With no silly things like true love to get in the way this week, the Halo Update came softly to halo.bungie.org like a gentle spring shower--then revealed itself as a brutal hailstorm of massive kitten-squashing info chunks. Among the highlights:

- We have a Cortana model.

- If you're a traitorous turncoat who picks off a Marine when no one's looking, when the other Marines discover the body they'll go looking for the slain Marine's killer without knowing that it's you. Of course, if someone were to SEE you doing this, the Marines' reaction would change appropriately.

- The first mission is getting a little bigger, with massive underground areas and major outdoor encounters set in what we would call disaster areas on Earth.

Head over to HBO and read the full update right now; Louis Wu squandered his life savings in order to post the update as soon as possible and we want to encourage that sort of behavior.