Halo Waypoint Launches November 5, Brings Wealth of New Info and Achievements

If you care about the Halo games in any way then November 5 is going to be a big day for you. It’s the day that Microsoft sends Halo Waypoint live for all Xbox Live users. Halo Waypoint is designed to be the authoritative place for Halo fans right inside their Xbox 360 dashboards. Halo Waypoint will bring a boatload of new content to users on a regular basis, including new videos, machinima and Halo lore, and act as a place for players to track their achievements and see where they rank.

Halo Waypoint was designed by Microsoft’s development group that’s dedicated to Halo, 343 Industries, with some input from development studio Certain Affinity. It will be free for all Xbox Live users when it launches November 5, and then later that month it will only be available to Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

Halo Waypoint will not be replacing Bungie.net, where Halo players currently track stats and achievements, although it will be performing many of the same functions. For any of the recent Halo games (that means Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Halo Wars), Waypoint will pull all your Xbox Achievements from your save files and apply them towards Halo Waypoint Awards. When you have enough achievements in a certain area you receive an award. Right now awards are all based on individual achievements, although developers have plans for group-based achievements.

The achievement awards are only part of the offering at Waypoint. Users can expect a constant stream of new content on a daily basis. Microsoft wants people to treat Waypoint as a community and come back daily. There’s even a regimented schedule for each new type of content. According to Kotaku:

“Mondays are spotlights on people who play or make Halo games. Tuesday focuses on non-video-game Halo projects. Wednesdays are days to showcase Halo gamers' best screenshots and saved films. Thursdays highlight machinima. Fridays are strategy days. Saturdays are premiere days for portions of the Halo Legends anime series. Sundays are days for delving into Halo lore.”

If you are interested in a mobile version of Halo Waypoint, you’ll want to stay tuned. Microsoft has hinted that mobile versions for Zunes could be a possibility.

For more gaming news, see the blog home page or these related posts:

Details of Motorola Droid (Sholes) Android Phone Leaked

SEGA Announces It Will Make Sonic Poker Site

Recession Doesn't Stop Fantasy Football from Growing

BioWare Announces Dragon Age DLC Will Be Available at Launch

Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan Review