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October 29, 2015
Halo has always been the franchise that has helped Microsoft sell consoles so it's no surprise that the game always performs well. With that being said, Halo 4 didn't bring in as many sales as 343 Industries may have hoped, but it looks like they've returned Halo to it's former glory with the latest release of Halo 5: Guardians.
After just one week, Halo 5 Guardians has already made a large number of records, including day one sales, week one sales and most sales for an Xbox One exclusive title. On top of the numerous sales records for performing so well in the first week, the 343 Industries launch stream for Halo 5 received a Guinness World Record for being the most watched video game launch ever.
Microsoft has revealed some interesting first week stats for Halo 5, along with sales numbers. On top of bringing in $400 million in revenue from Halo themed consoles and the Halo 5 game itself, Halo 5 Guardians has been played for an accumulative 21 million hours thanks to the
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October 05, 2015
Halo 5: Guardians will be getting a new clan system upon launch and players can already create their own clans and add their friends. The new clan system in Halo 5 is called Spartan Companies and each company can include up to 100 players.
As well as being an opportunity for players to create a social hub for communities and friends within Halo 5, Spartan Companies can be used to bring new players together. If you visit the Spartan Companies page you will find a list of all of the clans already created and it's possible to request invitations into these companies.
A player can only be in one company at once so players will have to remain loyal to their groups. As an added incentive to try out the Spartan Companies system, when a player joins a company for the first time, they will be rewarded a REQ pack with a guaranteed cosmetic item inside.
These REQ packs can of course not be used till Halo 5 is actually available and players can only gain 1 REQ pack from Spartan
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September 29, 2015
There's no way to deny it. Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched with tons of issues and it completely ruined the possibility for many players to even play the game properly. 343 Industries has definitely taken the poor launch of the Master Chief Collection to heart though, and the boss of Xbox, Phil Spencer has spoken out about 343's promise to make sure Guardians is released without any problems.
"I know that of all of our teams, no team at their core feels the need to hit a great launch from a multiplayer and connection issues more than 343. That team took the issues around the launch of Master Chief Collection, it kind of hit them in the heart, because it's Halo Nation. It's the people who love these past Halo games."
Every time Phil Spencer has gone to visit 343 Industries, he's been impressed by their dedication to ensuring the quality of Halo 5, and it's multiplayer in particular, is as high as possible.
"No team is focused on it more than 343," Phil Spencer
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September 27, 2015
Halo: The Master Chief Collection will soon get an update that will finally add a system to punish quitters. As it currently stands, players can quit matchmaking games half way through with very little punishment which leaves games unbalanced and unfair, especially in team games.
Thankfully 343 Industries has nearly completed development for a system that will punish and discourage quitters. Unfortunately 343 didn't go into much detail about how the Master Chief Collection will punish quitting. Instead, a small blog post was listed to explain that the upcoming patch will "address a variety of areas, including ranking, will add new systems for quitting and penalties, and will improve a number of community items."
So far, 343 Industries has not set a release date for the changes, but it would be safe to say that the new changes will be released in a patch before the end of the year. Hopefully in between now and then we'll hear some further details about exactly how the quitting
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August 17, 2015
Whilst the Pip-Boy collector's edition of Fallout 4 seemed like a big gimmick for a lot of gamers, it clearly is no joke to any Fallout fans out there. In fact, there will be no more Pip-Boy editions available for sale because they've all sold out.
Some rumors have circulated that Bethesda has purposely artificially limited the stock of the Fallout 4 collector's edition but Bethesda has opened up about the Pip-Boy and the truth is actually completely the opposite from this.
Despite Bethesda trying to increase production of the Pip-Boy as much as possible, the Fallout 4 Collector's Edition still sold out and Bethesda can no longer get hold of any more. In an interview with Gamespot, Bethesda's Pete Hines explained that, "We reached a point where we'd go back to the factories and they were like, 'guys, this is it, sorry.'"
When talking about keeping in touch with the factories responsible for production of the Pip-Boy, Hines mentioned, "We'd go back and say 'Demand for
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August 11, 2015
The latest Advanced Warfare DLC pack is now available on the Xbox One and the Xbox 360. As part of the exclusivity deal with Microsoft, the latest DLC will not be available on other platforms until next month.
The new DLC pack is called Reckoning and it features a variety of new content. Unfortunately Reckoning does not include a bonus weapon like previous DLC packs have, but it does include other exciting content.
In total, there are four new multiplayer maps in the Reckoning DLC pack and a new exo-zombies map. The first map is called Fracture and it features an ice digging facility located near one of the poles. You'll find yourself on a sinking ice cap that slowly sinks throughout each match.
Overload is the second map and this is located in the middle east. Players will find themselves fighting in a large, luxury hotel filled with all sorts of expensive items.
Quarantine is the third map and this places players on a disease ridden island. The map is very
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August 08, 2015
Infection is a game mode in the Halo franchise that has been around since Halo 2. Since then it's gone through various changes and in the latest version of Halo, infected players now appear as the flood.
Whilst infection has been in practically every version of Halo, the game mode has not yet been added to the Master Chief Collection. However, if the latest news from 343 Industries is anything to go by then the game mode should be coming to MCC soon as well.
In the latest weekly blog post on Halo Waypoint, 343 Industries detailed their upcoming plans for the Master Chief Collection, whilst hinting at an upcoming Infection update.
"The playlist team continues to work on future updates, and it's quite likely that we'll be talking more about things like Infection in the coming weeks," 343 Industries stated in their blog post. For those unfamiliar with the infection game type in Halo - it works similarly to the standard FPS 'zombies' or 'infection' mode that has been in
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August 02, 2015
Whether you are looking forward to Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 or not, you can't deny that Activision has done a great job, alongside some of it's developers, to release a number of classic Call of Duty games in the past.
Some players may have the fondest of memories in Black Ops 1, whilst others remember spending their days on Modern Warfare 2. Some veterans out there may even tell you that their fondest memories were from Call of Duty 4.
Either way, there is a lot of nostalgia hiding in many of the older Call of Duty titles, and Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg understands that this is a great reason for remastered versions to be created.
Hirshberg mentioned that, "If done well, remasters can be great."
"You talk about nostalgia, and people have such connection to the games they love from the last cycle. They want to see what it would look like if someone did it right for this cycle."
Hirshberg even went on to say that a remastered collection for Call of
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August 01, 2015
The latest Games with Gold promotion for August has now been announced and Major Nelson has revealed four different games that will be available throughout August for both Xbox One and Xbox 360.
Like previous months, the Xbox 360 will be getting two games and the Xbox One will be getting two different games as well. Personally I think August's lineup may be one of the best we have ever seen so far.
Firstly, on Xbox 360 we have Metro 2033 available currently and it will remain available till August 15. On August 16, Metro 2033 will be replaced with Metro Last Light. Metro Last Light is a direct sequel of Metro 2033 so you'll be able to play through both games this month in order.
Each Metro game is a post apocalyptic themed first person shooter. As the title of the game would suggest, the majority of both games takes place inside the Metro system underneath Moscow.
The great deals are available on the Xbox One as well. Throughout the entirety of August, Metal
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July 27, 2015
Mortal Kombat X will soon be getting another DLC character added to it's roster and this time round the character will be a special guest star.
If you've been paying attention to the DLC plans for Mortal Kombat X, you may already know that the next planned DLC character for the game will be Predator. This character has been planned to release at some point next month, and like previous DLC characters, is available for free to any players that have purchased the $30 Kombat pack.
Players can also purchase characters separately, or alternatively they can try out the DLC characters for free whenever their corresponding player tower is rotated into the game.
Unfortunately we don't know too much about Predator just yet. A reveal trailer has not yet been released so we have no details about Predator's move set. What we do know is that Ed Boon has revealed one single promotional image of Predator fighting Jax. If you've got a keen eye you may have noticed that the promotional