That's right; we aren't using a weird European date format for this one.
Your regular roundup wrangler, ♥ Sky, is busy this week (he mentioned something about hens wearing ties) so I'm filling in to bring you your latest dose of Halo news.
Arguably the biggest news from the Haloverse in the last week is the new update coming to Halo Wars 2. This update will drop "early next week" and will include a new playable leader with several accompanying units and leader powers. Morgan Kinsano is a former Hellbringer who now leads armies with an emphasis on fire damage from the cockpit of her souped-up Cyclops. To learn more about this new addition to HW2's leader roster, check out the ViDoc below.
Beyond the world of Halo Wars, this week also saw 343 roll out some high quality overhead PNGs of all of Halo 5's arena maps. These are intended for use alongside the game's public API, but we've also added them to our Overhead Maps Megathread. We did scale them down somewhat as the filsizes were huge.
After the finals are over, expect to see open events surfacing with prize pools crowd-funded through Req pack sales. Anyone wanna get a HaloCustoms team together?
Last week, 343 Engagement Designer Josh Menke covered some interesting topics in his matchmaking feedback blog post. He spoke about smurf accounts and Onyx and Champion matching (things most of us don't really have to worry about) and went on to discuss alternatives to solo queue hoppers, the relationship between Competitive Skill Rank and Match Making Rating, the relationship between ranked and social hoppers, and the concept of daily challenges.
For details, head on over to Josh's blog. He posts each week with some interesting insight so be sure to check it out if you enjoy nerding out over your Halo matchmaking experience.
Below are a few other quick bits.
- Our friend INFINUT is hosting a Halo Paintball tournament with a $200 prize pool.
- The Ghost in the Shell forge contest has wrapped up and judging is underway.
- We are still absolutely committed to our Par for the Course contest. Time conflicts and a few other roadblocks have set us back but we will re-announce the event as soon as possible.
- In all seriousness, Mass Effect Andromeda is out this week.