Augmented-Reality Sporting

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Spartan Fireteam Crossbow starting an ARS match at Munera Station A7.

Augmented-Reality Sporting, ARS, augsports, or aSports is a term applied to a variety of competitive gaming experiences made popular in the 26th century with the rise of sim-arenas across human space.

Augmented-Reality Sporting is a very loosely defined category of competitive athletics, but commonly is played within a sim-arena, holo-court, or repulsor court. ASports are often grouped together with vSports, a sub-genre of eSporting using virtual-reality equipment, however they are not the same as they express different mechanics and operate on fundamentally different principles. VSports simply give the user sensory input from a virtual space; ASports are played within a physical space augmented with technological equipment and arena elements.

Following the conclusion of the Human-Covenant War, aSports skyrocketed in popularity. Some factors theorized to be leading to this increase include the Spartan branch’s adoption of aSport practices, the inception of Grifball, and the rise of xeno-inclusiveness in the aSport culture, although many other correlated effects have been noted.

Military Use

Munera Platfroms

Munera Platform A7 in orbit over Earth.

After the war and following the activation of the Spartan-IV program, necessary arrangements for supersoldier training locations were planned and put into motion. Similar to the wartime Chiron platforms in orbit over Mars, the new line of orbital training stations was intended to yield detailed and highly customizable environments for which to safely pit fireteams against each other.

These new training stations, later given the collective name Munera, were constructed in orbit over many of the surviving colonies near shipyards and naval facilities, with Earth and Mars receiving a notably skewed amount over other planets due to their strategic importance and proximity to the corporations that sponsored their construction.

While capable of generating combat situations of all styles, Munera platforms are more than often configured into symmetrical or semi-symmetrical tactical arenas like those used in some recreational aSports. These arenas, configured by members of the Cartographer Initiative and adhering to specifications put out by the sponsoring arms manufacturers, operate as simulated environments for prototype weapons, armor, and equipment developed by the sponsors in addition to providing practice environments for the Spartan personnel.

Similar to the training decks on the UNSC Infinity and Anvil Station, the Munera platforms on occasion provide service to all branches of the UNSC Armed Forces.

Public Broadcast

While primarily serving as weapon and armor testing grounds, the arenas provided by Munera platforms serve an additional purpose. As the facilities already provide numerous systems for gathering data on the prototypes for their manufacturers, they also are capable of broadcasting live feeds of the ongoing tests to the public.

List of Popular aSports

Breakout

Spartan Fireteam Morningstar charging forward in a broadcasted Breakout match.

Breakout is a combat-sim style aSport often played during military simulations and is extremely popular for civilian aSport players. Unlike many combat-sim aSports, Breakout is round-based, with each player only having one "life" each round. Depending on how sophisticated a particular Breakout arena is, this life may be tracked simply by whether a player has been hit by another player or by a complex health and shields system.

Rounds are won upon only a single team standing or by a team completing the neutral objective. Earlier versions of Breakout required a team to gain possession of a neutral flag and plant it in the opposing team's spawn zone, however newer iterations have changed the rules to require the flag to be captured in a team's friendly spawn instead. Competitive matches are played until a team scores five rounds, although some championships require a team to win by two over the opposing team.

Breakout Blitz

Breakout Blitz is a variation of the standard Breakout gametype, played on much smaller arenas and usually in one-on-one or two-on-two matches. Matches are usually played first-to-three, and each round lasts a maximum of thirty seconds. Some notable differences with standard Breakout are that there is almost never a neutral objective and players do not start with a sim-weapon in their hands.

List of Popular Breakout Teams

Spartan Breakout League

• Fireteam Crossbow
• Fireteam Morningstar

Gravball

Gravball is among the least expensive aSports due to simply requiring a specialized ball known as a Gravball and the flat space of a repulsor court. Because of the game’s cheap nature, it’s popularity in school physical education classes, and the game’s simple ruleset, Gravball has cemented itself as the most popular competitive sport in human space for nearly a century.

Many local variations of the game has arisen over the years, such as changes to the size of teams to the size of the court and goals, and even completely new mechanics, as is the case with the Ricochet variant. In most cases, Gravball is played with teams of five on the court at a time, goals are constructed as wireframe cubes at each end of the court, and points can be scored either by running the ball into the goal or by throwing it in without an interception.

Ricochet

The Escalan Angels with the ball against the Lunarian Deadlifts.

Ricochet is a variant of Gravball created by the UNSC Marine Corps during the Insurrection but made popular by its inclusion in Spartan War Games exercises after the war. It’s quite different from standardized Gravball, due to the inclusion of sim-rifles, cover, elevated platforms, and other map elements from different War Games gametypes, making it more like Breakout or Splitgate than its original Gravball roots.

List of Popular Gravball Teams

• Emerald Heralds
• Escalan Angels
• Lunarian Deadlifts

Spartan Ricochet Championship

• Fireteam Amber

Grifball

"In 2554, the Red Army introduced Grifball to the world. By 2557, all other sports had been abandoned."

―A marketing description that, while inaccurate, conveys the culture-shock Grifball had on aSports.

First played in 2554 by a subset of Spartans referring to themselves as the “Red Army,” Grifball quickly exploded throughout the Spartan Branch, the UNSC, and later aSport culture as a whole.

List of Popular Grifball Teams

Galactic Grifball League

• Team Orion
• Team Tannhauser

Splitgate

Splitgate is notable for its portal-based gameplay, where players could traverse the map by deploying teleporter rifts on specially marked surfaces. Due to the teleporter technology, Splitgate is an expensive game to run and maintain, making it significantly less common at sim-arenas than other sports like Ricochet or Breakout. Most of the popularity Splitgate has gained comes from professional level championships, rather than casual play.

The object of a match of Splitgate is to be on the team with the longest time culminated wielding a gravball, similar to a game of keep-away. Like many sim-arena sports, Splitgate is a gun-based sport.