt to his aid and engaged the Brutes, catching one in the shoulder with well-placed plasma from a pulse carbine.
Moments later the same Swords operative was smeared across the nearby rock face by the force of Ipso’s gravity hammer.
Leveraging every bit of his vast experience, Fahl used cunning and more than a few deft maneuvers to maintain whatever advantage he could. All the while, the firefight continued to rage around him, each warrior intensely occupied with a constant flow of enemy engagement.
And finally, after several minutes—and several decades—the extent of Fahl ‘Nto’s time-honed skill came up just short.
He took a dull Ravager blade to the shoulder as he thrust his energy dagger through the second captain’s mouth, but the exchange cost Fahl time he didn’t have.
The sudden impact of the chieftain’s swift kick to the chest sent Fahl sprawling. He landed hard, his helmet dislodged and tumbled away. He had only just made it back to his knees when the shadow of his enemy made him look up.
Dazed, Fahl felt Ipso’s massive form looming over him, his hammer at the ready.
And Fahl ‘Nto realized his time had finally come.
He was a warrior; he had known it would happen eventually.
As Ipso roared, bringing the weapon up and back down in a swift circular arc, Fahl knew with absolute certainty it would reach him.
But yet, the strike failed to arrive.
A flash of cobalt armor darted into view and Fahl found himself face to visor with a Spartan.
Glyyss.
A split second later the sickening sound of metal on metal met Fahl’s ears as Ipso’s hammer blade cleaved through the Spartan’s alloy armor and lodged in their back. Fahl saw red blood begin to pool on the other side of Glyyss’s visor.
“Why?” Fahl asked, knowing an answer would not come.
Glyyss’s body jerked as Ipso attempted to pull the hammer free, but the chieftain was forced to relinquish his grip to avoid the incoming plasma cannon fire pouring through the cave mouth. The Swords Phantom had returned and had successfully begun to apply adequate suppressive fire to cover a desperate egress.
By the time Jaarov and Zhinn arrived to carry what remained of their fallen comrade, Ipso was already lost from view.
A shimmer appeared next to Fahl as a cloaked Orim ‘Kasaan implored his friend to get to his feet and back to the dropship before it was too late.
“We cannot leave!” The protest came from Koal ‘Mal, his armor soaked in the blood of his own kind. “If we give quarter here, we will surely lose Shua’ree to the Banished. The blood spilled here will have been for naught!”
“There are many things that distinguish us from the Banished in this conflict,” Fahl spoke through fractured mandibles, “and kemuksuru is not one of them. We will return when the time is right.”
Scorrin's Blade
“…Humanity is the ruinous common thread at the heart of this galaxy.”
Mahkee wasn’t sure how long Orna had been speaking—it was likely only a few moments but felt like it might as well have been months.
Orna’s relentless diatribe continued unfettered. “With the Arbiter’s failure to secure the first of the sacred rings, the humans began to unravel everything we worked so hard to achieve. It was the humans who destroyed Saepon’kal, wiping out a combined fleet that would have seen the Sangheili emerge as the dominant power in the galaxy, thus forcing us to collude with the vermin to defeat the Prophet of Truth. It was the humans’ own meddling that brought about the Blooding Years, the state of Vadam itself is scarred with the evidence. Even now, their own creations rebelled against them because they were built to live in shackles they sought to break. Do you not see? We are living in their battle-song, Shipmistress, and the Arbiter’s guilt is so great that he would allow them to swarm across the galaxy just to soothe his conscience.”
Mahkee could not deny that there were elements of truth within the shipmaster’s words. Humans had emerged from the Covenant empire’s ashes not simply as survivors, but their swift race to recover had seen them rise from their unexpected victory with a certain arrogance as they proclaimed themselves giants.
Indeed, many dark rumors persisted about the Office of Naval Intelligence, the clandestine human agency that moves mountains in the shadows, and its involvement in the events that led to Jul ‘Mdama’s emergence as heir to the Covenant.
The truth, however, was undoubtedly far more complex than ‘Fulsam was presenting it. If the calculated actions of individuals moving in the shadows were enough to condemn an entire species, then Mahkee herself would be forced to fall upon her own blade for the atrocities committed by the Covenant.
“Yet you have joined the Banished,” she retorted, “which allies with humans, rather than one of the many Covenant remnant groups.”
“Even vermin can prove useful. They are so easy to turn against each other.”
“Then perhaps they are not so different from Sangheili.”
“Think on my words, Shipmistress. I shall leave my offer open to you until our next round of battle,” ‘Fulsam flexed his jaws. “And I have a request that you pass a message to your fleetmaster from Atriox himself.”
“What message would you have me trouble Fleetmaster ‘Kulul with?”
The hologram of Orna ‘Fulsam began to fade as he spoke his concluding words.
“Tell him that Let ‘Volir sends his regards.”
Forge Features
Would you believe we’re over a month into Season 5 already?
We were floored by what folks were creating with the Forge AI Toolkit within the first week, and that momentum is still building with incredible new creations that we can’t wait to share with you.
Forgers have no chill. This much has become clear with our first spotlighted map. We anticipated that folks would recreate various moments and scenarios from previous Halo campaigns, but I don’t think we ever expected that we would see the entirety of The Silent Cartographer from Halo: CE remade – the island, enemy placements, substructures, objectives...
Twenty-one waves of Banished enemies are ready to throw themselves at you, your allies, and the cores you must protect. Get upgrades to strengthen your team, use vehicles to bring superior firepower to bear, and prepare to experience Halo Wars from a first-person perspective. (8-12 players recommended)
The Banished have discovered a rare, highly toxic fluid that they are mining to enhance their fuel rod-based weaponry, and it’s up to you to stop them. Are you taking this on alone, as a Headhunter team of two, or will you deploy a full fireteam of four to bring an end to this dire threat?
“The horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deep one last time. Let this be the hour when we draw swords together. Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn. Forth Èorlingas!”
Plankton has enlisted the aid of the Banished to steal the Krabby Patty formula! Fight to defend Bikini Bottom from this evil, diabolical, lemon-scented scheme!
Tutorial Training
Zechariot has been turning out some fantastic tutorials for Forgers to use in a variety of creative ways. To kick things off, how about a “vending machine” where you can buy AI units for your team?
And on the aesthetic side of things, Ducain23 has a guide to help you create murky algae water and custom trees.
That’ll round us out for this issue of Forge Features! If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a very important appointment with the Custom Game Browser – Bikini Bottom needs rescuing at three, and first light on the fifth day is rapidly approaching so we’ve gotta make sure we’re in the right spot when the forces there look to the east...
Happy Forging!
Dragonborn Super Bundle | Pixel Chief Weapon Charm
When the truth finally dawns, it dawns in fire!
Forge your place in myth and legend by with the Dragonborn Super Bundle, which includes everything from the Redwaters, Kawari, and Crimson Dawn bundles.
In addition to securing these three bundles at once, you'll also get two exclusive rewards - the Dragonborn Noble shoulders and Gansai Gear mythic effect set.
Head to the Shop and don the armor today!
Iconic in every dimension!
Complete all of your Weekly Challenges and the Ultimate Challenge to earn this week’s Ultimate Reward – the Pixel Chief 2D weapon charm.
A new Ultimate Reward will become available every week, so be sure to keep an eye on your Challenges and take advantage of these free rewards.
Bred for combat, built for war, you are the master of any weapon, pilot of any vehicle, and fear no enemy.
The Combat Evolved Mark V bundle contains:
Combat Evolved Mark V armor kit
Cinder Ring armor coating
Viridescent Ring armor coating
Aurum Evolved visor
Unseal the hushed casket and awaken the flawless cowboy within. Prevail through nerves of steel and a quick trigger finger.
Halo 3 Refueled
Preferred snacks, a bottle of Game Fuel (aka Citrus Cherry Mountain Dew™️), and a controller in hand, I’m ready to play Halo like it’s 2007.
Halo 3 Refueled has landed and it’s full of your old favorites… or at least the maps which might have left the biggest impact from the Halo 3 era. Now, it is 2023 so things have evolved a bit. These maps may visually resemble these old favorites but it’s important to note that they have been refreshed and adapted for Halo Infinite’s sandbox so they may play slightly differently.
Oh, and did we mention there’s one more bonus map created specifically for this celebration?
Credits: Epik Xero, NightAvenger01, InfiniteForges, I Crush All, Virus11010 Modes: Slayer | Land Grab | Oddball | King of the Hill (KOTH)
Ask anyone what their favorite Halo 3 map is and odds are good that “Guardian” is up there, so it’s no surprise that we’ve got a great reimagining of it here for you to explore. Another map with some great Slayer action, famous for Oddball, and just a great all-arounder that feels like coming home.
Credits: UneeQ, Mr Greencastle, Azwilko1997, Artifice7285 Modes: Capture the Flag (CTF) | Slayer | KOTH
The Pit is another usual answer to the “Name your favorite Halo 3 map!” question. This map excels at CTF thanks to its symmetrical nature and equal chance for teams to exert control. Grab your crew and let the muscle memory flow straight to your thumbs.
Lockout Blackout returns as Cliffside! First seen in Halo 2, then Halo 3, and now Halo Infinite, this fan-favorite will have you reminiscing over LANs of days past. Play some Slayer, Oddball, or KOTH and revel in the familiarity.
(WARNING: Please report any ghost sightings. They should not be there!)
One of the more vertical maps in Halo, Construct returns as Domicile! Pretty fitting considering people often grab a part of the map to hang out in. From straight-up Slayer to KOTH, this map has a wide variety of experiences to offer.
Keep your head on a swivel and watch for flying Spartans! Narrows returns with a new coat of paint. How you get from end-to-end is up to you, but each option has a risk—take the lift and be exposed in mid-air, dare crossing top-middle, or try your luck below? Narrows is an excellent CTF map but also plays well with other modes.
If one-sided objective modes like 1 Flag CTF are your jam, then High Ground is the map for you. Storm up the beach, breach the gates, grab the flag, and make a dash back for the score. KOTH and Slayer are also favorites on this map.
You either love it or hate it, but Isolation returns. Famous for its location on the Installation 00 Flood containment facility, Isolation is ripe for Mongoose shenanigans, crazy CTF runs, and sneaky Slayer plays.
If you’ve played Athlon in MCC, then Critical Dewpoint will be familiar to you. This re-imagining of the map is perfect for some high-octane gameplay so get your squad and practice those callouts.
PS – Don’t forget to stop for supplies during your match, you might be in for a treat!
Grab your controller, grab your Dew, squad up, and party like it’s 1999 2007!
