HaloFest Summary Hub

Welcome to Forward Unto Dawn’s HaloFest Summary Hub, where you find a round up and summary of all the exciting breaking news and announcements happening at HaloFest, during PAX 2011. Obviously we couldn’t all make it to the party. Some of the Forward staff are there and will party hard in our stead. Take solace and soak up the party atmosphere by drenching yourself in all the announcements, news and media that will be quenching your Halo thirst over this weekend. Happy birthday Halo. Looking Forward to another ten years.

That’s All Folks!
HaloFest is over. All panels can be found below in the Media section along with a ton of related videos and articles. Stay tuned to Forwward Unto Dawn as we resume our regularly scheduled… ah, stuff.

Forge
Forge will be making a return, it seems, in Halo 4. Great stuff!

Sound of the Stars
Halo 4’s Audio Director, Sotaro Tojima, wanted to send a special microphone out to space to capture sound and music for Halo 4 but Microsoft wouldn’t pay for it. Why not? Oh wait, in space no one can…

The Reclaimer Trilogy
The new Halo video game trilogy has a new collective name. Sounds familiar!

Final Day of HaloFest!
It is the dawn of the last day of the Halo ten years celebrations at HaloFest and today promises to go out with a bang with the Halo 4 panel and Anniversary Multiplayer panel with a side order of Red Vs. Blue and looking back at the past ten years of Halo with the Xbox team.

Be cure to catch up on any of the panels or videos you might have missed by checking the Media section below. Yesterday’s Bungie panel is available on the IGN Live Stream page but not yet in HD – we’ll link it as soon as it goes up.

Going Vinyl
Your ears are in for a serious treat. A double CD “Ten Year Celebration and Vinyl Release for the Halo CE Anniversary Soundtrack has been announced. Skywalker Sound has re-recorded the original game’s music and it sounds fantastic. Also, Anniversary will let you choose between the original music and the updated music when playing the game.

Skulls Old and New
For the Skulls in Halo CE Anniversary (bonus gameplay modifiers) 343 looked at previous skull implementations in previous Halo games and decided it would be fun to hunt them down and find them during the campaign. Some Skulls easy to find and hidden in obvious place and some will be very difficult to find.  They announced the names and details of a few of the Skulls in the game. There will be many more.

  • Grunt Birthday Party – Yay!
  • Grunt Funeral – Like Halo 2 version, Grunts explode when they die. Available as a pre-order bonus.
  • Malffunction – Every respawn a random HUD element is missing for the player.
  • Boom – Each explosion radius is doubled.

Skulls only appear and can be picked up in the new graphics mode as they won’t appear in “Classic” mode.

Universal Connections
The HaloFest Halo Universe Fiction panel’s biggest message to fans going forward is that the extended fiction will give fans bigger “pays off” in future Halo games, citing the new Terminals from Halo CE Anniversary, Halo: Cryptum and upcoming Halo: Glasslands as examples of fiction that will tie in with each other and potentially Halo 4. You don’t have to read any of the books to enjoy future Halo games but if you do, the experience will be enhanced and that’s certainly something that please many of us.

The panel video will be up in a couple of hours if you missed the live stream and be warned that some of the content definitly falls into spoiler territory. I can wait to read more about the [spoiler] War and the Last [spoiler]!

Halo 4 Will Have Toys
Are you shocked? The guests at the HaloFest Toys panel also confirmed that they have seen Halo 4 and that it is “sweet” and “awesome” and features “new stuff”.

HaloFest Day Two Kicks Off!
The second day of HaloFest kicks off so make sure you’re fully up to date with yesterday’s news and videos. We’ve been updating the site overnight as some additional footage has surfaced online. The complete set of of Friday’s panels is now online over at IGN too. Keep your eyes peeled today and don’t forget to check the Media section below for links to all the video goodness.

Spreading The Love
There were two surprises prizes given away after Friday’s panels came to an end at HaloFest. 343 Presented Claude Errera, aka Louis Wu – HBO and Halo Community grandfather, with the first annual Claude Errera Community Award honouring his tireless service to the Halo and Bungie community over the decade. The Community itself has been very receptive to Halo’s new stewards, 343 Industries, and so the community formally presented Frank o’Connor and 343 Industries with a very special community thank you in the form of fantastic wall plaque.
Both presentations can be found in the Media section below.

So Long, Headlong!
IGN has removed the Headlong video. Guess they weren’t supposed to put it out after all. Unfortunately there’s little point locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. It remains to be seen if and when it gets an official announcement.

Friday Panels
IGN and Halo Waypoint will be uploading all of the panels themselves shortly but some sites have managed to put them up early for your viewing pleasure. All links can be found down below.

Halo CE Anniversary Multiplayer Complete Map List
With the last map now confirmed, this is the full map selection.

Beaver Creek
Damnation
Timberland
Hang em High
Headlong
Prisoner
Installation 04 *Firefight

Headlong Confirmed! Whoops?
IGN posted a video showing off the new Headlong remake. Did they mean to do that?

Custom Challenges and the Future of Waypoint
The Future of Waypoint panel announced a bunch of of new things for the Halo Waypoint hub, across various media devices and games. So here is a run down of the exciting announcements.

Overall Visual Refresh
The Xbox version of Waypoint will lead a massive visual change that will sweep across Halo Waypoint’s various media versions. A “wonderwall” that displays content front and centre will replace the current layout making accessing content easier than before. Finding content, particularly fiction content, will be smoother and easier.

Gamer Card
This will serve as a visual conssolidation of every player’s Halo identity, displaying your rank, BPM and customisable backgrounds, it will be available in on the new Waypoint Xbox hub, web site and Windows Phone versions.

Statistical Explosion
The Waypoint site will overhaul the available stats available to each player and create parity with the level of stats available on Bungie.net. It will go further and add additional features to surprise players.

Waypoint Forum Omega
The Waypoint forums will see a complete upgrade with new forum software bringing a wealth of new features leaving behind the current bug-riddled beta forums.

Reach Custom Challenges
Thanks to the new stats pipeline, you’ll be able to soon create custom challenges similar to the current daily and weekly challenges. With an online editor, you’ll be able to craft, challenge your friends, track and exchange them among your fellow battle bros. and enjoy challenges like never before.

Terminal Hints at Cryptum-Halo 4 Connection
The newly released Terminal video (Terminals are easter eggs hidden within the Hale CEA Anniversary campaign) shows off the very first Terminal that players can find and it hints at possible connections to Halo 4 and the Halo Forerunner novel Cryptum. Major spoilers so be warned! Check the Media section below for the link.

TU Hits Mid-September
Yep, we now have an official time-frame. The Beta Hoppers, playlists offering TU Classic game types, will go live early October – a few weeks after the TU hits.

Rumour: Headlong
Blurry images from the BTS: Anniversary Multiplayer video (see Media section below!) suggest Headlong is the final Reach map with Halo CE Anniversary package. Could this be true?

Halo Anniversary Supports 3D
Now you can feel like a Spartan in three dimensions! Possible 4th dimension as DLC not confirmed.

Pre-TU “Beta Hoppers” Playlists
Experience the Classic TU changes before Anniversary is released in special playlists for Halo Reach – feedback from which will help shape the TU!

BS Angel TU Information
BS Angel finds time during the HaloFest festivities to drop some lovely new information about the TU on the Waypoint forum.

Make damage bleed to health through shields possible.
Make reticle bloom configurable.

Modify Armor Lock.
• Sticky grenade will not be nullified if you use Armor Lock after being stuck.
• Damage received while in Armor Lock is transferred to remaining Armor Ability energy.
• How much the damage depletes your Armor Lock energy is configurable.

Modify Active Camo.
• Reduce the bonus time the player gets in Active Camo while standing still.
• Reduce the overall length of time the player can be in Active Camo.

Remove Sword block.
• Disable the ability to block Sword attacks using melee with anything other than another Sword.

Implement the classic Magnum from Halo: CE.

Enable playing Co-Op Campaign and Firefight without requiring a HDD.

Installation 04 To Feature Friendly AI
You’ll never fight alone on the new Firefight map as it has been announced that friendly ODST troops will fight right along side you against the Covenant.

First TU Details
Kotaku has revealed some of the TU details.

“The title update will balance several of the suit abilities, changing Armor Lock’s damage absorption to be based on the amount of energy a player has remaining. It will also shorten the duration of Active Camo and allow for configurable reticle bloom.

But the addition that will make diehardCombat Evolved fans happiest is doubtless the return of the (borderline ludicrously) deadly Magnum pistol from the first Halo game. Its presence will be entirely optional, so players can decide whether to include it on a game-by-game basis. But for any who want to recreate the pistol-blasting mayhem of the original game, it’s going to be a welcome addition.”

Prisoner and Installation 04 Reach Maps Announced
Xbox UK’s Facebook page has announced two of the three unknown Reach maps to come with Halo CE Anniversary. Prisoner, a classic CE multiplayer favourite and Installation 04, the new Firefight map which takes place in a location from the Halo CE campaign. So one new map to reveal – any guesses?

Halo 4 Warthog Reveal via Forza 4
The Halo 4 Warthog has been revealed as a special easter egg in the upcoming racing game Forza 4. The announcement gives us our first chance to see the new version of series’ four wheel death machine. Frank O’Connor clairified some details.

“It uses and carries water for fuel. Cracking the hydrogen out of any H2O. The fuel cans are not a weak point, for obvious reasons. The screenshots don’t really show the surface properties in the way the video does, which you will see later during Pax. And our final in-game surface properries will look radically differemt from Forza’s no matter what.

Also, important note – one of the autovista ‘buttons’ talks about the surface paint properties, which will add some context to what you’re looking at. And there’s even more I can’t talk about yet.”

Here is the official announcement.

The developers at Turn 10 Studios, creators of the highest-rated racing franchise of this generation and 343i have partnered together to create an incredible “Halo” fan experience with the inclusion of the iconic Warthog in “Forza Motorsports 4’s” breathtaking new Autovista experience. Designed to showcase and offer an unprecedented interactive experience with some of the world’s most iconic vehicles, Autovista lets players walk around, interact and learn about vehicles in a way no other game can. Fans who pick up “Forza Motorsport 4” will be treated to a first look at the “Halo 4” model Warthog and an interactive experience narrated by none other than the voice of Cortana. “Forza Motorsport 4” releases in the US starting Oct. 11 and across Europe Oct. 14.

HaloFest Kicks Off!
News will be posted at it breaks!

7 Comments

  1. ManBearPig_06
    August 27, 2011
    Reply

    Yeah, I think they were supposed to wait until 343 revealed headlong later at pax, because to my knowledge, they have just dropped little hints so far officially.

  2. August 27, 2011
    Reply

    Absolutely phenomenal stuff, thank you.

  3. General Vagueness
    August 28, 2011
    Reply

    thank you Dani et al., now I don’t have to wait for the chaos to die down to catch up

  4. Crucio
    August 28, 2011
    Reply

    Great work guys. Thanks for keeping us up to date with Halo Fest!

  5. November 14, 2012
    Reply

    Hey. I think there’s some thing incorrect with your RSS. I hope you can fix it!

  6. July 21, 2022
    Reply

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