343 Industries has announced new features for the Halo Waypoint on Xbox 360, including stat tracking, community sharing and game-launching options.

Additionally, in order to help kick off the spring season, a new motion comic series entitled “The Mona Lisa” will be released on April 23 as well as new Avatar items and action figures from Square Enix.

Halo Waypoint gets new features, faster

Starting Friday, Halo Waypoint will receive an update with numerous new features as well as a "significant performance boost," making Waypoint faster and smoother.

Your Halo: Reach service record will also be fully accessible from Waypoint, collecting detailed game history, weapons stats and Challenges from the game and making them  anytime when using your Xbox 360.

There’s even a brand new “Compare with Friends” feature that lets you compare your stats against your friends and rivals, along with two new Waypoint career levels. You can also get many of these Waypoint features on Windows Phone 7 with the Waypoint Application available in the Windows Phone App Store.

The update also adds the ability to launch the Games on Demand version of Halo: Reach from Waypoint, and introduces a new video player which features the same Instant On tech utilized by Zune.

The Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is a motion comic that retells a tale from the Halo Evolutions anthology, set shortly after the events of Combat Evolved. It was created by ONE and Pyramind.

Sent on a "highly-classified mission in the debris field of the Halo artefact," the crew of the UNSC Red Horse discover a decaying prison ship – the Mona Lisa – adrift in space . When marines board the vessel, they come face to face something worse than the Covenant and are forced to do battle in order to survive.

The Mona Lisa will be available for Waypoint on Xbox Live, Windows Phone 7, and on the web next Saturday, April 29.

Avatar items and action figures

A new collection of  HeloAvatar gear and props, including a new selection of Spartan helmets and Red vs. Blue T-shirts for campers and Grifball fans alike will be made available on April 14.  There' s even a Flood infection form for your Avatar.

10 Years of Halo

It was also revealed that the Halo franchise will be enjoying its 10th Anniversary this year, and celebrations during the Penny Arcade Expo Prime in Seattle on August 26 -28 will start kicking off. Microsoft said to expect more on that at a later date.

Meanwhile, check out screens for everything mentioned above below.