Halo 5: Guardians is 343 Industries second installment in the Recliamer saga of the first-person shooter franchise, Halo. A lot has changed since the last iteration of Halo, Halo 4, back in 2012. Halo 5 is the first Halo built for the Xbox One and you can definitely tell. The game is incredibly beautiful, running at 60FPS 1080p.

Halo 5’s story mode takes place in the year 2558. Across the story you take control of two teams, Team Osiris and Blue Team. The game supports up to 4-player co-op, where you and up to 3 of your friends take control of a member of each member of Fireteam Osiris or Blue Team, depending on the mission. Fireteam Osiris consists of Spartan Jameson Locke (the leader), Spartan Holly Tanaka, Spartan Olympia Vale, and a fan favorite from Halo: ODST, Spartan Edward Buck. Blue Team consists of Master Chief (John-117), Spartan Kelly-087, Spartan Frederic-104, and Spartan Linda-058. People who are excited to be able to play as Master Chief and his allies for a lot of the story will be disappointed because Team Osiris gets 80% of the missions. Also anyone expecting to play some couch co-op will also be disappointed because Halo 5 dropped split-screen co-op in exchange for the consistent 60FPS 1080p. Overall the story is solid and a must play for any Halo fan. Though it does pull from the outside lore (out of the Halo games) a lot. You might need to read up on some lore to get the most out of Halo 5’s story. If you are new to the Halo franchise you are going to need to play through the previous games to really understand anything in the story. The one true problem with the Halo 5’s campaign is it has a ally AI problem. You’ll find through your play through that when you need to be revived, a lot of the time the AI struggles to get to you and at times just stands in place. This is a real shame because the campaign relies on your teammates to support you.
A huge change to Halo 5 is the addition of spartan abilities. The game was built around these abilities and really changes the feel compared to earlier Halo games. These abilities are: thruster pack, ground pound, sprint, clamber, slide, spartan charge, and smart link.

In multiplayer these abilities help you maneuver around the map and help you taking out your opponents. Everyone has access to these abilities so that everyone is on the same playing field. 343 Industries pushed for fair starts in Arena. Arena is the core multiplayer of Halo 5. Everyone starts with the same weapons and the same abilities. On the maps are other weapons you can pick up and use to try to get the upper hand. Right now there are 6 game modes in Arena. These game modes are: Slayer (your usual 4v4 team death match), FFA (Free For All), Capture the Flag, Strongholds (a mode where you capture zones), and breakout (a 4v4, one life, first to 5 rounds). Halo 5 supports a competitive skill ranking system called CSR (competitive skill rating). Halo 5 has 12 maps in its Arena mode and they are well balanced and aesthetically beautiful. More maps are planned to be release among the coming months as free DLC.

Halo 5 debuts its flagship multiplayer mode, Warzone. Warzone is a 24v24 player game, with AI enemies. Each team fights over 3 different capture points. The more points a team holds the more points that team gains. If a team controls all three points then the enemy’s base core will be exposed and if it’s destroyed the game ends. Throughout the match AI enemies seem and defeating them will grant your team more points. So far Warzone comes with 3 maps and 2 game modes. There’s the normal Warzone and then there’s Warzone Assault, which works very similar to invasion from Halo: Reach.

Halo 5 has also introduced a unlock system for armor, weapon skins, weapon variants, vehicle variants and much more. This system is called the REQ system. You earn REQ points by just playing the game. After each match of Arena or Warzone you are rewarded a certain amount of REQ points depending on how well you do. You spend these REQ packs on REQ packs which reward you with all sorts weapons and armor. Only cosmetic items can be used in Arena, to keep the fairness. In Warzone you progress through REQ levels to be able to use certain items during the match. You also need to use REQ energy to use the power weapons and vehicles, so you can just spawn in the game with a scorpion tank. These REQ packs add a ton of customization to the game and will allow 343 Industries to add new armor, weapons, and weapon skins to the game throughout its life.

Overall Halo 5 is a step in the right direction for 343 Industries. As long as they keep supporting this game until Halo 6 it will remain an amazing Halo game. The game can use a few improvements to the AI, more game modes and more REQ items.