Memories of Reach Live-stream Recap

Today, there has been a lot to discuss from what was showcased from the Memories of Reach Live-stream such as a sneak peak of a new arena map, updates, game-types, forge, and more.

Arena Map
Right off the bat, we’ve got an early taste of what to expect from the new arena map Stasis, which took inspiration from Halo 3’s Amplified, and has been in development two years ago.  During development, the map originally had no snow, but was added sinces the current arena maps in Halo 5 did not have any snow.

Stasis
From what has been mentioned in the live-stream, the spawning areas will be located in both the bottom and middle areas of the map, and it will also provide new weapons such as the Brute Plasma Rifle, which can easily depletes an opponent’s shields as fast as a Storm Rifle, but will require more shots to eliminate him/her.  Also, the map will also have hidden easter eggs for the player to find themselves.

Brute Plasma Rifle in Action
 
Sandbox Update
Along with the expansion, there will also be a Sandbox Update that will fix the current bugs hindering the campaign, and balancing issues including a boost for the Hydra, which can be viewed here.  Along with the fix, we will also be getting new REQ items such as new weapon skins, armor based on Noble Team, the Phaeton Helios, and George’s Chaingun turret.

Spartan wielding George’s Chaingun turret
 

Phaeton Helios
From what was mentioned from the two new REQ items that will be available in the update, George’s Chaingun Turret is a legendary mythic weapon that will grant damage boost for the player while at the same time increases his/her speed.  Also, the Phaeton Helios will have a chain mounted beam attached to it, and will require lots of team work to bring it down.
Following this, there will be new weapon skins based on both Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris from Halo 5, Noble Team from Halo: Reach, Azure dream, and a weapon skin for Halo Wars 2.  Also, there will be a new weapon attachment for Warzone, that will be optimized to identify a target with a “threat marker.”
Infection
After getting up to speed on those updates coming, we also got a look on Infection (which will be getting its own playlist) in action on the Maligant, which is different version of Rift with the addition of objects and more.  In this version of Infection, the Alpha Zombies (the starting Zombies of every round of the game) will appear invisible while the standard zombies infected by them won’t.  Instead of using just swords, the Zombies can also use other weapons, which can only happen in custom games.

Players with biological symbol represent the Infected
Community Update
After the showcase of what to expect from Infection, there was an announcement of a new book Halo Library Edition which includes gallery and behind-the-scenes-extras along with issues #1-#3 of Halo: Initiation and Halo: Escalations #1-#12, which is now available for purchase for $44.99 here.

Cover art for Halo Library Edition
In the meantime, it was also announced that Grifball will be sticking around for a few weeks, but it doesn’t mean it will go away forever as mentioned in the livestream.
Forge
From the update on Forge, we got a glimpse of new items such as ammo crates used specifically for infected gametypes, new features such as changing colors on objects, new lends flares, corpses of humans and Covenant, and adding new layers of objects such as making them aesthetically making them appear like concrete, wood, etc.

Crates

Corpses

Plasma Killball

New Object Layers (1)

New Object Layers (2)

New Object Layers (3)
In closing, we also had a special guest named Olive the Pig make a special guest appearance before the end of the livestream, and it ended with a sneak peak of what to expect from the Hog Wild Update.

 
The Memories of Reach Update is set to release tomorrow along with Warzone Firefight and Infection.