HALO 5 NEWS – Campaign, Co-op, Skull Hunting and More

Last night, 343 industrie’s Studio’s Head Josh Holmes launched a new Community Update providing a details on the single player and co-op mechanics of the Halo 5: Guardians campaign. This also marks “the first  of the series” that will cover a variety of topics related to the game similar to how it was done in the Sprint episodes in the middle of December of last year and last month during E3.  First, we are provided details on how the next-gen co-op experience will work, how the fiction will be expanded upon, a familiar aspect that will allow replay value to the campaign, and more.

CO-OPERATIVE ASPECTS OF THE CAMPAIGN

From previous iterations of Halo, “Co-operative play has always been a huge part of Halo.” stated Josh Holmes. “It’s a source of endless fun, particularly because of the emergent play that stems from having a group of players interacting with the Halo sandbox.”  With that said, this is all going to be driven to the next level for Halo 5: Guardians.  When playing the campaign, both modes “single-player and co-op” will have their individual files.

For example, when the player start a co-op session as either the Master Chief or Locke, and from there, they can invite their friends to join them consistently.  As by consistently, the co-op experience for Halo 5: Guardians will run on dedicated servers with no interruptions.  As the player’s friend joins the game, they’ll be provided the option on which member of either Chief or Locke’s squad to play as.  As mentioned about a familiar aspect, the campaign will feature in-game hidden skulls to find throughout the campaign.

For those who are not familiar with the aspect of skulls, it was played as side thing that will offer different ways to experience the campaign such as an effect of seeing confetti flying around after shooting an enemy in the face.  This was a feature that was in Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and finding the skulls required the player to constantly explore the environment around them until they see a skull laying on a ground waiting for them to pick up.  Once the skull is picked up, they can be unlocked and activate to change the campaign experience to make it either more difficult or more humorous as mentioned about the Grunts and the confetti that flies around them when taken down.

Back on topic on how the co-op aspect of Halo 5’s campaign works, when one of the player’s friends drop out of the campaign, the AI will take control of the squad member they were playing as.  Not only that it serves as a replacement, it can literally do anything the player commands it to do such as telling it to take out a certain target, go to this location (or staying where they are at), pick up weapons, drive vehicle (or commandeer a turrent), and reviving a fallen squad member (or you) by simply pressing up on the D-pad.

THE EXPANDED FICTION

As the story of Halo 5: Guardians picks up where Halo 4 left off, Master Chief has started to reach the point of his new life ever since the lost of his closest companion Cortana.  For the first time since he began training as a Spartan, he began considering what the point of not just what being a soldier is, but also human.  In Halo 5, we’ll see what it is like from the inner perspective of both Master Chief and the player.

Not only the campaign will be viewed through the perspective of Master Chief as in previous iterations, it will also expand the cast of characters that exist in the universe such as Blue Team, Fire Team Osiris, for the co-op aspects of the it.  To do that, the campaign will need to be supported with four players for the co-op experience, while being consistent with the transition between it and the single-player aspect.  It has always been a beneficial thing for the core narrative to remain the same, and hopefully this will add more replay value to the co-operative aspect as well.

THE ROLE OF BLUE TEAM AND FIRETEAM OSIRIS

Throughout the campaign of Halo 5: Guardians will be a story told through two perspectives Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris, similar to how it was in Halo 2’s campaign.  Master Chief and Blue Team, who are the few members of the Spartan II program, have known one another since training at the age of six, and are proven veterans during the era of the Human-Covenant War.

Spartan Locke and Fireteam Osiris, who are the newly established squad of Spartan IV’s, are tasked to track down Master Chief and Blue Team when they were declared AWOL at an early point of the campaign.

From the perspective of Master Chief and Blue Team, their role in the campaign represents the turning points within the narrative, and the questions laid out by them will be answered through the perspectives of Spartan Locke and Fireteam Osiris.  When playing the campaign through these two perspectives, their will be a distinct difference laid out by both of them.  From Blue team, we will have a “heavier, and more weathered feel,” with their technology proven to be more reliable and practical in nature.  Fireteam Osiris on the other hand, will have technology that is more advanced versus what the Spartan IIs (aka Master Chief and Blue Team) have.  When playing as one of the fireteam members, we’ll see that they’ll have their own unique design of their HUDs to identify who they are.

HUD from Spartan Locke’s perspective.

HUD from Linda’s perspective

DETAILS ON THE MECHANICS IN HALO 5’S CAMPAIGN

As mentioned about the campaign mechanics in Halo 5’s campaign, this provides a second opportunity for the player and its team members to support one another when they fall, but there’s only a limited time to do so.  Even if the player or the team members do not get the chance to revive one another, they can do the “retro” tactic by finding a safer place from combat for their team member to spawn back in the game.  This is what encourages teamwork and good sportsmanship.

Of course, one of the remarkable difference from this mechanic is the Artemis Tracking System (shown in the E3 demonstration) that is only featured when playing as Fireteam Osiris.

This feature allows the player to view their surroundings to look for weapons, vehicles, collectibles, and even clues that will advance the plot of the Halo 5: Guardians campaign.

NEXT GENERATION OF HALO’S CAMPAIGN EXPERIENCE

With all the additions such as reviving, co-op, and commands, the overall campaign experience is going to be driven to a whole new level.  The enemies the player will encounter in the campaign are faster, more responsive, and even more lethal, including new behaviors that will be more intimidating.

Along with the environments, that have been increased to scale than it has been in previous iterations, it will require a massive number of enemies to be active in a given area.  With this background, this will allow players to perform a variety of tactics when using the environment, such as splitting up from their squad, to explore the environment (more likely find a hidden skull to unlock) to their advantage to combat enemy reinforcements.  According to Josh, “This is where the sandbox nature of halo really shines.”

From previous Halo titles, there has always been split screen that provided an awesome experience when sitting on the same couch playing with a friend or two, and having it removed from Halo 5: Guardians has been a really tough decision for the studio to make.  The team also acknowledge the feedback of the fans who have been concerned about it not being in the game, but it was a necessary thing to do to deliver the best experience and performance.

To add to that, the update concludes with Josh Holmes stating that the studio is truly embellishing the story told in the Halo 5 campaign to a “galactic scale”, and that the campaign has been designed from the ground up to the co-operative aspect of the characters the players will play as along with the new features in the game.

Halo 5: Guardians is set to release October 20th this year and a week earlier for those who have pre-ordered the Limited Collector’s Edition.

Source: Holmes, Josh https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/community/blog-posts/halo-5-guardians-your-team-is-your-weapon Halo 5: Guardians – Your Team is Your Weapon