As we approach the end of a most exciting first year in the life of Halo: Fleet Battles (H:FB) we thought it a good idea to review where we are at and discuss our plans over the next few months.

Creating a game for something as epic as Halo was always going to be a challenge, but not one without its rewards and the team at Spartan Games has had a pretty cool time working alongside the team at 343 Industries.

As we stand with releases the game has expanded quickly with over 24 releases in its first year, and with many more to follow. As H:FB has bedded itself in we have been hugely pleased to see just how many tournaments are being played worldwide, and it is always huge fun to see the myriad of images we are sent by gamers of their Fleets.

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNT

With so many tournaments being played we have been assessing the narrative-style game play we initially created for the game, which has brought fantastic characters like Michael Stanforth and Rho ‘Barutamee to the gaming table, but for tournament play a more generic approach for Fleet Commanders is, we feel, needed.

We are therefore creating a method for gamers to use generic Fleet Commanders when creating their H:FB Fleets and Battle Groups. This will be delivered as a free PDF download. This will help players create a more level playing field (literally!) in tournament play. There is still huge scope for narrative gameplay, so don’t fret, we’re not forgetting the other fantastic characters in the Halo Universe, but in the immediate future our focus will be on getting you generic Fleet Commanders to play with. These Commanders will cost considerably less that the narrative Commanders and should give you a lot more room to add more ships to your fleets!

Creating spaceships in the Halo Universe is both exciting and complex! Spaceship tend to range from very small to very large in Halo and ensuring we can create them in a sensible way has us scratching our proverbial head… a lot.

Luckily for Spartan Games, 343 Industries has been highly flexible in allowing us to make models that have at times simply been written about, but never truly seen in full. However, no matter what gets made the dominant driving force is that we always adhere to canon, and this is something we look to do at all times. Sometimes this can, however, lead to a complexity when sliding a model into the game mechanics, especially in the competitive arena.

Which leads us nicely into discussing our plan for model statistics. Following the release of models such as the UNSC Valiant-class Super Heavy Cruiser and Covenant CPV-class Heavy Destroyer we found that as we planned the future, and our all-important move to more modern era vessels, such as Infinity and the new Covenant ships we all excitedly saw in the Halo 5 cut scenes, we needed to look again at our models and how they interacted with each other in order for the game to breathe under the weight of the current and upcoming releases.

We are therefore in the process of a top-down review of the model statistics by Spartan Derek and his Beta Team, which covers not only the models you already own and love, but factors in everything from the Fall of Reach to Halo 5. This will result in some amends to the statistics you currently use, but our intent is to keep these as painless as possible for you and the amendments will be fully covered in a new errata document, as well as in a full download of statistics for each and every model currently available in H:FB. These downloads will be divided into UNSC and Covenant to allow players access to everything and as we expand the range, and this document will grow in tandem with all our fleets.

Once the amends have been fully ratified we’ll roll them out to you, but for now good luck with your games, keep the battle reports and pictures coming in and stay tuned for your new generic Fleet Commanders and new statistic documents.

All the best,
Spartan Neil