Halo 5 Guardians (commonly shortened to just Halo 5 for convenience) is an upcoming first person shooter action adventure video game that is one of the most highly anticipated, if not the most anticipated exclusive video game for the Xbox One.
The multi billion dollar Halo franchise is currently in the hands of developers 343 Industries, the same team who remade Halo Combat Evolved into the Anniversary edition and developed Halo 4. Publishing the game is Microsoft Studios, the parent company of 343 Industries who have published all the main line Halo titles thus far. Chronologically, Guardians is a direct sequel to 2012’s smash hit Halo 4, making it the most recent game in the Halo Universes ever expanding lore.
The game is expected to arrive at some point in 2015, estimates put it at a Q3 / holiday release. Halo 5 will only be available on Xbox One.
Any gamer worth their salt knew that Halo 5 was going to happen long before anyone even hinted at the games development period having begun. A series like Halo is guaranteed to make profitable returns upon its release, so during E3 of 2013, Microsoft announced the latest entry into the Halo series with a trailer showing a post-Halo 4 Master Chief wandering a desert area with his armour shrouded.
At the time, the game had no name and was simply being referred to as Halo for the Xbox One. Commenting on the trailer at E3 2013, Phil Spencer (head of the Xbox division of Microsoft) has said, “There was no ambiguity in not putting a number after the game. For me, what we showed wasn’t the game. Nobody should be confused on that. I didn’t really want to try to show something that was clearly a thought piece by the studio around where Master Chief is in his journey, and then drop the name after it and be somewhat disingenuous about that being the game. But I did want Bonnie [Ross] to come out and say ‘First-person shooter. Master Chief.’ Because they’ll get the questions: ‘Hey, is this ODST? What are you guys doing?’ Bonnie [Ross] comes out and reaffirms that 343 is building this game. It’s Master Chief. It’s a first-person shooter at 60 frames per second. It’s coming in 2014.”
Halo 5 Guardians is expected to run at 60 frames per second, but there’s no information regarding the resolution at the moment. Players will get their first chance to play Halo 5 in the Halo 5 Multiplayer beta event which begins in December 2014 for players who purchase Halo: The Master Chief Collection which will contain an exclusive pass to the event.
Speaking after the Xbox One conference, Spencer spoke about the new Reclaimer Trilogy, stating that they didn’t want to compress the story of the Reclaimer saga to just three games, he then went on to say that the next game would indeed be a “legitimate” entry into the franchise and not just an inconsequential spin off.
Contrary to Spencer’s claim of “It’s coming in 2014”, Bonnie Ross (343 Industries General Manager) confirmed that Halo 5 Guardians would be coming to Xbox One in 2015 through a blog post in May of 2014. The important part of the post reads, “I’m happy to reveal that “Halo 5: Guardians,” the next instalment in the legendary saga of the Master Chief, will launch on Xbox One in fall of 2015. In the tradition of every “Halo” game since its debut in 2001, it is a massive and exciting project.”
Film Industry legend, Steven Spielberg is producing a live action Halo television show that is slated to launch alongside Halo 5, current negotiations involve Showtime, the American Premium Cable network.
There is no official details surrounding the plot of Halo 5, 343 Industries have done a great job at keeping the plot a secret.
What we do know so far is that the game is set to involve Master Chiefs Journey and that the game will feature a new character called Agent Locke, rumoured to be from the UNSC branch, the Office of Naval Intelligence, shortened to ONI. Following the events of Halo 4’s ending, fans predict that the Master Chief is going to be a different man than the one we have come to know.
Halo 5 is expected to stay true to the first person shooter roots that have proven to be successful in all of the prior instalments of the series. Because of this, not much is expected to change in the grand scheme of things with the fundamental gameplay mechanics remaining the same.
Two things we know for certain is that players that purchase Halo: The Master Chief Collection will get exclusive access to the Halo 5 mulitplayer bet in December and that the “new Spartan abilities” that are mentioned in the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta trailer are not the Armour Abilities found in Halo reach, in fact Armour abilities will not be returning to Halo 5. How this will influence gameplay is yet to be seen.
The multiplayer beta will focus on classic arena combat, this allows 343 Industries to tune the finer aspects of gameplay like player movement speed, fine tune weapon performance and analyse kill zones of the map. [Kill zones are areas on a gameplay map where the most kills are achieved, they often have tight corners that lead towards powerful weaponry or are made up of long areas of line of sight.]
Thus far, there has been no official mention of character classes in the game. Instead, players are expecting to see the load out system return allowing for character customisation.
Master Chief – John-117 is now known as Master Chief Special Warfare Operator of the Navy after being promoted during the conclusion of Halo 3. Master Chief is a potent combatant of considerable skill, having severly crippled the forces of the Covenant and the Flood. John never removes his helmet before the player and thus we don’t know what he looks like.
The super soldiers of the UNSC are unparalleled human combatants, partly because of their genetic disposition to achieve victory and partly because of the cybernetic enhancements grafted to their bodies by the UNSC. John is the last remaining member of the Spartan 2 commando program and is widely regarded as the best amongst them.
Agent Locke – There is no information regarding Agent Locke at time of writing, all we know is that he / she resembles a Spartan soldier and weilds UNSC weaponry. Also, branded onto the chest plate of his / her armour is the logo of the ONI branch of the UNSC.
Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.
