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Microsoft: We won't skip 'Halo' betas from now on
When Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched last year, it was supposed to be ultimate fan service: four of the most renowned games in the series, all in one fancy package loaded with extras, all on Xbox One. The final product was... well, problematic. To this day it still isn't 100 percent functional all the time, with a rash of issues like game crashes still persisting. "It was our first game on a new platform, and it was essentially five engines [with] a wrapper," 343 Industries head Bonnie Ross explained to me this week. All that to say, because the game wasn't a native Xbox One game is why it had so many issues. Still that makes it incredibly difficult to get excited for this fall's Halo 5: Guardians. Will it be as heartbreaking on a technical level as MCC? I briefly spoke with Ross about how she and her teams are working to overcome and address that very valid concern.
'Halo 5' doesn't have split-screen, but 'never say never'
Halo 5: Guardians doesn't have split-screen cooperative play. This is a drastic shift for the series -- every console Halo game has featured local co-op, including the recently released Halo: Master Chief Collection, a bundle of the franchise's major titles. Plenty of longtime Halo fans have hit Twitter with messages ranging from disappointment to some that promise to cancel their Halo 5 pre-orders. Microsoft doesn't have any plans to launch the game with split-screen, but in a world of constantly updating consoles and streams of downloadable content, there's a sliver of hope for couch co-op fans, according to Microsoft General Manager of Games Publishing Shannon Loftis.
I got Holo-briefed on 'Halo 5'
Typically E3's vision of the future is pretty shortsighted. But this year when I stepped into a war room for a Halo 5: Guardians mission briefing, that's when I knew that the gaming trade show's look at what's ahead extended beyond just games that are months or sometimes years off. The space's middle was dominated by a hexagonal table roughly four feet across, and floating a scant few inches above its surface was a slowly rotating, azure hologram of a massive starship. It was familiar and I'd seen it somewhere before, but it took a moment for me to identify: It was the UNSC Infinity from the Halo universe, courtesy of Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality headset sitting atop my skull. With the few moments I had alone in the room, I circled the dais. The hologram remained on its deliberate arc while I peered from every angle, looking for flaws that'd break the 3D illusion. Those came later, but not where I expected them. "This is ridiculous," another attendee said as I returned to my spot at the table. He was right.
'Halo 5' brings the epic scale of its solo campaign to multiplayer
Halo 5: Guardians won't force you to you choose between the grand scale of its single-player story and the camaraderie of multiplayer... in theory, you'll get both at the same time. The crew at 343 Industries has revealed that its sci-fi shooter will include Warzone, a 24-player mode that has you facing off against both other humans and AI opponents. Its maps are about four times the size of those from earlier games in the series, too. The addition reflects just how important the team dynamic (also shown off in single-player mode at E3) will be when Halo 5 arrives in October -- it's anything but an afterthought. Check here for everything happening at E3 2015!
'Halo 5: Guardians' hype train starts with a whisper
Halo fans aren't strangers to alternate reality games, and it looks like Halo 5: Guardians could get something similar to Halo 2's I Love Bees treatment. The just released teaser trailer (embedded below) doesn't give much by way of clues, but ends with a #HUNTtheTRUTH hashtag. The video also links to a Tumblr bearing that name with a countdown clock that stops Sunday night at 9 PM Eastern. Perhaps a new commercial will debut during The Walking Dead? Maybe, but at least it won't be long before we find out, regardless. If you're looking for folks to speculate with head over to NeoGAF or the Halo Waypoint forums -- the topic's thread has already hit 24 pages.
Playdate: We're livestreaming the 'Halo 5: Guardians' beta! [update: game over!]
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is more than just a collection of the green supersoldier's greatest hits -- it's also an early access pass to the next game in the franchise, Halo 5: Guardians. How early? Well, the game isn't expected until fall 2015, so pretty freakin' early is the answer. Right now -- today -- you can get into Halo 5's multiplayer beta months ahead of the game's completion. In that spirit, we're streaming a few hours of the game in action while taking questions live! Join us at 1PM ET today for Halo 5: Guardians, multiplayer, in beta. Update: We're done for now, but the archived video is available just below the break!
Ridley Scott's 'Halo' project is a prequel to the next major 'Halo' game
In a way, director Ridley Scott's Halo-themed project, dubbed Nightfall, brings Microsoft's tentpole shooter franchise full circle. Master Chief's galaxy-spanning exploits owe a giant debt to the filmmaker's iconic tale of deep-space horror, Alien, and now Scott is helping establish where the franchise goes on the Xbox One. As 343 Industries head Bonnie Ross said during my meeting at E3 this week, working with him "kind of upped the bar" on the series, especially compared to 343's last attempt at live-action, the Halo 4 lead-in Forward Unto Dawn. "Hopefully we get better each time," she said. Nightfall tells the origin story for Agent Locke, a character Ross said plays a "pivotal role" in Halo 5: Guardians. As far as story, that's as much as we know so far. Ross isn't sure how many episodes Nightfall will span, but said that there will be five of them leading into Halo 5's beta timeframe.
'Halo: The Master Chief Collection' has what you expect and a whole lot more
We told you that Halo: The Master Chief Collection (MCC) existed before anyone else, but thanks to the package being officially official, we now have a veritable truckload of details about it. When the game releases November 11th, just over 10 years after Halo 2's launch, it'll pack remastered audio and visuals, four whole games on one disc, a staggering number of multiplayer maps and even a few surprises.
'Halo: The Master Chief Collection' coming to Xbox One this year, collects 'Halos 1-4'
Master Chief is getting a facelift with an HD collection of his exploits. We've learned that Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 4 are being collected in a Master Chief-focused HD remaster coming from Microsoft. Our sources say that the set will zero in on Halo's most famous soldier to refresh audience's memories ahead of Halo 5: Guardians' release, so curiosities like Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach likely won't be a part of the package. The game's developer is unknown at this point, but considering that Saber Interactive handled Combat Evolved Anniversary and is also working on an unannounced Xbox One project, the team is a likely suspect. Also unclear are plans for digital distribution, resolution and frame-rate (Microsoft bragged that that the next Halo will run at a "blistering" 60fps), piecemeal releases, or if the games will surface on other platforms as well (PC, anyone?).
