Halo Waypoint

Were you looking for Waypoint, a UNSC news source, or Navigation point, also called "waypoint"? 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.

Content
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.

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.

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.

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 and Halo: Anniversary''.

Halo: Reach Service Records
The Halo: Reach service record outlines a player's Stats, Game History and Challenges. Players can view weapons statistics, and compare their stats with their friends'. The PC version of Waypoint also allows players to view Medals and Commendations. Bungie.net medals do not appear on Halo Waypoint.

Halo: Anniversary Service Record
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.

Bonus Unlockable Terminal
The eleventh and bonus Terminal from Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is unlockable through a secret function accessed in the main menu of the Xbox LIVE version of the Halo Waypoint by pressing the X button on the Xbox controller and inputting the correct left to right sequence of ABXY buttons, and then typing a five-character code in Forerunner script that appears briefly at each terminal's end, excluding Terminal 11. 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".

Also, 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 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.

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
File Share items can be viewed on the web version of Waypoint. 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.

Avatar Awards and Unlockables
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 8 avatar items which vary from a Monitor prop to armor variants such as ODST helmets. Players can also unlock seven armor pieces for Halo: Reach in a similar manner.

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: Unlocked 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: Unlocked Halo 3: ODST ' s Tourist Achievement.
 * ODST Hoodie: Unlocked 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 (Time-sensitive). A green hooded sweatshirt for Avatars with "Reach Beta Tester" written on the front and the Noble Team emblem on one shoulder.

===List of current In-game Unlockables ===
 * 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.

Related pages

 * Career Milestones
 * BTS: Halo Waypoint