ParsnipHero

@xboxjapanfan sadly that won't change without a population there to play it.

Europe is definitely better but even it lags way behind North America and possibly South America too.

@InterceptorAlpha @AccessibleDaydream it's had some success. This is I think the third one. Previously there was BTB Heavies and changes to BTB Stockpile as well. Both of them have been rolled into the regular experience.

@AccessibleDaydream yea, I understand there. It’s a terrible cycle and SBMM these days is pushing people to have to play at their best every game.

I’m not one for single player games honestly. I play online games because tend to be the most interesting opponents but I do feel I’m getting too old for constant competition. Plus the grind takes me away from my wife a lot of the time. She’s happy playing her games and whatnot but recently I’ve been playing other games like the new Mario game and we’ve enjoyed doing that.

End of the day time is really important too.

@Bartig did you play Grow Home and Grow Up?

I really don't care the story. I'm here for the climbing mechanics.

I've been looking forward to Jusant since it was announced. I can't climb in real life I've got a mental block about falling.

Climbing and scaling in video games is generally one of my favourite things. Except for BotW... Shout out to BotW for making climbing tedious!

@AccessibleDaydream yea, I never really noticed it before. I took a long break from Halo and played games like BF4, Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends in that time. Never been one for CoD.

I come back to Halo Infinite and the aiming is different. Whenever I go back to MCC, which is rarely, I played Halo 4.

I'm probably going to reduce my amount of time playing Halo Infinite until the SSBM gets a little looser. Ideally I'm looking to move away from GaaS I get too easily addicted to the grind instead of playing for the fun of it. Although I say that you watch and they go and drop 4 more classic maps into Squad Battle today and I'll be hooked again.

Looking forward to playing Jusant though. That looks like a non-GaaS I can actually enjoy.

@Cherip-the-Ripper the hammer is no joke and a stray RPG on an objective has been fruitful for me getting kills on defending teams.

Probably going to give the game a rest though. I was disappointed to see there was no extensive controller mapping. I know this is a open beta but still. I have a hard time switching between FPS games. I was useless the first game or so in Halo Infinite after playing The Finals all weekend.

@Cherip-the-Ripper I ended up having a really good time with the game over the weekend. I did switch to Heavy but then back to Medium. Turret is great for securing the quick cash vault.

I wanted to line the Heavy more. C4 and RPG are nice Ave the change is good but beyond that I didn’t feel I was getting

Super Mario Bros. Wonder and probably some Halo Infinite and The Finals beta.

@Ocat glad to hear you’re enjoying it. My experience has been mixed. I’ve not had a positive trajectory of games. I’ve only played as the medium class so far. I like the goo grenade but I generally find I’m getting outgunned with the AK.

This whole thing has kinda made me want to play Apex Legends again though. Not played that in a long while. Plus I miss my boy Mirage.

@Ocat yea. Love the idea didn’t enjoy The execution. Got destroyed in most my games.

How are you finding it?

Could have done with this 2-3 years ago when I switched from PS as my main console. Not going to grumble too much but it’s unlikely I’ll switch over to PS or PC at this point.

@GuyinPA75 I couldn't tell you what she's done but I enjoy seeing her present what Xbox has been up to at their annual big showcases. I hope we don't lose that now she's president.

@AccessibleDaydream I hear ya. It wouldn’t be so bad though if social games had a less dialled in SBMM though. Social shouldn’t be so competitive.

I personally feel my biggest issue is I can’t get my aim settings just right. I don’t have issues in other games but Infinite is definitely a perplexing one.

@AccessibleDaydream that’s fair and all but I’ve played every single week since launch and both test flights. That doesn’t make me any good and I can’t keep up.

Absolutely hyped for this one since I first saw it. I love movement shooters. Throw in some destruction and I'm a happy chappie.

Season 5 has been a mixed bag. On the one hand it's great to get new content. On the other, games have been pretty challenging a lot of the time.

I’m giving Forge a go in Halo Infinite. Took me a couple of hours to block out something which resembles what you could say is a map.

I’m already lvl30 I’m the season 5 pass. I don’t mind though. There’s more to the game now than a battle pass.

Also hoping to buy Super Mario Wonder this weekend and have a go at that too.

Honestly the thing I’m looking forward to the most now I’m COVID free is going outside and having a walk. Autumn is my favourite time of the year and it is just out there looking amazing.

@OldGamer999 nothing is quite as good as dev made stuff but some of the stuff forgers are making looks fairly promising.

What they need is the ability to add things as a "campaign" game type instead of a multiplayer game type them have the ability to trigger various voice actor lines then we might have custom campaign missions.

From what I've seen firefight looks great though. Can't wait to give that a go when it launches this season.

@OldGamer999 the grapple hook in Infinite is so good. Better than poor Pathfinder in Apex Legends.

@AccessibleDaydream nor am I. I just prefer the look of the forerunner version to the banished one. The banished one has a lot of harsh red and black tones.

@AccessibleDaydream I guess they’re all forge maps. This is all opinion but Empyrean probably came from a different time at the studio where they wanted a classic map remade. Mountain Dew probably threw money at 343 or some forgers and said “if we’re doing a throwback playlist we gotta have classic pit”.

That said, I find it confusing they have banished narrows. I find the banished aesthetic too much for a whole map. It’s fine I’m parts. They should have went all the way and made classic narrows.

I enjoyed the first one on a coop playthrough. Two was okay but had a tonal shift which has not aged well for me at all.

I wouldn't mind some of the Crash games. Never really played them since the PSX days. Might be a bit of a laugh.

I know I'm the person most likely to bang on about Halo in the comment section. I know this is an Xbox website too but it sure is fantastic to see a plethora of positive Halo Infinite articles.

In the last couple of years we've had a couple of articles maybe around the launch of a new season or reporting how messed up 343 has handled the game but this Halo baby! It sure does feel like it's back. May the good times continue. We still have a ways to go but right now the eating is good.

@Widey85 you can’t underestimate brick and mortar shelves but there’s a lot of people who do their shopping online too.

We’ve had a hybrid for many years where consoles come bundled with digital games or currency for The likes of Fortnite and Rocket League but even then they still had physical games on the shelves.

Also aren’t some big titles these days just download codes in a box? I don’t buy physical but I’ve heard stories of download codes in packages instead of a disc.

@InterceptorAlpha absolutely. I hope they add more classic BTB maps to the playlist.

These are all arena maps but this season I hope BTB and Squad Battle get some more community maps. Headlong would be amazing. That map for me is THE Halo 2 BTB experience.

So long we still get infinite’s multiplayer continuing development I’ll be happy.

@rustyduck the forge updates will be out tomorrow with the launch of season 5. Firefight King of the Hill will be out at some point later after the launch of season 5. Could be a month or so.

Never been into Mountain Dew but I’ll take some classic maps and more exposure for Halo Infinite.

@Dan1283 certainly isn’t, mate. Keep safe out there!

@Moonglow yea, I guess you’re referring to Gears of War’s horde mode? The Halo series has something similar called Firefight.

Forgers will be able to create Firefight style experiences but 343 will be adding it to matchmaking at some point after season 5 starts with Firefight King of the Hill.

Mostly over my COVID but still quarantining as it’s still less than two weeks since I first got it.

I’ll be playing Halo Infinite this weekend because I’m trying to get from Gold to Platinum in career rank before season 5. Still a long way of Hero and the Master Chief armor kit but it’s progress nonetheless.

Other than that I’ll have one eye on the Halo Championship Series world finals held in Seattle. Exciting times and some nice twitch drops too.

Really looking forward to seeing what people create. If I know one thing is that I can’t imagine what amazing stuff they’ll create.

@Daniel1221 only if it's a spiritual successor to Diddy Kong Racing. I've sorely missed hovercraft/plane/card in kart racing.

I'm going to have "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" stuck in my head this weekend. Thanks Xbox...

I have a lot on at the moment so I won’t be picking this up until an inevitable Ubisoft sale. I’m really looking forward to giving it a go when my time frees up.

@Kaloudz huh. So does that mean you get to call people who come in and try to steal from you THIEF and ruin that NPC's save file?

@shoeses I’m sorry I don’t have better news but there was a quote about 80% done and the remaining 20% was an unknown. Here’s a video about it: https://youtu.be/m0tcjkWhUgc?si=9EEoAKNAHdozvTHt

This interview was from just under a year ago around the time of The Winter Update, the foundational update before March’s Season 3.

As 343 said, they chose, the live service over couch coop which is disappointing as couch coop integral to the series. Personally I’m glad we’re where we’re at with the multiplayer otherwise we wouldn’t have had the good season 3 and fantastic season 4.

To your point about Baldur’s Gate 3. Infinite also supports Xbox One too. I don’t think would allow a flagship franchise to drop to feature parity in the same way. Personally I feel Xbox One support should be dropped at this point.

With forgeable AI, I’m sure the community will come up with something.

Big changes are coming to Forge with season 5 in how game types are being created. I heard there’s going to be a mini-game game type or a less ridging game type which allows for multiple objectives. This could lead to PvE forge levels maybe?

@BrilliantBill yea, I came back 2020 as well same as me then. I never did play Warzone though despite being in US East region.

@BrilliantBill I didn’t really play Halo 5 but didn’t the Warzone mode do PvPvE. I wouldn’t mind a competitive firefight where two teams do score attack. First thing should be getting the core Firefight PvE in though.

I didn’t say this earlier but I’m really excited for Extraction coming back. Definitely one of the best modes in Halo 4.

@Kaloudz I’m confused too. Maybe it is PvE still but you can’t score the hill if AI are in it? That would make some sense.

@Altaria_97 did you see the follow up videos IGN did?

There’s also 2 blog posts on waypoint. The newer one talks about the changes to the Battle Pass Events are becoming operations and being around long than the original time frame, for a price.

@Benjamin feels good to me honestly. As a GoldenEye kid who started Halo with the Halo 2 I played Halo throughout the 360. I dabbled with CoD with MW and MW2 but the TTK was so low for me.

Jumped over to PS4 and played movement shooters like Apex Legends where the TTK is lower than Halo but higher than CoD I think. So coming back to Infinite feels like best of all worlds. I honestly can’t play classic Halo any more after experiencing Apex Legends. The much loved Halo 3 feels so floaty. :/

@Kaloudz just a heads up this is King of Hill Firefight not classic Firefight. Not sure why they’re merging in an objective game type with Infinite’s first version but here we are.

In this one you need to capture 5 hills with firefight AI on the map.

@Stoned_Patrol hopefully will get an expansion of Squad Battle maps in season 5. 343 have been pushing through a lot of community maps recently into the game. 8 for Husky Raid, 8 for Tenrai III and then Goliath came out Tuesday. The latter 9 are in a 4v4 playlist. With Dredge coming before that. Season 4 has really seen a huge influx of playlist ready maps.

As for why now and not then? I doing think the process pipeline is where it is now. The community has made some solid recreations since Forge day 1 but getting those maps tested and working with creators for matchmaking took time.

I’m hopefully the new additions to forge might mean we get a working Zanzibar wheel again.

@GeeEssEff @Titntin thanks both! I’m sorry too… lol. Going out my mind in isolation but my wife has been amazing support so I count myself very lucky. I’m just happy she didn’t get it.

@BrilliantBill it’s close. Reeeeal close. Forge lord has been hyping up forge improvements and leaks have pointed to forgeable AI.