-
June 21, 2016
It may sound odd, but the 343 Industries team are adding a new enemy to Halo 5 Warzone and it's called the 'Grunt Goblin'
The new Grunt Goblin will appear in games as either a Legendary or a Mythic boss. It's essentially a large covenant mech that seems to be the enemy equivalent to a Mantis. It's operated by a grunt and has a very, very large needler and a big fist that looks menacingly capable of smashing through pretty much anything.
Character designer Steve Dyck left a few statements about the new vehicle. "There are two variants of the Grunt Goblin with different capabilities. "Essentially, the backstory of this battle suit is it was built by Grunts for Grunts in what the Grunt designers agreed was the perfect embodiment of agility and lethality."
Senior systems designer Chris Proctor chipped in to say that, "Unlike other vehicles, the Grunt Goblin cannot be hijacked or boarded and has a complete immunity to EMP effects." This means plasma pistols aren't going
-
April 04, 2016
After pro player Naded's great performance at the Halo World Championship, he has managed to grab himself a deal with none other than OpTiC Gaming. Naded will now join the new OpTiC Halo 5 crew as the third currently announced member of the newly formed lineup.
We now have just one more player to be announced before we have a completely fresh OpTiC Halo lineup that may actually stand a great chance at competing and performing well at a high level again.
Not only is Naded a good choice for building a well-performing Halo team for Halo 5: Guardians and potential future releases, but he also has a lot of great brand value. Naded has been considered to be one of the top Halo streamers out there and he has pulled in quite a lot of viewership, especially compared to other streamers within the Halo community.
If you've been following the OpTiC Halo team then you'll know that the other two currently confirmed members for the team are Flamesword and Maniac. Flamesword has been
-
March 26, 2016
Finally Halo 5: Guardians is getting it's own version of the Infection game mode that has been popular in Halo since Halo 3. A custom gametype called Zombie which gained a large following during the Halo 2 days is where the Infection game mode was truly born however.
In Infection, the game starts with the majority of players on the 'human' side. A small selection of players, usually just one or two, are considered 'infected' and they must hunt down the human players. If an infected player kills a human, the human will then respawn as an infected. In nearly all cases, all players are usually infected before the time runs out.
The infected players are equipped with fast movement and a glowing green energy sword, whilst by default the human players will have the shotgun and the magnum at their disposal.
343 Industries has slowly been adding new game types to Halo 5: Guardians since it's release and the latest Infection game mode will be added alongside the Ghosts of Meridian
-
February 22, 2016
The next free update for Halo 5 will be hitting servers later this month and like previous updates before it, it will include some new game modes for multiplayer and a range of new items that can be picked up through REQ packs.
Perhaps the biggest addition to this month's free update is the inclusion of Griffball. Griffball is one of the most popular mini games for Halo and it features two teams as they fight to pick up a ball and place it in the opposing team's goal in a small court room. The reason why Griffball is so special is because players are loaded up with gravity hammers and energy swords.
Speaking of gravity hammers, this weapon will be making a big splash in Warzone this month - available as a rare REQ, the gravity hammer is sure to have a big impact on the playing field. It's hard to say whether there will be any extra REQs for the gravity hammer but the new Hammer Storm update will include a number of extra REQs for the assault rifle and the DMR.
Some
-
February 14, 2016
To celebrate the occasion, 343 Industries has added a timed playlist into the Halo 5 arena. The new game mode pitches players against each other in a 2v2 battle. The new 2v2 game mode is called Valentine's Double Date.
The new 2v2 game mode features 2v2 battles on custom maps that have been filled with hearts and other Valentine themed items. The game mode for the Valentine's Double Date mode is limited to Slayer and players will start with the Halo 2 version of the Battle Rifle.
When you first hop into Halo 5 after the latest update, you'll see a pop-up message showing off the new playlist. As you can imagine, the update is unlikely to stay up for long. With that being said, the Valentine's day playlist is still currently live at the time of writing. It's great to see that 343 Industries are active and ready to create all sorts of free content for the Halo community, even if it is something as small as this latest playlist update.
Hopefully this marks the start of
-
December 18, 2015
A brand new free DLC pack has been added to Halo 5: Guardians and it adds a range of new features. The DLC pack has been named "Cartographer's Gift" and it features a large number of new features and cosmetic items.
The most important addition to the new DLC for Halo 5 is Forge. Forge wasn't added at launch like it was in previous Halo titles. The wait was worth it though because Forge in Halo 5 is the most complex version we've seen of the map builder yet. Players are given a huge range of new tools in the new Forge.
On top of Forge, the Cartographer's Gift DLC has added a large range of new Spartan armor pieces, including two new armor sets, the iconic MARK IV armor set and the Raijin armor set. New emblems, new helmets and a variety of new Warzone REQ rewards have also been added into the latest DLC for December.
The December DLC is just the start of it as well. A brand new free DLC pack will also be released in January and a sneak peak at that has revealed that
-
October 29, 2015
Halo has always been the franchise that has helped Microsoft sell consoles so it's no surprise that the game always performs well. With that being said, Halo 4 didn't bring in as many sales as 343 Industries may have hoped, but it looks like they've returned Halo to it's former glory with the latest release of Halo 5: Guardians.
After just one week, Halo 5 Guardians has already made a large number of records, including day one sales, week one sales and most sales for an Xbox One exclusive title. On top of the numerous sales records for performing so well in the first week, the 343 Industries launch stream for Halo 5 received a Guinness World Record for being the most watched video game launch ever.
Microsoft has revealed some interesting first week stats for Halo 5, along with sales numbers. On top of bringing in $400 million in revenue from Halo themed consoles and the Halo 5 game itself, Halo 5 Guardians has been played for an accumulative 21 million hours thanks to the
-
October 26, 2015
After the very poor launch of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, it's no surprise that the community's trust for 343 Industries has been a bit strained. Thankfully, Halo 5 Guardians released this week with relatively no troubles at all. Thanks to the beta events and the pre-release leading up to the full game release on October 27, there were no major server issues on day one.
Whilst there were a few server hiccups here and there, for the most part Halo 5 Guardians has been silky smooth on matchmaking. The same can be said for the rest of the game too - Halo 5 Guardians has a very sleek 60fps that is seen everywhere in the game. Resolution is 1080p at it's highest, but sometimes it is downscaled to ensure that the 60fps frame cap stays consistent at all times.
The matchmaking service has been working fine all week and the new Spartan CSR ranking system is working just as expected. Every single playlist has been playing out fine, including modes in Warzone and Arena.
For
-
October 16, 2015
The entire Halo 5 soundtrack has recently been put up online by 343 Industries. The new soundtrack can be listened to on 343's official Soundcloud page. In the past 343 has used Soundcloud to share other Halo 5 promotional content, so it's quite the surprise to see the full soundtrack go up online for free.
Most of the tracks have never been played before, whilst some of the more familiar sounds, such as the composition of Halo Canticles, may be recognized by some Halo 5 fans. In previous Halo games, the name to be remembered for Halo soundtracks was Marty O' Donnell, but this time round Kazuma Jinnouchi has been given the steering wheel. Jinnouchi has been renowned for other compositions, including the soundtrack for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Even though the full Halo 5 soundtrack can be listened to for free on Soundcloud, the same soundtrack can be purchased in physical format on Amazon for $23. The soundtrack is available in physical CD and in Vinyl.
-
October 14, 2015
343 Industries has just released a bunch of details about the upcoming matchmaking system for Halo 5. In the newly released information, 343 explained how penalties will work for bad behavior and how the new ranking system will work.
Players who repeatedly follow any of the following behaviors will be given temporary cooldowns which will prevent them from playing online matchmaking.
+ Quitting matches
+ Betrayals or team killing
+ Idling (AFK)
+ Intentional suicides
+ Excessive disconnectsThe ranking system in Halo 5 has taken an interesting redesign. Players will first have to play placement matches. Once they have 10 wins under their belt, they will be given a rank. There will be a number of different ranks including Bronze, Gold, Platinum, Onyx and Champion.
Each rank will have a number of tiers within and once a player reaches Onyx and Champion the tiers will be replaced with a MMR score, which will be their leaderboard