With Call of Duty Elite and Battlefield 3’s Battlelog entering the
fray, tracking services for multiplayer statistics are becoming a huge deal, and
now the Halo franchise’s Waypoint
service suddenly finds itself with competition. While Waypoint will not have a
premium component, 343 Studios plans to expand this service. The most notable
addition is ATLAS (which stands for “Advanced Technical Assault System). ATLAS,
which runs on a Windows Phone 7, provides the player with a top-down view of
any Halo Reach or Halo: Anniversary multiplayer map. This
map is updated in real-time, allowing players to keep track of their teammates’
positions and weapon drop placements.
Waypoint will also see a new
interface, primarily for aesthetic purposes. The plan for the interface is to
have it look equivalent on any platform, whether on an Xbox 360, PC, or phone.
Waypoint lead
producer CJ Saretto described the new interface as "If
we’ve got stats in one place, we’ve got it everywhere…we’ve taken the look and
feel of Waypoint and made it very uniform and consistent across all of the
devices that we support." Other upgrades to the service include: the
ability to create custom challenges for friends and even more in-depth
statistics.
In other Halo news, 343 Studios has confirmed that Halo: Anniversary has gone gold. The launch date is November 15.