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April 27, 2016
Recently the HCS Pro League Invitational took place and two of the top Halo teams made it into the grand finals. Only one team could take a spot for the HCS Pro League, whilst the other team would be sent back home.
Read on to find out how the final match for the Pro League Invitational went ahead between Evil Geniuses and Team EnVyUs below. Keep in mind that this article is filled with spoilers so if you'd like to watch the match yourself, you can do so on the Halo Twitch channel under the past broadcasts section.
Things started promisingly on Team EnVyUs' side for the first game as they took a 3-0 victory against Evil Geniuses on Coliseum. Game mode was Capture the Flag and EnVyUs completely shut down their opponent's hopes at getting a single flag.
For all those watching for the action at home, Evil Geniuses put the ball in our court by taking the second game, albeit in a fairly close fashion. Lunchbox managed to pull out a decent 18-7 K/D in their second game, which
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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
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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
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March 06, 2016
When you have a huge presence in the eSports team, spanning across multiple games, sometimes the best way to get into a huge World tournament like the upcoming Halo World Championship, is to buy out a team. This is exactly what Cloud 9 has recently done.
After reaching the final 16 in the Halo World Championship, Triggers Pound has confirmed that they have been picked up by Cloud 9. This means that in the future their name and logo will be dropped for Cloud 9's. The newly formed Cloud 9 team features the same four Triggers Pound members that made it into the Halo World Championships after beating OpTic Gaming and the Dream Team in the NA regional qualifiers.
For those unaware, the ex-Triggers Pound team consists of NA players Cloud, Hysteria, Assault and Danoxide. Cloud 9 Cloud might be a bit of a funny one to say going into the future, but either way we're happy to see that Triggers Pound is getting support from such a big organization after proving their worth at the qualifiers.
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March 03, 2016
The final 16 teams qualified for the Halo World Championship have been announced in a recent post over on the Xbox news website. The final 16 includes eight teams from North America, four teams from Europe/Africa, two teams from Australia/New Zealand, one team from Latin America and one team from Asia.
Check out the image above to see the 16 qualified teams, or alternatively take a look at the list provided below.
North America
+ Team Allegiance
+ Counter Logic Gaming
+ Evil Geniuses
+ Team Liquid
+ Noble eSports
+ Renegades
+ Triggers Pound
+ Denial eSportsEMEA (Europe, Africa, Middle East)
+ Epsilon eSports
+ FabE
+ exceL
+ Team InfusedAustralia/NZ
+ Team Immunity
+ Team Exile5Asia
+ SkyfireLatin America
+ Chosen SquadIn other news, it has been revealed that the REQ bundles in Halo 5 have managed to push
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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
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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
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January 06, 2016
Since the release date of Forge in December, Halo 5 players have been kept busy. All sorts of great Forge maps and custom game modes have been created since the release date of Forge but that has been one issue that many players have already come across.
Previously there was a limit on the number of files each player could upload to the Halo 5 servers. Whilst there still is a limit, it has now been increased so that players have a much larger amount of space to be creative with. Previously save files for custom game modes and Forge maps was set for just 40 slots, but players are now given 100 slots in total.
Forge mode has been an incredibly important part of the Halo franchise ever since Halo 3. A large part of the Halo community has grown around custom games and Forge maps and since Halo Reach, well-built custom Forge maps have even made it into the official matchmaking map rota. The same could happen for Halo 5, but there is still one missing feature.
A file share
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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
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December 17, 2015
To help encourage Halo 5 players to play regularly, 343 Industries has added a new feature that rewards daily playtime in Arena and Warzone.
Starting immediately, players are now able to earn two extra REQ packs every single day so long as they follow a couple of criteria. The first REQ pack can be earned by winning an Arena match, whilst the second REQ pack will be awarded to players for their first Warzone win of the day. If you expect to play Halo 5 daily and manage to have a winning game of both Warzone and Arena, you're essentially able to collect up to 14 free REQ packs each week.
A daily login bonus isn't a new concept - in fact, we've seen countless games offer similar features. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain offers daily login bonuses to players for example, although for this reward players only have to boot up the game. Forcing players to win games in both Arena and Warzone to earn their daily rewards is great because it encourages players to play well, at