Hello everyone! My name is TalkverseGaming and I am bringing you a summary of the Halo Waypoint community update that was brought out today/tonight depending on which timezone you live in! (Link: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/forge-on)
So Ske7ch (Being awesome so far, love ya bro <3) gave us a quick rundown on what’s been happening the past week, including these points (Quoted from waypoint):

• ICYMI: We launched a big update for Halo 5 last week! No seriously, we totally did. If you’ve managed to read this far and this is somehow news to you, go read this right now.
• Last week the team celebrated “343 Day,” which actually coincided with the release of Monitor’s Bounty on Dec. 8, but we opted to schedule our internal events for Friday, Dec. 9 (which was techincally “344 Day,” much to the chagrin of several folks). As a new member of the team it was a great experience to first get some updates and insights into the current and future strategy and plans for the studio as well as kick back and have fun with the team. We had an office-wide scavenger hunt that awarded us tickets that we then exchanged for a huge assortment of merchandise in a conference-room-turned-prize-redemption-mecca. Uny and Gh0st snagged themselves an unopened Halo 3 Legendary Edition (me, I’ve still got two in my garage at home). Grim and I didn’t exactly get amazing prizes but we had a great time playing Halo Wars 2 Blitz Firefight Co-Op!
• One of the more high profile components of “343 Day” was the grand finals for the 343 internal Halo 5 tournament! We ended up not being able to livestream the matches but we did the next best thing – we captured the whole thing using the new Observer Mode feature along with real-time casting by Bravo and Ghost. I’m hoping we can release that footage so I won’t spoil it other than say that it all came down to matchup of 343 Pro Team members StrongSide vs. Dersky.
• While the rest of the 343 team starts to wind down and scatter to the winds for the holidays, the Strategy team is working furiously on the final touches for Halo Wars: Definitive Edition, Halo Wars 2, and preparing some amazing goodness with the Blitz Beta for the new year. Halo Wars: DE is in the process of clearing certification now so it can be ready and waiting for players beginning Dec. 20!
• Uny has been busy tidying up some of the Forge offerings in Matchmaking that were disrupted upon the release of Monitor’s Bounty. Specifically he’s been working with content creators to fix and restore Rift Ball (still under way), fixing that pesky insta-spawning Shotgun on Pegasus II (done!), attempting to fix the spawn trap on Pegasus II (done!), and Uny and the original creators have made some performance optimizations to improve framerate with Pegasus II and Orion II. He and the team have also been working on adjusting suicide and betrayal booting in both Action Sack and Grifball game types (done!). Oh and he also made some changes to Ground Pound Arena to remove the Sniper Rifle and replaced it with the Brute Plasma Rifle and Plasma Pistol.
• How’s the new Gold Pack Gifting feature working out for you? I’m told that over 50% of players have already gifted their special giftable Gold Packs. What are the rest of you waiting for? Please though, do not send them to us! We apprecaite your generosity and support but I assure you nobody here at 343 needs REQ Packs. Instead, pay it forward to the Community at large or to that lower-ranked person you matched up with (or against) in a playlist. ‘Tis the season after all.
• I can’t really say anything of substance but yesterday we had a studio-wide presentation by Tim Longo, Halo Creative Director, on some super interesting topics pertaining to super secret future stuff. All I can say is that I left that meeting feeling very excited [me too – Grim].

 
We also saw some incredible HCS gameplay this week, and it was blowing up everyone’s twitter feeds (If you know what your doing with Halo) (BTW We all saw it so I won’t give a rundown of that, despite the incredible plays we saw)
Moving on we head to the Halo Wars news, which the second instalment out next year, we can safely say it’s lined up to be just as good as the first one, possible even better! Considering there was also info given to us about a remastered Halo Wars, with some most asked Q’s on the forum, go check it out!
On that note, they also gave us the Halo Wars remaster achievements, totalling at 1,500 GS, pretty much including all from the original, but the list is on waypoint, so you know… go check that out.
Then we move on to what is the introduction of a new team member for the forge team, Josh (Or Anonfriction) was recently initiated, so follow him on twitter (https://twitter.com/AnonFriction), who looks like a good addition to the Halo team over at 343, who Ske7ch interviewed, which you can check out also on the waypoint forum. Me personally am excited to see what Josh can bring to the team, I’ve known him for a bit and can safely say he could be great for the forge team! (Also still love ya Tom <3)
So onto the major reveal of the community update, as most people see, some forgers have been getting the Ollie helmet (Which in case you’ve been living under a rock) it’s based on Ollie the Pig, a forge toy inside forge that you can place around, which is seen in some community maps, which speaking of, how you get the helmet is to get your map or mode featured in matchmaking, in which you will receive a special req pack containing the helmet. Ske7ch also hinted at more secret helmets coming soon (Which of what I know WyvernZu also revealed the grunt helmet vie her twitter)
The latter part of this update including (but not limited to,) a feature from Ducain for making a working airlock and a zones tutorial, Colton1070 who made a working portal gun, JoeMcJoe for making a working bubble shield in H5, CantUseApostrophes for making a working calculator and unsortedgaming for making a prefab AI. There are plenty other amazing people up there so be sure to check them out!
The rest is just a Q&A for the Monitor’s bounty update and the warzone update, followed up by the Halo Holiday gift guide, which is a must see, even if your not buying and clip of the week/montage competition features. So until next time Halo fans/players, enjoy!
My name is Jacob, and I’ll catch you next time for another summary of the Halo community update given to you by the fantastic people at 343 (Mainly looking at Ske7ch)