Halo 4 Message Board older than one year ago

#halo Looks like the info from that German dashboard image was right, as Microsoft has announced that the first of three planned Halo 4 map packs will be hitting on December 10th. More »

Even after saving the entire galaxy (twice!), Master Chief just can't stay on top. After briefly dethroning Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on Xbox Live during its launch week, Halo 4 is now the second most played game behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, according to Major Nelson. It's not too surprising, given the traditional Xbox Live dominance of Activision's annual shooter.

Perhaps more interesting is seeing Hitman: Absolution (appropriately) sneak into the top 20, assassinate Halo 3 and take over its spot at number 19. Meanwhile, Minecraft looms in third place, waiting to reclaim its former glory once again.

It looks like this week's Halo 4 leak was true, at least where the Crimson Map Pack is concerned. The first Halo 4 map pack will indeed arrive on December 10, featuring three new maps. The maps include Wreckage, "a ravaged environment of crashed debris," Harvest, the planet where humanity first encountered the Covenant, and Shatter, a UNSC crystal-mining facility.

Those with the map pack will also have access to a playlist exclusively featuring the new maps. The Crimson Map Pack will be available for 800 MS Points ($10) or via the $25 War Games Map Pass, which grants access to all three of the game's planned map packs (the pass is also included with the limited edition of Halo 4).

Also slated for December 10 is a new multiplayer mode called Extraction. This mode tasks each team with "extracting assets from various sites around the map." This is done by planting and subsequently defending a beacon at specific locations. Successfully defending a beacon earns a team one point. The opposing team, meanwhile, can earn points by taking the extraction site for themselves.

Check out a trailer for the Crimson Map Pack above and peruse some new screens in the gallery below.

Mitch and Destin talk about why they're still playing, but frustrated with Halo 4's Spartan Ops.

The fourth episode of Halo 4's "Spartan Ops" series is available now through your copy of Master Chief's latest adventure. But, if you're only interested in the gorgeous cutscenes, then here you go. You can start watching from the beginning here.

Rumor Central: Halo 4 DLC dated; two models of next Xbox; Wii Mini; RE Revelations for consoles. Plus, no multiplayer for BioShock Infinite.

Dr. Halsey and Gabriel Thorn have a little chat about the Spartan Program. We finally come face to face with the cult leader Jul 'Mdama, otherwise known as the Didact's Hand as Dr. Glassman tries to figure out Forerunner technology.

Dates for upcoming Halo 4 map packs reportedly leaked out via the German Xbox 360 dashboard. The Halo Council screen captured an advertisement listing the Crimson Map pack as launching on December 10, the Majestic pack on February 25, and the Castle pack on April 1.

The War Games Map Pass is currently available for 2000 MSP and is set to grant access to the three packs, but developer 343 Industries hasn't announced their release dates. We've reached out to Microsoft for clarification on when the map packs are due to deploy.

[Image credit: The Halo Council]

#halo Lots of players—including Kotaku's own Tina Amini—think that Halo 4 needs more maps. 343 Industries has said that additional multiplayer environments are coming but hasn't clued anyone in as to the exact arrival times. But the screenshot above from a German Xbox 360 dashboard appears to reveal dates for the next three sets of maps for the sci-fi FPS. More »

The next episode of Halo 4's Spartan Ops campaign lands Monday morning at 2 a.m. Pacific, but you can watch the teaser trailer right now if that's what you're into. Episode 4, "Didact's Hand," appears to have a lot of holograms, more political intrigue and more moral relativist drama. Also, aliens.

#halo You're in for a treat today. Today, we're looking at a collection of Halo 4 art by Nicolas "Sparth" Bouvier, aka one of the most talented concept artists in the world, regardless of the industry. More »

#halo Now that Halo 4 has been out in the wild for over a week, it's proper timing to accurately assess its multiplayer prowess. I had a lot of fun messing around with the various modes during my review event, but how does being in a room full of gamers compare to lounging on my bed with my headset on? More »

#halo Seventy hours. Two hundred pieces of glass. 250 feet of copper. An estimated one million colours. That's the work that went into this Halo stained-glass window, and it was totally worth it. More »

#halo In the first five days since Halo 4's release on Nov. 6, 1,116,882 people completed the game's campaign, or roughly one out of every four persons who played campaign at some point in that span. More »

#thisissostupid The White House's bullshit feel-good "We the People" initiative is, like all Internet petitions, worth the paper it is printed on.* Most of the petitions lodged there demand things the executive branch cannot effect on its own. The remainder are protest tantrums, like the secessionist fantasies a bored and distended mainstream media are indulging in the post-election news cycle. Today, I asked President Obama to unilaterally create Idahohiowa. If the proposal gets 25,000 YouTube comments signatures, the executive branch says the president will respond. More »

#bestofmetacritic Welcome back to "Backhanded Box Quotes," a collection of measured, thoughtful criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic. More »

What's next for Crimson Team? What the heck is up with that weird artifact?

In-line with the expected schedule, Halo 4's Spartan Ops: Episode Three goes active next Monday, November 19, at 3AM Pacific. The latest episode will pick up the debate from the beginning of Halo 4, with the return of war criminal/humanity's savior Dr. Catherine Halsey.

The official Halo Waypoint blog has shared a number of stats and figures from Halo 4's first week, revealing that over a million people have already completed the new game's campaign since launch; six percent of which have finished the game on its "Legendary" difficulty setting.

All of that campaign playing took up 13.5 million hours of gameplay; however, War Games was actually the most popular game mode, with four million users clocking 16 million hours of competitive multiplayer within the first five days of launching. 1.9 million hours were spent playing Spartan Ops, Halo 4's ongoing episodic co-op mode.

And if you're wondering just how much overall death Halo 4 has caused, 343 says that 4,590,416,285 kills took place in all of the game modes within the tracked five-day period. That's over 4.5 billion kills, between fellow players, the Covenant, and the new Prometheans. With all of that killing, it's no wonder the planet is called Requiem.

The written description can be seen at http://www.ign.com/wikis/halo-4/Waypoint_Terminal_Codes but here is how you can easily get some Halo 4 Armor (Raider Armor), unlock some free XP, and get some free concept art.

We look back at the best Xbox Live multiplayer games from each year since Xbox Live launched a decade ago.

#watchthis So far, I only like Halo 4's mission-based Spartan Ops mode in theory. A new episode every week? Wait, every week? Amazing, I love the dedication. More »

#halo Pity the lowly Mongoose. It's outshadowed by the flying vehicles in Halo 4. And it's not even the coolest ground transportation in the game, either. This humble ATV is what you use when nothing better is available. More »

#halo My sincerest apologies if you've had your fill of Halo 4 concept art over the past week because, well, I have not. As is common, now that the game is on shelves the artists involved can begin sharing more of their work. More »

The tactical advantages to stacking a mech on top of a Banshee are too great to ignore in this latest episode of Defend the House's video game Mythbusters series. In the first Halo 4 installment, we learn a number of valuable things about 343's Halo debut ... but who cares? You can stack a mech on a tank.

[Thanks, Caleb.]

#twitter Boy, those young men sure do love video games, don't they? And wouldn't you know it, two of the biggest games of the year, Halo 4 and Black Ops II, just came out! Surely there is some pithy joke to be made here, some quick gibe about how men will be playing those games and therefore neglecting their girlfriends? More »

Ryan and Mitch discuss what's good and what's not about the first episode of Halo 4's co-op side missions What's with that artifact? Hmm...

The promotional union between Halo 4 and PepsiCo, the latter being proprietor of the vast Doritos and Mountain Dew empires, is drawing ire from the game's community today - not for the delicious blend of accelerated promotion and bold spices, but because it's not working. Players are running into issues getting their bonus experience points.

Halo 4 owners must register on a promotional website before applying their codes to the game, but even those who have done so are claiming their double XP rewards as missing in action. Microsoft has yet to respond to the Halo Waypoint forums in which the complaints originate.

We've contacted Microsoft to see if this is an acknowledged issue and, if so, what steps are being taken to rectify it. In the meantime, it may behoove you to hold back on the double XP and level up like the common people.

[Thanks, Graeme.]

#halo It stands to reason that most people who picked up the remote detonator in Halo 4 thought to use it in this way; but it was TheM0M0show who first documented the technique and put it on YouTube. More »

Halo 4: Spartan Ops - Legendary Playthrough - Episode 2 Cinematic IGN's legendary playthrough of 343 Industries Halo 4: Spartan Ops. Episode 2 - Artifact An artifact brought onboard Infinity endangers the crew. Subscribe to IGNs channel for reviews, news, and all things gaming: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=ignentertainment Subscribe to IGNs gameplay channel for walkthroughs, guides, and gameplay videos: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=igngameplay TAGS Halo 4, Spartan Ops, IGN, IGN Gameplay, IGN Entertainment, Video Games, Games, Gaming, Gameplay, Guide, Walkthrough, Playthrough, Xbox 360, Episode 2, Artifact, Spartan Fireteam, Fireteam Crimson, Fireteam Majestic, Spartan, Paul Demarco, Madson, Hoya, Grant, Gabriel Thorn, Jared Miller, Commander Sarah Palmer, Sarah Palmer, Captain Thomas Lasky, Thomas Lasky, Roland, Ep 2, EP:2, Cinematic