Halo 4 DLC Schedule Revealed

By Brian P Rubin | 10 January 2013 | 7 Comments

It’s a new year, and you know what that means: more Halo 4 content. Yesterday, the folks at 343 Industries updated the Halo Waypoint Blog to give some information about their forthcoming schedule of Spartan Ops episodes. The post points out that the schedule as described is tentative, and may wind up changing. But, hey, let’s see what they’ve got in mind.

Week of 1/21
Spartan Ops Episode 6: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.
“Forge Test” playlist (name not final): A rotational hopper featuring small Forge maps such as Relay. Help us test these maps by providing feedback and reporting bugs that will assist us in getting them ready for Matchmaking!
Specializations: Pioneer and Pathfinder Specializations unlocked for all players.

Week of 1/28
Spartan Ops Episode 7: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.
Grifball playlist: A rotational hopper featuring everybody’s favorite virtual sport. Catch the disease!
Specializations: Engineer and Stalker Specializations unlocked for all players.

Week of 2/4
Spartan Ops Episode 8: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.
Team Doubles playlist: A rotational hopper for those of you that like action of the 2 vs 2 variety.
Specializations: Rogue and Tracker Specializations unlocked for all players.

The Waypoint post also offers up some real-talk from Frank O’Connor, the Halo franchise’s development director. He talks pretty honestly about the big task of following Bungie’s tough act, and the things that didn’t go quite as planned:

“Stepping into Bungie’s oversized shoes would have been difficult, even for a well-established team. The challenge of wrangling that engine, that universe and that community was dizzying, even withering. Four years ago when our charter began, the challenge of starting the seed of a development team and then creating a sequel to Halo terrified us. A small group of us – names you know, like Kiki Wolfkill, Bonnie Ross, Kenneth Scott Josh Holmes and other characters who have moved on to different projects, different places – was tasked with doing something that was almost impossible. […]

There are a ton of things we wish we’d done better: Features that didn’t make it into the final game. Glitches that emerged. Missteps made. DLC fiascos. Communication breakdowns. But there were things that went astonishingly well – the creation of a genuinely competitive AAA studio chief among them. A collection of talent and souls that can do something genuinely amazing on this and next-generation hardware. The overhaul of an amazing game engine – but one that really needed to be overhauled – and an amassed education on systems, people, code and audience that will stand us in great stead for the future.”

We’ll post updates if the schedule at the top of the page changes between now and then. But for now, rest assured: more Halo 4 is coming. Happy New Year!

Via Halo Waypoint

7 Comments

Posted by Landon Robinson on 10 January 13 at 11:37am

I find it extremely interesting that they’re unlocking specializations to all players over time, and so quickly at that. 343′s tenacity in releasing content continuously for Halo 4 is pretty impressive and admirable, but it’s almost border-lining on too frequent.

Spread it out a bit, it’s not like the game is going to see a downward spike in player count.
- Posted by CocoBumfluff on 10 January 13 at 1:06pm
  
  Personally I disagree. Map wise if you play infinity slayer or anything ffa to 5vs5 the only maps you see are complex and haven. Mainly haven.
  
  Specializations wise I think 343 messed up, not just in relation to all the codes they sent out to people who played the game before date X and gave them the specialization codes but the fact this promotion was ONLY available for America. I am a hugeeee halo fan and I’ve done very few challenges (as there are alot) and not played very much and have been at 68 for over a month due to the fact I don’t want to hit the cap which is level 70. Which in Halo Reach is the same as Lt Grade 3, a very easy feat. There are countless Americans and limited edition owners at level 130. (level 50 + (10levels x 8specializations)) and have thus had access to weapon skins, new “perks”, armour, etc whereas Non American residents have been thoroughly neglected and have hit the XP cap within a month or 2 of average game time and the hardcore have hit 130 within 3 months.
  On Reach people didn’t hit Inheritor for like…5 months after release?
  
  The specializations level intergration feature is a pain as it heavily restricts those who did not splash out on legendary edition and non US residents. No one likes playing a game to get no xp for it and not have any sort of possible reward for their play.
  
  DLC wise, I have not yet purchased the map pass and have heard the horror stories of bans and the like, and the poor reviews the dlc has had so I am delaying it. I kind of wish they did what Gears 2 did and included with Halo 4 a “flashback” map pass to play old maps as the current selection feels unusually limited for a Halo game.
  
  Spartan Ops is great now and it’s a weekly episodic campaign, spreading it out more would be a pain as the current infinity challenge (exploited as hell (bringing guests into FFA and farming them for points) and rewarding the no-lifers of no-lifers due to how it works) is not worth attempting, especially once you factor in to come top you would just in the time frame get the equivalent of all 130 levels.
  
  Another gripe, I feel bad for having so many, is the weekly rotational hoppers. When I first played Halo 4 (once the servers were finally working), I went online looking for my true love playlist – 2vs2 and it wasn’t there. 2vs2 has been a halo staple and now its merely a 1 week release 4 months after release? :(
  
  So yeah, poor “wargames” ranking system that rewards those who spent early or are US residents, limited maps and playlists that lack the halo staples (multi team?!) make this game so hard to love and I really, really want to love it. On the bright side the recent patch that came out made stability better than it was throughout alllll of Reach.
  
  2vs2, Lockout, and some sort of SKILL based level system is what the game really needs. In the mean time I’ll just keep playing Haven…It is a great map mind, despite 5546345635232398 games on it.
  
  Looking forward to Destiny over Halo 5 :/ LONG reply, sorry.
Posted by Macca431 on 10 January 13 at 2:48pm

@cocobumfluff I’m not American and I got the specialisation code
Posted by L.R. (Screamoluvr) on 10 January 13 at 2:55pm

Honestly? I stopped playing Halo 4 soon after release. Not because it’s not fun, no. It’s the greatest Halo game I have played, and Halo is very near and dear to my heart. But Planetside 2, man. Planetside 2.
Posted by Mugenite on 10 January 13 at 8:45pm

Spartan Ops is possibly the coolest thing ever. Further, I’m still hoping that the “series” will span the seasons across each Halo title. So seasons 3-5 or so can appear on Halo 5, and so forth. As for frequency, I think they are trying to squeeze as much out of this game as possible so that they can toss it aside for the next installment. With next gen on the rise and a sequel already announced, this isn’t outside the realm of possibility.

Also, isn’t it kinda funny? Devs talk about their games as if their the holy grail, and then bash them afterwords when a sequel is in talks. Gotta love PR.
Posted by Gaz on 12 January 13 at 8:17am

I hope stops being greedy and lets 343 release more maps then just a few, Halo 4 has the least amount of maps in a Halo game. Haven a trillion times over, exile trillion times over. Balanced multiplayer but damn….
Posted by ISiupick on 13 January 13 at 3:23pm

So wait, are.they unlocking specializations permanently ? Thats stupid, why would they make them.locked.in the first place ?! Everyones working so hard to get through levels to get the specializations and theyre just giving.them out ? Its a challenge, thats the point of them…