What the Hell is "The Array"?

Hey, people. I've been sitting on an empty page for the last fifteen minutes, just deleting words over and over again, trying to find a good way to start this article. Turns out, I'm not really good at this whole writing thing (shocker, I know). I finally just landed on titling our first article as the question that both you and I are probably asking right now. "What the hell is The Array?" And so, I'm here to tell this:

I have absolutely no idea. _____________________________________________________________________ The Array is a half-baked idea. And I don't say that as a dig. I love half-baked things! (cookies, anyone?) The Array, at this point, is raw. It was a late-night idea whipped up in about 2-days' time, and its creation stems from a desire to try and fill in a void that may or may not even exist. Again, like I said, raw. An idea running purely off adrenaline and passion for a game franchise that owes us nothing, but a community that we've grown to love and owe so much to. Let's rewind and break this down a bit. I'll try and be quick, but no promises. We have no editors here.

Back in September, the Halo Community found out that Halo Studios had been gutted. Hard. We don't know the exact logistics of how deep the cut it was, but we know that most of the crew is gone. Franchise Writers, Community Managers, Designers- the kitchen sink? It was bad. And these kinds of studio guts and closures are unfortunately a severe problem among the gaming industry at large. Focusing in on Halo again, though, one of the biggest surprises with these layoffs was the announcement that the future of 'Halo' was no longer gonna be in the hands of the existing (and reformatted) studio we've come to know for the better part of a decade. Instead, Microsoft decided to give the future of the franchise over to the publisher Activision, who will construct an entirely new studio, from the ground up, to begin building the future of Halo. Obviously, this left people with all sorts of feelings. Some devastated, some ecstatic, and others simply unsure how to feel about it all. However you felt, though, all of this posed one big question. "What now?"

nobody knows.

How could you? The President of Activision himself said, and I quote:

"We're thrilled to welcome Halo... to Activision. It's an honor and a responsibility that we do not take lightly. These teams and their games have inspired fans around the world for decades. For Halo, our goal is clear: make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place. It is a bold ambition, one that this franchise deserves. We have already begun assembling a purpose-built team, unique in capability and talent, ready and excited to deliver this next chapter with the community." __________________________________________________________________________________ Now I know what you're thinking. "That's a lotta words... too bad I ain't readin' em." TL:DR is that Mr. Kostich (I call him Rob) is tellin' us that they're working on building a team for the next Halo game. Building. There is no studio yet, meaning there is nothing in sight right now for the future of Halo-- and there likely won't be for a few years to come. So circling back here, a bit... that all begs the question: What happens in the gap years? What happens to the Halo community we know and love? Do we all just hit up Halo Fest, write "H.A.G.S" on eachothers helmets and go our separate ways for the unforeseeable future? I sure as hell hope not! But I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a genuine concern that we're having.

There's a lot of uncertainty to Halo right now, and especially with what we currently have. Who's left at the studio? Will we get more blog posts? Infinite updates? Community Spotlights? Anything? Will Halo Waypoint go on living, or will it slowly fizzle out and shut down? All of these things are questions that inevitably led to us deciding to make this website, The Array. So, again, circling back to the big question... what is The Array? And again- I have the pleasure of saying, "I have absolutely no idea." But let me try and explain what we hope it can be. What we want it to be.

The Halo Community is talented. Like, crazy talented. Its creative fanbase stretches far and wide. From Machinimas, 3D art, 2D art, screenshot artists, cosplayers, lore-writers, figure-painters, prop designers- EVERYTHING. There is so much talent across this community that the idea of there not being a place to shine a spotlight on those creators for the greater community to see sucks. Is Halo Waypoint gonna carry on? Maybe. We hope so! But if it doesn't, we wanna have a place (if for no one, than at least ourselves) to show off as much of that talent that we can. But we wanna do more than that, too. We wanna give a crack at all sorts of things:

• Blog Posts

• Opinion Pieces

• News Pieces (with sources!)

• Interviews

• Q&A

• Behind The Scenes

• Video Archives

• Drop Pods*

  *That's right. I didn't forget about Drop Pods. And I'm certainly not gonna let them die. I'll fake my own if I have to! ______________________________________________________

There are so many members of the community out there that we wanna be able to put the spotlight on, but we wanna be able to dive deeper with them during the Halo interim, too. Behind every creator is a person who lives an entirely normal (or abnormal) life, and we think it would be really cool to be able to learn a little more about each other during this in-the-dark age for the franchise. So we said, "what the hell, let's do it." and decided to give a crack at this whole website thing. How hard can it be? It could be a breeze, or it could be horrendous. We could be outta commission in a week! Whatever the case may be, we wanna give this a try and see what kind of good we can do. So with the idea half-baked and the website published the next question we gotta ask ourselves is, "Where do we start?" Well, we've got a couple of ideas lined up and mostly ready to go. I don't know if you knew this or not, but Halo Fest is right around the corner (less than five weeks, but who's counting?!) and the submission deadline for the Short Film Competition was last week. The top three videos of each respective category will be announced, but what about the rest of them? Well, we're gonna archive 'em here as best we can. So, if you submitted something, let us know! We'll have a growing list up here, on The Array to make sure you can get your grubby little hands on every entry we can find. Better yet, we'll have an article for each category, too! I know, I know... we're overachievers, you can just say it. Please say it, please say it, please say it--

__________________________________________________________________________________

Alongside these posts we've got planned, I've been letting my creative writing juices run rampant in a Blog Post series we'll be simply titling "DROP POD". If you didn't know, back when Halo: Infinite dropped, 343i/Halo Studios had planned to name their more substantial game updates "Drop Pods". Plot twist, that didn't work out. But I remember. I will never forget. Because of this, I'll be randomly releasing "DROP POD" updates that'll read like a fever dream to announce official-and-totally-real updates that are coming to Halo: Infinite. Each one equipped with a lovely little jazz song to accompany you on your journey through the article. Sounds great, right? It's not. Aside from that? Well, we got nothin'. But don't confuse nothin' with nothin', you know what I mean? We wanna try all sorts of things with this place. Whatever those things are, and however they turn out- our main focus will be on the people in the community. Giving them things to see, read, learn, and boast about to their friends. We'll keep it lax, we'll keep it real, and we'll most definitely have no idea what we're doing. Wanna stick around for the ride? Welcome to The Array.

See you soon,

- HaloBox