In an enlightening interview about the just revealed Halo Waypoint, 343 Industries divulge some new details on what the future holds for the new Halo-dedicated Xbox LIVE space coming online November 5th.
"I think it's safest to say that it would be a game-enhancing experience," says 343's Jason Pace. "It will be a much more deeply interactive one. ... the information being presented to you on the screen is coming from a UNSC source."
Talking about the Achievement feature, where Waypoint groups your goals from Xbox 360 Halo titles together, providing additional in-service rewards if you complete certain requirements, Pace said, "Moving forward, absolutely we feel it is important to pin that achievement to something tangible." Kotaku say that he mentioned things like Avatar items, as well as game content, as potential items to be given to players in the future.
Fans need not be weary about any tampering with Bungie.net, either. 343 say that they won't be touching the fan-favorite community site (probably for fear of buildings being burned to the ground). "[Bungie] do stats so well it would be silly for us to re-invent that wheel. There is such a wealth of information there I wouldn't imagine we would look at changing that for Halo 3." But it was hinted that post-Halo: Reach, when Bungie pass the development torch to 343 Industries, Waypoint could very well become the "new" BNet-type service for future titles, since the teams are so close-knit. Lastly, Pace would not confirm or deny whether or not Waypoint would see a non-LIVE incarnation (ie: mobile), but said that the platform was "very important" to the company. Thinking about it, this is probably the project they were talking about earlier this year, spanning console, web and mobile devices.
[Update]: We have been informed through the interwebz that Microsoft will be including Halo Waypoint as part of the NNXE Update 2 Preview. Which as a matter of fact sign up's are ending soon, so hurry and sign up before you lose your chance!
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