Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare expansion and new Leaders detailed

Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare
Awakening the Nightmare adds a new campaign and more

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been quite a bit of news for Halo Wars 2, so let’s try to compile it all for you. For starters, during the craze of E3 2017, you may have missed this announcement: A huge expansion called Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare has been announced, and a certain parasitic foe is returning.

Take a look at the trailer here:

That’s right, the Flood are back! This new expansion is set some months after the end of Halo Wars 2, and the Banished are attempting to gain the upper hand in the war for the Ark however, the Flood appear to have not actually been wiped out by the events of Halo 3.

Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare introduces a campaign where you play as the Banished struggling against a re-emergant Flood. Additionally, it also adds a new mode called Terminus Firefight, a version of the classic Halo firefight built specifically for Halo Wars 2. Up to three players can play together in this mode, holding off waves of Covenant, UNSC and Flood.

Lastly, Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare will add two new Banished Leaders for all multiplayer modes and will coincide with the release of two new maps that will be free for all players. The expansion will cost $19.99 USD and will release sometime in Fall 2017.

Next up, a smaller bit of news. Halo Wars 2 is getting a patch to support the Xbox One X. While the details haven’t been released, either the framerate, visuals or both will be increased to support the superior hardware. Halo Wars 2 is also getting an HDR patch, which will require either an Xbox One X or Xbox One S.

Finally, there has been a steady release of new Leaders for the game and that isn’t slowing down. Two new Leaders are being added in the Icons of War pack, which is free for season pass holders.

Here’s the Icons of War trailer:

Both Spartan Jerome and Arbiter Ripa Moramee are available to download right now! Both add new devastating units, abilities and tactical options for players.

I have to say, 343 Industries and Creative Assembly have done a great job giving post-launch support to Halo Wars 2, so hopefully this continues for a long while. If you haven’t grabbed Halo Wars 2 yet, it’s on sale right now in the Xbox Ultimate Game Sale, for both Xbox One and Windows 10 PC through Xbox Play Anywhere. If you aren’t sure whether you’d like to play it or not, I encourage you to read our review.