The game is absolutely loaded with references, easter eggs, and secrets. It feels very nostalgic in that way.

So that’s not Jake Gyllenhaal?

You didn’t mention that the first bunch of weekly challenges you’re given can be completed in bot matches. The challenges make a distinction between “kill x spartans with y” and “kill x spartans with y in pvp”. The later need you to be killing an opposing playable character, while the former works fine against bots.

Despite its trappings as a jingoistic space opera

Well of course. Who else looks like they would be able to have their own town to themselves in an apocalypse than a man like Nick Offerman/Ron Swanson? 

There's so many just odd decisions by 343 with this game. I can't tell if some of these were intentional or a result of the game needing more time.

I live near Raven Software and I have to say, it’s a sucky day to do a walkout.  Like, it could be colder, but it’s like 20 degrees and windy as all hell.  Good for them though, if it was nicer I’d stop by there to show my support.

This is beautiful and a trademark of the Halo franchise. Sword lunging? Check. Super Bouncing? Check. Warthog launching? Check.

I very much look forward to the craziness that this new game brings.

To this day I'm still bummed they couldn't have just patched it out of the multiplayer mode because using that to fly straight at a tank during Delta Halo was super fun.

They’ll probably patch that exploit out just like what they did with the beam sword flight exploit in Halo 2?

Sounds like my holiday vacation will be spent playing Halo like a younger me did years back playing Halo 1 for the first time. It is a shame that there is no coop. What is the reasoning behind this? This is a game defined by couch coop stories told the day after in class room halls. I really hope we he it sooner than…

As much as I couldn’t care less about ‘top tier streamers’ getting effed over their own mistakes, I still find it pretty unfair that someone can get taken down over a few seconds of copyrighted music, yet I could go on and stream myself drawing any comic book character I want without any penalty. Laws are weird.

But the shaky foundation established by Battlefield 2042 definitely needs fixing first if it’s going to act as the so-called “cornerstone” of this new universe.

I’d say you should consider a career in journalism, but judging by the quality of writing on this site, I fear you may be grossly overqualified.  Thanks for the valuable information!

Why not include the list of products in the article? Here they are:

If the new player incentive is to skip the entire game and start out at the end, then maybe that’s an indication that the game isn’t worth playing.

The story campaign is the only thing that would potentially be of interest to me, so stripping it out is the worst thing they could do

“The scene then cuts to a shot of Jonesy, a major character in the game’s narrative, looking at a massive structure as he treads water in an expanse of ocean. The structure then falls, revealing that it is the game’s new map.”

The “massive structure” is the current iteration of the island itself, flipped on its side…

Gears 5 has had a similar debate over crossplay for a good year now. The problem (and I can’t speak for Halo as I don’t play it, just using Gears for reference here) is that what people see as “cheating” are simply the advantages of being a PC player.

it’s also important to note that you don’t NEED to complete the pass before the next one comes out. Unlike a lot of battlepasses these don’t expire. still I’m glad they made the progression more front loaded for the players that only have time for a few matches rather than a few hours. not everyone can sink in 3 hours…