Halo 5: Guardians and its creator, 343 Industries, carries a burden of fulfilling the hype associated with being the first full blown franchise entry designed from the ground up for Xbox One. Everything must be bigger and better — and it is — with multiplayer modes and finely tuned mechanics combining to deliver the knockout blow.
The Halo universe has grown beyond the story of a lone wolf warrior on a mission and that expansion into this new console generation is reflected in almost every facet of the fifth core franchise entry. Two previous Halo games offered the ability to play as the Arbiter, but in Halo 5: Guardians, two unique squads of four Spartans each begin the game on a collision course with the narrative cleverly jumping between them.
Billing the game as a battle between Master Chief and Locke, the early antagonist and other playable character during the campaign, as the advertising suggests is somewhat of a misnomer. Locke is tasked with stopping Chief on his latest rogue mission with the fate of many worlds at stake, but Halo’s usual twists and turns eventually turn allegiances upside down.
The Halo 5: Guardians Campaign is predictable in that you’ll need crib notes of Halo 4, the first game in the Reclaimer Saga, for the story to make even partial sense. It will be over in roughly seven to eight hours depending on how much time is wasted looking for collectibles, and the combat plus enemies encountered will feel right in line with all the previous games.
Where Halo 5: Guardians treads new ground is in the visual presentation and cinematic feel achieved throughout. Halo of old was a relatively linear game with repetitive landscapes and enemies. The enemies are still repetitive, but the various worlds and landscapes within them are wonderfully diverse with many nooks and crannies off the beaten path to explore.
The character models during cut-scenes are off-the-charts fantastic. Locke especially looks like a life-like man that’s about to jump out of the screen. Edward Buck, one of Locke’s teammates modeled after and voiced by the one and only Nathan Fillion, doesn’t look quite as sharp but still fits in great nonetheless.
“Remember Reach”
The original Halo gave birth to multiplayer shooters in the Xbox ecosystem and Halo 5: Guardians pushes it into a new frontier that serious shooter player should appreciate. I’ve always viewed Halo multiplayer as more casual than Battlefield or Rainbow Six. That’s not so much the case anymore.
Take Warzone for example, a new multiplayer mode that introduces massive battlefields for up to 24 players to battle on simultaneously. Old school Halo would have had simple objectives like capture flag and that’s it. Here there are multiple objectives to choose to pursue. A.I. is split between friendlies and enemies to keep the playing field fresh. Mix in the new thruster packs, smooth aiming, and a rock solid presentation, and Warzone is the large-scale shooter that makes Star Wars Battlefront look like child’s play in comparison.
Then there’s Arena, the other big multiplayer option with familiar variations within that utilizes the same rock solid gameplay mechanics as Campaign and Warzone with the classic four-vs-four style that many players still love. It’s a perfect antithesis to Warzone that plays much faster than before thanks to the thruster packs, ledge vaulting and rapid dash.
Tying up the multiplayer modes is the REQ System that awards over 1,000 different cards for playing multiplayer modes. The cards can be used for upgrades including armor, weapons, vehicles, etc., and it ties directly into Warzone via stations scattered about the maps. REQ packs do introduce micro-transactions for players who want to amass them quickly, and I’m all for that as long as people are willing to pay for them.
As primarily a Campaign player I was a little letdown by enemy redundancy and that killer twist the likes of the Flood brought to the table. Maybe Halo 6 will take a slightly different direction.
This holiday shopping season is particularly crowded with multiplayer shooters. Halo 5: Guardians could have been a dumbed-down pushover that played an oldies but goodies card and called it a day. Instead, 343 Industries set their sights on developing a killer multiplayer app that fits like a glove in this new generation of gaming. Wow, did they succeed.
