Halo Waypoint

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Halo Waypoint is an online portal for all Halo-related content. It is accessible online at Xbox.com as the primary Halo website, and through Xbox Live where it is available to Xbox Live Gold members. The Xbox LIVE version of Halo Waypoint was co-developed by Certain Affinity and 343 Industries. It was released by 343 Industries as part of the Xbox Fall Update on November 5, 2009. A mobile version of Halo Waypoint has been released for the Windows Phone 7, iOS, and Android platforms for free, though it lacks certain features such as career milestones. An additional feature called ATLAS was released in December 2011 which shows detailed diagrams of Halo: Reach multiplayer maps and near real time game player and weapon location stats in Matchmaking and Custom Games. ATLAS is free on the Windows Phone 7 and available for $4.99 on iOS and Android. In May 2012 Halo Waypoint was updated to include Kinect compatibility.

Overview
Halo Waypoint provides users with various kinds of Halo information, including information on members of the Halo community, various machinima videos and gameplay strategies and tutorials. It also allows players to access their own gameplay-related data, tracking "milestones" and progress through multiple games in the series. The weekly Halo Bulletin and most major announcements regarding the Halo series are also posted at Waypoint. The site also features a Halo discussion forum. On December 15, 2010, the Halowars.com forums went offline and were subsequently merged with the Halo Waypoint forums. On March 31, 2012 Halo Waypoint officially took over all record-keeping responsibilities from Bungie.net.

Content on Halo Waypoint is divided into six main categories: News, Halo 4 Intel, Universe, Community, Store, and Career.

News
The most recent headlines posted by Waypoint staff. News is not found on the Xbox LIVE version.

Halo 4 Intel
Players can obtain detailed information about Halo 4 in this electronic guide. Information is organized in the following subheadings: Basics, Story, Enemies, War Games, Weapons, Vehicles, Armor, Spartan Ops, Challenges, Playlists, and Maps. Players can also find this information in Waypoint's Interactive Guide.

An additional subheading "Forward Unto Dawn" is available to players who have either paid for access to Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn or purchased the Halo 4 Limited Edition. Players can view exclusive photo galleries and watch the complete film, bonus videos, and character interviews.

Games
Players can find trailers, videos, and galleries for each and every Halo game, organized by title.

Explore the Universe
Players can find virtually any media that has been featured on Halo Waypoint. This media can be explored either by subject matter or media type. Subject headings are: Events, Weapons, Vehicles, Characters, Locations, Technology, Factions, and Ships. Players can examine all media, or narrow their focus to only "Videos", "Gallery" or "Text". In addition there are nine "Article Groups": The Halo Conflict: A four-part telling of the story of Halo: Combat Evolved released for the launch of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary featuring the game's remastered graphics. Heroes Never Die: A three-part tribute to the heroism displayed by humanity during the Covenant War. Released to coincide with the Halo: Anniversary launch. The Heart of Midlothian: Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian, the complete saga. The Return: Another story from Halo: Evolutions brought to life by ONE. Ten Twenty: One video and three articles outlining the story leading up to the events of Halo 3: ODST. Assault on the Stars: Three videos documenting Operation: UPPER CUT in Halo: Reach. Into Hell: A three-video account of the events of Halo 3: ODST. Lost With All Hands: The Halo Wars story retold in five videos. Halo: Combat Evolved: The events of Halo: Combat Evolved outlined in three articles.

Spotlight
Features a variety of videos and galleries from the Halo community members such as BS Angel, Top 5, McFarlane Toys and MEGA Bloks.

Creations
Community creations including Forge with Pete, High Speed Halo and Mace Windex's 3D Screenshots among others.

Events
Videos and galleries of Halo community events such as launches, conferences, panels, and MLG tournaments.

Rooster Teeth
Virtually every Rooster Teeth video ever uploaded to Waypoint, including Grifball and Achievement Hunter. Waypoint-exclusive Red vs. Blue videos can be found here, however regular season episodes are only uploaded on a temporary basis.

Halo: Reach File Browser
Popular Halo: Reach screenshots, gametypes, films, rendered films and map variants, available for players to download to their Xbox 360. Web and mobile version exclusive.

Forums
Space for Halo fans to discuss anything and everything. Web and mobile exclusive.

Store
The Official Halo Store features physical items for sale including clothing, action figures, books and more.

Players can also download Avatar items, themes and picture packs, as well as games and map packs available on demand.

Waypoint Career
The player's Waypoint Career records a player's progress through the entire Halo series. The PC version also displays campaign and multiplayer totals across every Halo game from Halo 3 through Halo 4. Both categories display "Total Games", "Total Kills", and "K/D Ratio".

The Waypoint Career displays Career Milestones, Awards, and basic individual stats summaries for all seven games, including Halo 2 Vista.

Career milestones
Milestones are achieved as a player's Halo gamerscore increases. All Halo games released on the Xbox 360 support milestones, and future games will support it as well, although Halo 2 Vista and its achievements are currently not supported. Originally there were forty milestones but on January 6, 2010 it was raised to fifty via a title update and was raised again to 60 on September 8, 2010. The number was raised to its current level, 75, on November 15, 2011 with the release of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

Awards
Halo Awards are medals that a player can earn by unlocking related achievements in the Halo games; essentially, they are groupings of achievements. As an example, the Vehicle Specialist award is unlocked after completing several vehicle-related achievements. Awards are also given in tiers; the more achievements a player unlocks, the higher the tier of their award will become. (For example, completing "extra" vehicle-related achievements will increase the Vehicle Specialist award's tier.) Tiers are indicated by the number of lines at the top of the awards, just beneath the ribbon. Locked awards appear silver; once a player has reached a high enough tier, the awards become gold. Only achievements on Xbox 360 are listed on Waypoint, and as such Halo 2 Vista Achievements are not included. Halo 4'' achievements have not yet been added.

Halo stats summary
The PC version of Waypoint also allows players to view basic statistics including games played, kills, kill-death ratio, and number of achievements unlocked for Halo 2 Vista, Halo 3, Halo Wars, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, Halo: Anniversary and Halo 4.

Halo 4 Stats Overview
The Halo 4 stats overview displays the basic information of the player's Halo 4 career including: Completed Specializations, Player Since, Last Played, Total Playtime, Spartan Points, Challenges Completed, Campaign Completion, Spartan Ops Completion, total Commendation progress, number of achievements unlocked, the four Top Medals earned, games played by mode (campaign, Spartan Ops, War Games, and Custom War Games), most used weapon, and most played variant.

Halo 4 Stats
Complete Halo 4 statistics can be found in the Halo 4 Stats mobile and web app. Players can view detailed information regarding their play in campaign, custom and matchmaking War Games, and Spartan Ops. This includes statistics, game history and progress towards current Challenges, as well as specific Achievements and Specializations progress. Players can also view Domain Terminal and Spartan Ops videos.

Players can view all of the same information for everyone on their Friends list, or simply compare their friend's basic stats to their own. In the Xbox LIVE version, this feature is known as "Barracks".

Halo: Reach Stats
The Halo: Reach service record outlines a player's Service Record, Stats (including weapons stats), Game History, and Challenges. The PC version of Waypoint also allows players to view Medals and Commendations, File Share, File Sets, Recent Screenshots, Xbox Downloads and Tag History. Bungie.net medals do not appear on Halo Waypoint. Previously, players could view and compare their Reach detailed stats with their friends' in the web version. This has been discontinued, however on the Xbox LIVE version in under Halo: Reach Service Record players can compare their basic Reach stats using "Friend Compare" and their general career stats using "Player Card Compare".

Halo: Anniversary
The PC version of Waypoint also features an Anniversary service record which outlines campaign progress and time played on each level and difficulty. The record also lists Skulls collected, Terminals unlocked, and objects scanned in the library Library. Of these, only the terminals appear on the Xbox Live Version, which can be viewed by pressing "X" while in the main menu or by manually accessing the "Classified" menu.

Watchlist
Players can save videos for future playback. When one video finishes playing, another starts automatically. Web and mobile exclusive.

Classified
Terminals and other unlockables are recorded under Classfied. There are four separate Data Sets: Alpha Halo Archive, Requiem Archive I, Requiem Archive II, and Section 3 Archive.

The Alpha Halo Archive includes the ten Terminals found in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary as well as the eleventh bonus terminal. The eleventh terminal is unlocked by inputting the characters found at the end of each terminal. The characters correspond directly with the Latin alphabet. In order from the first terminal, they are as such: "343GS", "HALO4", "SPARK", "FLOOD", "EARTH", "DEMON", "RINGS", "ARRAY", "HUMAN", and "HAVEN". Entering each code will unlock the terminal it is revealed in for view in the Waypoint, and will also grant the player with 7,000 credits in Halo: Reach and a background for the Waypoint forums. Once all codes have been entered, the eleventh terminal will be unlocked, and the player will have been awarded a total of 107,000 credits.

Requiem Archive I is unlocked by completing at least three Spartan Ops chapters and inputting three codes: "1UK3CVYJZM", "3VGRZJ1BS6" and "Q239SF2PGZ". The first unlocks the Raider left and right shoulder pieces for use in Halo 4 and awards 500XP. The second unlocks the Raider torso and 500XP. The third unlocks the Raider helmet and 500XP. Entering all three codes unlocks the Raider art gallery, the Raider emblem and an additional 500XP.

The Section 3 Archive is unlocked by finding all seven Terminals in the Halo 4 campaign and inputting a "Wiseguy" code ("9WE621KN8F") and an "ONI" code ("T5CE6KV3R8"). The Wiseguy code unlocks its namesake emblem, the Domain Terminals artwork gallery and 2000XP. The ONI code unlocks its emblem, the Halo 4 Concept Art gallery and 5000XP. An additional code, known as the "Day 1" code ("M0DKEÆEMQC") unlocks an image of a question mark with a cryptic caption "Where were you that day?" and 12116XP. The Day 1 code also lists the Recruit emblem, however this emblem is already unlocked by default anyway.

Requiem Archive II was made available with the release of the Crimson Map Pack and is unlocked with three new codes: "MN7VKCZPÆQ", "pending" and "8PXX1SMIQU". The first code requires the player to beat the first three episodes of Spartan Ops on Legendary and unlocks the Spartan Ops Concept Art gallery, the Raider DSTT left and right shoulders and 2500XP. The second requires the player to complete the campaign solo on Legendary and unlocks the Raider DSTT torso and bonus XP. The third and final code requires the player to complete 1000 games in War Games matchmaking and unlocks the Raider DSTT helmet and bonus XP.

Achievements
The Xbox Live version of Waypoint allows players to view every Halo achievement save those from Halo 2 Vista. They can be viewed from their own record in the Career menu.

The PC version of Waypoint only allows players to view achievements for Halo: Reach and Halo: Anniversary both of which can be found in their respective service records.

File share
Halo: Reach File Share items can be viewed on the web version of Waypoint under Halo: Reach Stats. From Waypoint, files can be organized into groups (called "File Sets"), tagged, and downloaded to a computer or added to an Xbox LIVE download queue. This capability was originally hosted at Bungie.net but was discontinued on March 31, 2012. Waypoint added the feature in June 2012. The Halo 4 File Share has not yet been integrated with Halo Waypoint.

Avatar Awards
To encourage players to use Waypoint, several Awards (accessories for the player's Xbox Live Avatar) can be unlocked through Waypoint. To unlock an Award, the player must complete a specific task in one of the Halo games and then log in to Halo Waypoint. There are currently 10 avatar items which vary from a Monitor prop to armor variants such as ODST helmets.

List of avatar awards

 * Halo Waypoint Monitor: Log In to Halo Waypoint for the first time. An Avatar 'prop' which adds an idle animation to the player's Avatar in which their character summons a Forerunner Monitor who bobs and hovers around them playfully.
 * Rookie Helmet: Unlocked Halo 3: ODST ' s Campaign Complete Achievement (Any difficulty). A 'hat' for Avatars, made in the image of the helmet worn by the Rookie.
 * ODST Armor: Unlock Halo 3: ODST ' s Good Samaritan Achievement. A costume for Avatars which dresses them up in a recreation of the combat armor worn by Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in Halo 3: ODST.
 * Black ODST Shirt: Unlock Halo 3: ODST ' s Tourist Achievement.
 * ODST Hoodie: Unlock Halo 3: ODST ' s Dark Times Achievement.
 * Recon Helmet/Dare's Helmet: Unlock Halo 3: ODST ' s Vidmaster: Endure Achievement. Unlocks a 'hat' for Avatars, made in the image of the famous Recon helmet. Referred to as "Dare's helmet" when worn by female Avatars and as "Recon" for male Avatars.
 * EVA Helmet: Achieve Milestone level 50 in Halo Waypoint. Comes in red or blue color schemes.
 * Halo: Reach Beta Hoodie: Participated in the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta. A green hooded sweatshirt for Avatars with "Reach Beta Tester" written on the front and the Noble Team emblem on one shoulder.
 * Halo 4 - RAIDER Helmet: Unlock all technical specs for the RAIDER Spartan-IV armor variant.
 * Halo 4 - Raider DSTT Helmet: Unlock all technical specs for the Raider DSTT Spartan-IV armor variant.

Unlockable Reach Armor
Players can also unlock seven armor pieces for Halo: Reach in a similar manner to the avatar awards. These pieces can currently only be viewed on the Xbox LIVE version of Waypoint under the Halo: Reach Service Record. The following are unlockable in-game content:


 * Military Police (Base): Reach Waypoint Career Milestone 15 and unlock the The Soldier we needed you to be achievement from Halo: Reach.
 * Military Police (CBRN/HU/RS): Reach Waypoint Career Milestone 20, unlock the Pink and Deadly achievement from Halo 3: ODST and the Military Police (Base) Helmet.
 * Military Police (HU/RS/CNM): Reach Waypoint Career Milestone 25, unlock the Fear the Pink Mist achievement from Halo 3, the A Spoonful of Blamite achievement from Halo: Reach and the Military Police (CBRN/HU/RS) Helmet.
 * CQB (Base): Reach Waypoint Career Milestone 20 and unlock the Folks Need Heroes... achievement from Halo: Reach.
 * CQB (HU/RS/CNM): Reach Waypoint Career Milestone 25, unlock the Campaign Complete: Heroic achievement from Halo 3: ODST and the CQB (Base) Helmet.
 * CQB (UA/HUL): Reach Waypoint Career Milestone 30, unlock the Campaign Complete: Legendary achievement from Halo 3, the Gods Must Be Strong achievement from Halo: Reach and the CQB (HU/RS/CNM) Helmet.
 * UA/Base Security [W]: Reach Waypoint Career Milestone 30 and unlock the Yes, Sensei achievement from Halo: Reach.

Trivia

 * In the Halo universe, Waypoint is a major news source and interstellar mail delivery system. This is most likely a reference to Halo Waypoint being the official source of news on the Halo universe.
 * On Xbox LIVE, Waypoint is considered a game as this was the only option available when it was released (downloadable apps were not introduced until more than 2 years later). The "game" bears an ESRB rating of M for "Blood and Gore", "Language" and "Violence".

Related pages

 * Career Milestones
 * BTS: Halo Waypoint