Advertise on podcast: Podtacular: The Unofficial Halo Universe Podcast

In the 20 years Podtacular has existed, we've had the pleasure of seeing the Halo franchise evolve and the community with it. From competitive Halo starting with MLG to Halo: Outpost Discovery, the community is at the heart of the Halo Universe, and it's been our pleasure to cover the universe in its entirety with hundreds of guests and opportunities to make an impact on the Halo community. As a capstone to the current tenure of the podcast, we have the absolute pleasure of having the founder of Podtacular, foomojive, and former hosts GLewis and Lancelot to recount their time hosting the podcast. Covering the recent events of the Halo World Championships and the announcements of Halo Fest and Halo: Campaign Evolved, JumperScape's Austin, Connor and Shane join us as the curators of the Community Corner at the Halo World Championships. Listeners will become more familiar with them as Podtacular is merging with JumperScape and Dust Storm handing the microphone over to them to host the podcast. As some listeners may have noticed, our releases slowed down over the last several months due to live events happening for the hosts and it was time to find the next caretakers of the podcast. Dust Storm will still pop into shows and help with the direction as JumperScape takes the reigns, but the podcast will have a new home after this episode. It has been a pleasure to spend our weeks with all of our fans and we hope you will embrace the change as we move to brighter futures and more opportunities for Podtacular to shine.

JumperScape has humble beginnings starting with their Halo audio drama of Tarkov. Since then, they have grown to a multimedia company producing another season of Tarkov in the works, several podcasts, the dramatic retelling of Waypoint Chronicles and more. We have the pleasure of having Austin on again for the fourth time along with two other co-hosts of the Library: Shane and Connor.

On the eve of yet another community 20th anniversary, CMNeir joins the podcast to celebrate the Halo Tricks video that started it all: Tank Pinball. Things take a bit of a turn when one of the Halo Tricks gang, Darkersun, joins and we begin reminiscing the olden days of the Halo community and the social aspect of gaming as a whole. While Halo isn't the only franchise with a variety of experiences and forms of community expression, it was in a unique place to allow things like Halo Tricks to take a hold as a community staple and set the stage for what has led to the strength of today's community.

The last two months has seen a flood of content updates in Halo Infinite, bringing iconic pieces of Halo's past back into the franchise and fans are soaking it up. The community hasn't slowed down either as things wind up for the last Halo Infinite HCS season. We end this episode on a somber note that we'll let you listen in to hear what's changing with the podcast.

On this episode, we interview ArturBloodshot, Halo Forger and fellow Forerunner to Dust Storm. You may know him from several popular Forge creations including the Critical Dewpoint, the Moutain Dew themed forge map included as part of a promotion with 343 Industries back in 2023. He's also on to give us a unique perspective of Halo outside of the English-speaking western culture of gamers representing the Mexican/Latin American region.

A couple of months has passed since our last recording, and while we've been out, the updates to Halo Infinite keep rolling as new modes and community maps make their way into Matchmaking. Dust Storm and Godzilla T finished Gashnor's Cursed Halo and talk about Dust's obsession with making objects fly with rocket grenades. We've taken the step away from Skype now too, so if you have the chance to tune into our streams, we're changing the game a bit to have better audio for podcast and multiple POVs for game streams. Catch us on Twitch and soon YouTube!

Halo Infinite Operations have changed the game again with 50-tier passes lasting a month long, leading to more cosmetics alongside regular content additions. Assault has made its formal introduction to Infinite's multiplayer and we can attest to its nostalgic factor. It certainly seems like Halo's on the upswing after a rocky start.

After a rocky start to the new year, it seems like Halo has some interesting prospects coming to the table with continued content delivery for Halo Infinite and possibly seeing Halo come to other platforms. The community has been a buzz about rumors of a PlayStation and Nintendo release of Halo, which sounds like a huge technical lift for development that's been deprioritized but would also bring in a whole new slew of players. New operations are on the horizon with Assault coming on the next drop along with a live stream detailing plans for upcoming Halo Infinite updates and plans for HCS Season 4 on Halo Infinite.

Well, 2025 is off to a "great" start for Halo as the Digsite team crumbles, a massive leak of Bungie-era Halo content hits the internet, and Halo Studios issuing DMCA take downs of the leaked content. On the flipside, we do have a new operation with some arguably community favorite game modes coming to Infinite. We have a whole year ahead of us and while we don't know what, if any, future game announcements will come this year, let's try to make the best of it.

It's been quite the roller coaster of a year for Halo, with several changes to content update delivery for Infinite; new weapons, maps, Forge additions; Season 2 of the Halo TV Series; HCS Season three; studio rebranding and the list goes on. We had quite a roller coaster of emotion throughout the community, but it looks like we're still cooking and have plenty more Halo to come. Thanks for sticking with us throughout the year as we've been through life and inconsistent schedules.

It's the 20-year anniversary of Halo 2 and with that, the Halo Community and Infinite is celebrating with a new Delta Arena playlist featuring seven Forged Halo 2 maps in matchmaking. Not only did we get new Forge updates along with the Great Journey operation, but a new weapon, the MA5K rifle from the cover of Ghost of Onyx drops in Infinite multiplayer. The LVL 50 LAN hosted by Puckett is also happening during Halo 2's birthday weekend expecting some old names from the Halo competitive scene making a return.

We’re back off the heels of an exciting Halo World Championship seeing a new Champion rise: Space Station Gaming, along with a very exciting first-ever international champion! Among the competitive festivities were of course the Community Stage and booths, but most of all was being among other Halo Fans. Austin and Connor from JumperScape not only joined us for our special from Seattle but hop on this episode to talk about what they’ve been up to and recap the HaloWC 2024 event and announcements for the future of Halo.

It’s our open-mic special from this year’s Halo World Championships talking about this year’s tournament, panels and experiences. We had the pleasure of having JumperScape, OmnicientWolf, Bobby on this year’s live stream with a surprise, hour-long drop from the GOAT, Goldenboy! It’s quite an accomplishment for a competitive series to last 10 years in the industry, twice (the first-time being Halo under Major League Gaming) and we’re excited for the future of Halo and HCS.

The Halo World Championship is only two weeks away, bringing the best Halo talent together from around the world and entertaining fans. Along with Halo Infinite tournaments, there’s Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 5: Guardians tournaments happening as well, opening up probably the most varied tournament experience that we’ve ever seen. The community stage has an excellent line up to experience or watch at home if you can’t make it to Seattle for the event. This is our last planned podcast before Worlds, but Dust Storm hopes to see some of you there!

Community tournaments are a dime a dozen these days in the Halo community, giving players the chance to compete outside the official HCS events, but for those of us, more seasoned players, our skills aren’t as sharp, which is where our guest comes in. Sports fan, teacher and Halo streamer, CardinalRedbird, has put together a series of Boomer and Boomer vs. Zoomer tournaments, offering some unique takes on tournament rules and putting to test the old adage of “age and treachery overcomes youth and skill” (spoiler, it hasn’t… yet). Making her podcast debut, we discuss her Halo career and history behind these unique HCS Grassroots events.