halo-infinite developer 343 Industries shared with players some insights into what’s planned for the game’s next update scheduled to release on August 9th. It’s a “Drop Pod” update which means it contains smaller features and fixes rather than new game modes and such, but 343 still says it’s one that addresses several community-requested features ranging from improvements on the game’s armor system to making challenges more visible for players looking to check off those tasks.
In this next update, 343 is freeing up visors to work with different armor cores rather than the ones they’re currently restricted to. Players may recall that the developer said not long ago it planned to make different armor pieces compatible with multiple armor cores rather than having the cosmetics restricted to certain cores, but the process was said to be a gradual one. In this next update, “all visors that are currently in the game, and all future visors to come, will work across all helmets from all armor cores.”
With the arrival of our next Drop Pod on August 9, viewers will work on all cores, Challenges will appear in the pause menu, and more. Read up to see what other improvements will be making their way to #HaloInfinite next week!
“At present, there are a multitude of viewers in the game split across the 5 armor cores,” 343’s senior community manager John Junyszek said in the August Drop Pod preview. “If you’ve wanted to use the shiny gold Noble visor (which has hitherto been locked to the Mark V [B] armor core) to complete your look on any of your other cores, you’ll be able to make that happen when the August Drop Pod lands.”
While that armor change is the highlight of the update, 343 is also making it so that challenges will be viewable right from the start menu so that players can easily check in on their tasks at hand to see what needs to be completed. This same update will also lay the groundwork for more ranked playlists in the future with a new playlist or two already coming in this next update.
“Kicking things off will be Ranked Doubles, which is set to land two weeks after the Drop Pod’s release – along with a CSR reset. Additionally, a social Team Doubles playlist will be accompanying Ranked Doubles on its launch day, meaning Halo Infinite will be getting twice the 2v2 fun.”
Halo Infinite’s August Drop Pod update arrives on August 9th, so expect these features to be available then.
They said it was impossible and, for nearly two decades, that seemed to be the case. But last night, a streamer named Jervalin beat Halo 2‘s “LASO deathless” challenge, earning a cool $20,000 in the process. Talk about finishing the fight.
Let’s rewind. Earlier this summer, the YouTuber Charles “Cr1tikal” White Jr.. posted a $5,000 bounty to beat Halo 2 on the highest difficulty setting, with every bonus challenge modifier turned on, without dying. In the 18 years since Halo 2‘s 2004 release on Xbox, no one had ever published evidence of completing the challenge. White’s challenge stipulates that the whole run is streamed, either on YouTube or Twitch. By July, no one had successfully stepped up to the plate, so last month, White tacked an extra $15,000 onto the bounty.
Most observers keeping tabs on the challenge had their money on Jervalin—a relatively private streamer who’s picked up a modest following for setting world records on a variety of Halo challenges—being the first person to complete it. Sure enough, late last night, I’ve crossed the finish line. (Here’s the archived stream.)
Bungie/Jervalin
Neither White nor Jervalin could be reached for comment in time for publication.
Jervalin was remarkably chill for finishing what some people, including White Jr., have called the “hardest challenge in all of gaming,” addressing viewers in the even-handed tone you’d use while moving on to the next addendum in a mostly empty community board meeting.
“All right, chat,” he said. “I think we did it. I think we fucking did it. Imagine that. Two years ago, I said, ‘I think this is impossible.’ Imagine fucking that.”
Whether or not Halo 2‘s “LASO deathless” challenge really is the “hardest… in gaming” is, of course, a subjective measure. But it’s definitely up there. You have to activate all of the game’s skulls, or gameplay modifiers that typically ramp up the difficulty. The Catch skull, for instance, makes enemies toss grenades more frequently. Famine, meanwhile, means enemies drop half the ammo they usually would. Mythic doubles the health of all enemies, while Angry increases the enemy’s fire rate. Blind removes your HUD. Assassins turns enemies invisible. (It’s not technically there skulls, however. For the challenge, Envy is left off, because that one grants you invisibility too, which does not make Halo 2 more difficult, for obvious reasons.) All together, when you turn every skull on and play on Legendary, the game’s highest difficulty setting, you more or less create a set of conditions that ensures you die instantly if you take any damage.
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Jervalin had to rely on a few exploits to finish the challenge. To wit: He brought a banshee, a violet-colored aerial vehicle with a powerful cannon, into the final boss fight against Tartarus on the “Great Journey” level. That final fight takes place on a series of circumferential platforms hovering over an abyss. With pinpoint precision, he used the banshee’s cannon to send waves of foes careening off the edge as they spawn—before they get a chance to really even fight.
I’ve been covering the Halo community for a while now, and can’t recall a time where I’ve seen players pretty unanimous in an opinion, let alone a positive one. Sure, halo-infinitethe latest game in the series, has its issues, which players are not shy about criticizing. But there remains a reverence among even the biggest names for Bungie’s original games since the mid-2000s, and the mind-bogglingly impressive feats players are able to pull off.
The run garneredpraising desde Halo streamers like Remy “Mint Blitz” and Luc “HiddenXperia.” Emanuel Lovejoy, the coach for Cloud 9, arguably the best professional Halo team on the planet right now, called Jervalin to “legend.” so did Spacestation Gaming’s UberNick. the Halo pro Kyle Elam noted how yesterday’s scrims—basically, matches between pro players that don’t count toward the official seasonal record—were put on pause so players could collectively watch Jervalin get it done. “Gonna need Jervalin to make a Twitter so we can actually @ this legend [clapping hands emoji],” Halo esports analyst and caster Alexander “Shyway” Hope said. It has been a genuine delight to witness such universal acclaim from all corners of the community.
But the most heartwarming moment—the sort of moment that proves Este, not the toxicity that inhales so much oxygen out of the room, is what video games are all about—happened in the final seconds of the stream: Jervalin’s family runs into the stream, embracing him in an almost suffocatingly tight bear hug. $20,000 is nice. That’s nicer.
As wet weather lashes Perth’s southern regions Kirsty Buchanan is spending her nights on the cold, rainy, streets of Mandurah — one of many in the Western Australian seaside city doing it tough.
Key points:
Almost a quarter of people without a home in Mandurah are sleeping on the street or in improvised dwellings
Support workers say there’s support for people doing it tough, but not enough services to get the long-term homeless off the streets
Families and pensioners are also reaching out to food kitchens amid the rising cost of living
Mental health issues, brought on by family tragedies, prompted Ms Buchanan to leave her home of 26 years and her stable job when her life took a turn.
“I just ended up with nowhere to stay,” she said.
“I’m on the priority list [for housing]. I have been about eight months.”
She has relied on homeless support services for food, dry clothes, and sleeping bags during the harsh winter.
“Being winter, this week out of all the weeks has been the coldest. [It’s] cold. But it’s the boredom as well,” she said.
She is not the only one struggling.
Timothy Tonkin spent six years living on the streets in the Peel region and now shared a motorhome with his friend while he tried to find a house and a job.
Timothy Tonkin is living in a van and struggling to find work, and says the cost of living has hit him hard.(ABC Radio Perth: Jacqueline Lynch)
“We’re actually arguing now as we speak because of the cost of living, the cost of everything. I haven’t got a cent to my name and neither does she,” he said.
“I would love to go back to work but work is hard to find in my situation – no license and no proper qualifications.
“It’s not easy living day-to-day.”
Unemployment high and many sleeping rough
A recent Deloitte Access Economics report, adopted by the City of Mandurah, outlined unemployment rates in Mandurah as “stubbornly higher” than Perth with a “nationally significant” level of people dependent on rent assistance payments.
Community organizations are playing a big role in helping the homeless.(ABC Radio Perth: Jacqueline Lynch)
It also highlighted a great deal of housing stress among residents, high illicit drug use, and a rising number of people living with mental health issues in the city.
The local council has vowed to look at what can be done to address the issues.
Meanwhile, a recent University of WA Center for Social Impact report found while the rate of homelessness in Mandurah was lower than other parts of Western Australia, the region had the highest proportion of homeless people sleeping rough in the state.
It showed that almost 25 per cent of those without a home were staying on the street or in improvised dwellings as opposed to staying with friends or in crowded houses.
More broadly, the UWA report highlighted a 39 per cent increase in the number of people accessing government-funded homeless services over the past five years in Western Australia.
Significantly, it outlined an over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people among the state’s homeless population.
‘We’re all struggling to eat’
Vanessa Nelson is a proud Whadjuk Ballardong Bibbullmun woman who spent years on the streets.
She secured a house in Mandurah earlier this year but said her struggle was not over.
Vanessa Nelson struggles to pay bills and fill her refrigerator, but her greatest worry is for others.(ABC Radio Perth: Jacqueline Lynch)
“I’m empty, I have got a loaf of bread, no butter … my cupboard’s empty,” she said.
“I come down to the soup kitchen along with many other family members and non-family members. We’re all in the same boat.
“We’re all suffering, we’re all struggling to eat. We’re all struggling to pay our bills. We are not getting jobs and we are not moving forward,” she said.
But her concern was not for herself, it was for others.
“I sit and I worry every day for the hundreds and thousands of people who are still out there that are living rough, living cold, living sick,” she said.
Fed for free but no place to sleep
There are many community-led organizations, businesses, and individuals lending a hand in Mandurah.
As a city also harboring great wealth, coordinator of the Peel Community Kitchen, Tracey Bain, said there was a drive within the community to help the homeless.
“[The wealthy] donate clothes, a lot of come in and donate money at tax time. So I think there wouldn’t be so much help for the homeless if there wasn’t that much wealth here,” Ms Bain said.
Tracey Bain said there was plenty of support for the homeless, but a lack of services to help them transition into stable housing.(ABC Radio Perth: Jacqueline Lynch)
But she said the city lacked what was needed to help combat long-term homelessness, such as affordable housing, more mental health services, and support to help people break drug and alcohol addictions.
“In Mandurah you can get fed every day of the week for free, you can get clothes, you can get shower. The only place it doesn’t offer is somewhere to live,” she said.
“I have been here eight years and I’m still seeing the same people on the streets that were on the streets eight years ago.”
Advocates say housing the key
The state government is set to spend more than $28 million setting up a Common Ground-supported housing facility in Mandurah which will provide up to 50 self-contained apartments and wraparound support to rough sleepers.
But the site is not expected to open to residents until 2024.
Ms Bain said the facility was a step in the right direction.
The CEO of Halo, Dee Freitag, agreed to housing in Mandurah was a key issue that needed to be addressed.
Halo provides food, clothing, household items, furniture, transitional accommodation, and outreach support assisting with welfare services.
Halo CEO Dee Freitag said a lack of housing was a key problem in Mandurah that needed to be addressed. (ABC Radio Perth: Jacqueline Lynch)
Ms Freitag said the rental crisis in Western Australia had prompted an increasing number of new people to reach out for help.
“We are also seeing a lot of families because of the housing crisis … and the elderly,” she said.
“We are seeing a major increase in people who are not eating because they’re trying to keep a roof over their head.
“And then there are the ones, in this bucketing down rain, who are sleeping on pathways and verandahs because they don’t have cars.”
Whether it be social housing or private rentals, Ms Freitag said any offering would be welcome to get people off the streets.
“Any house that goes up for rent is a bonus,” she said.
