Halo 5: Guardians – Promethean Phaeton Gunship, Spartan Laser, New Forerunner Enemy, & More!

Recap of the news and rumors for Halo 5: Guardians. New Promethean Phaeton Gunship vehicle, Forerunner enemy, Halo 5 Spartan Laser, Agent Locke’s Armor Variant, and more!

Rumor – Leaked Halo 5 Live Action Photo

Looks like a leaked live action photo has surfaced on reddit /r/Halo. Speculations have been made that this photo is either for a live action commercial for Halo 5: Guardians or for Stephen Speilberg’s Halo Television series.

The source of the image won’t be mentioned as it was promptly removed from the social media platform.

Halo 5 Guardians Live Action Leak

The photo depicts Master Chief laying at a base of a burned and scarred memorial, while Agent Locke approaches without his helmet. You can also see a camera crew personnel in the background on the right. The memorial reads “Duty and Honor Above All”, there are speculations this could be the same memorial seen at the end of Halo 3, but the Voi Memorial is made out of UNSC Pelican wing where as this new image clearly depicts a stone memorial. The pelican wing memorial could have easily been replaced by a more permanent memorial item since the events of Halo 3.

Halo 3 Voi Memorial

Another theory is that this image could be for a commercial that may function like the Halo 4 Scanned commercial, which was live action, gave us hints of Halo 4’s story direction, but not actually be canon in game.

Update: Microsoft has issued the following statement since the photo surfaced

“Xbox and Halo have a tradition of creating rich, narrative events to entertain and delight fans, including award-winning campaigns such as Starry Night, Believe, Remember Reach and more. We have no details to share at this time but look forward to exciting and surprising fans later this year as work continues on Halo 5: Guardians.”

The Sprint – Making Halo 5: Guardians Beta Now On YouTube

The entire 6 episode series of “The Sprint”, previously only available on the Halo Channel Xbox One App, is now available on YouTube.

343 Industries presents an unprecedented and exclusive behind-the-scenes look into the development of the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta. The Sprint lets viewers step into the lives and meeting rooms of the team that makes Halo 5: Guardians happen

Halo 2 Anniversary Relic DLC Multiplayer Map

343 Industries announced that Certain Affinity has begun development on the multiplayer map Relic for Halo 2 Anniversary. Along with this announcement they release concept art for the remastered map. Relic will be the 7th remastered map for Halo 2 Anniversary and is set to arrive “Spring 2015” and will be free for all players.

Halo 2 Anniversary Relic Concept Art

Wallpapers: [1920×1080] [1280×720] [1024×768]

Halo 2 Anniversary Relic Concept Art

Wallpapers: [1920×1080] [1280×720] [1024×768]

In the same community update 343 Industries announced that the Content Update Beta for Halo: The Master Chief Collection (which was only open for Xbox One Preview Members) has been cancelled. The beta would have delayed the public release of the content update and now testing will be done internally.

Source: HaloWaypoint

Halo 5: Guardians Post-Beta Changes

343 Industries released detail stats from the Halo 5 Beta and a list of post-beta changes and improvements to Halo 5’s Spartan Abilities, Sprint, Weapons, Presentation, CSR, and Matchmaking

Halo 5 Beta StatsSPARTAN ABILITIES AND MOBILITY

  • The results from the HCFP surveys showed that nearly 11% of HCFP participants felt that Halo should not have sprint. 77% of participants agreed/strongly agreed that Halo should have sprint.
  • Toggle Sprint and Spartan Abilities on/off in custom games
  • Increase base speed (faster base movement)
  • Increase strafe acceleration (faster, more responsive strafing)
  • Reduce top sprint speed (narrow the delta between base movement and sprint)
  • Modify Ground Pound controls to prevent conflicts w/ crouch jumping
  • General tuning & bug fixes for all Spartan Abilities (Thrusters, Clamber, Ground Pound, etc.)

WEAPONS

  • The Hydra will be buffed to make it more effective out of zoom and ensure that it feels like a true power weapon.
  • Sniper Rifle: improve scope experience to making it less “clunky” and faster to scope
  • DMR: adjust position of the scope to improve visibility
  • Bring back the SPNKr Rocket Launcher as a legendary version of the weaponHalo 5 SPNKr Rocket Launcher
  • Reduce bonuses for automatic weapons in Smart-Link & w/ headshots
  • Remove grenade detonation in mid-air based on weapon fire
  • Ability to turn on/off vibration feedback for weapons
  • General tuning and bug fixing for all weapons

PRESENTATION

  • The intro and a victory sequences will feature considerably fewer chest bumps and high fives.
  • Post-death replay: this will become an opt-in feature. After death, players will see a traditional follow-cam and have the option to view a replay of their death from the killer’s perspective (as long as the feature is enabled within the playlist)
  • Medals: decrease frequency and number of medals displayed in the medal feed
  • Spartan chatter: players will have the option to turn this on or off in the settings menu
  • Adding highlights to placed/dropped weapons to make them easier to see
  • General tuning for announcer and Spartan chatter to reduce the frequency of events and focus on the information that matters most to players

COMPETITIVE SKILL RANK (CSR)

  • Improved skill detection during placement phase
  • Improved skill matching
  • Improved team balancing
  • Prevent skill boosting
  • General bug fixing & tuning

MATCHMAKING

  • Much faster matches
  • Better skill matching
  • Better feedback to players in the lobby and matchmaking experiences
  • Allow players to set desired datacenter for matchmaking (may impact matchmaking speed and skill balance)
  • Improved party vs party matchmaking
  • Hide CSR ranks until in match to de-incentivize quitting
  • Punish quitters with CSR penalties and matchmaking bans

Source: HaloWaypont

Halo 5 Limited and Limited Collector’s Editions Announced!

The Halo 5: Guardians Collector’s Edition and Halo 5: Guardians Limited Edition have been announced! Also Pre-Order Poster.

Halo 5 Pre Order Poster

Source: http://news.xbox.com/2014/12/games-halo-5-preorder-and-beta

 

New Halo 5 Forge Map “Pegasus”, Hydra MLRS, Rocket Launcher

343 Industries released footage of the Rocket Launcher and Hydra MLRS power weapons for Halo 5 Guardians. A new image for a possible Forge map “Pegasus” was also revealed.

halo 5 hydra mlrs halo 5 rocket launcher halo 5 Pegasus

Vote for either Hydra or the Rocket Launcher for Phase 2 of the Halo 5 Beta https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/community/bulletins/the-bulletin-episode-6

Halo 3 ODST Campaign on Xbox One for Free

Bonnie Ross apologized for the state of matchmaking for Halo MCC at launch and details about the compensation have now been announced.

To those who played Halo MCC online since launch, Nov 11th 2014 and through December 19th 2014 you will receive the following for free as compensation

  • 1 Month of Xbox Live Gold
  • Exclusive In-Game Nameplate
  • And an Exclusive In-Game Avatar

As well as

  • Halo 3: ODST’s Campaign which will be playable through to Halo: The Master Chief Collection and upgraded to 1080p and 60fps.
  • And Relic, another remastered map for Halo 2 Anniversary from Certain Affinity. Bringing the total to 7 remastered maps.

Halo 3 ODST’s Campaign and the remastered map Relic are currently in development and are set for a spring 2015 release. 343 have stated it is just the campaign for ODST and they have no current plans to include firefight.

The remastered Halo 2 Anniversary map Relic will available to all users regardless of eligibility.

The 1 month of Xbox Live gold will be delivered to your account as early as mid-January 2015. The exclusive in-game nameplate and avatar will be available in an upcoming content update this December 2014. 343 stated the avatar and nameplate will not be available to additional users in the future. They also do not have any details at this time if they plan to have ODST’s Campaign available for purchase in the future.

Halo 2 Anniversary BLASTacular Achievement Guide – All 6 Blast Soda Cans

In Halo 2 Anniversary you can earn an achievement called BLASTacular by finding all 6 hidden BLAST Soda Cans in the remastered multiplayer maps. Shooting each Blast Soda Can will grant you an achievement and an multiplayer emblem. Halo 2 Anniversary is part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Xbox One.

Halo-2-Anniversary-Blast-Soda

 

  • Thirst Locked Down (5G) – Found and destroyed the BLAST soda can on Lockdown.
  • High Altitude Thirst (5G) – Found and destroyed the BLAST soda can on Zenith.
  • Gate Your Thirst (5G) – Found and destroyed the BLAST soda can on Stonetown.
  • Bloody Thirsty (5G) – Found and destroyed the BLAST soda can on Bloodline.
  • Rule Your Thirst (5G) – Found and destroyed the BLAST soda can on Warlord.
  • Worship Your Thirst (5G) – Found and destroyed the BLAST soda can on Shrine.
  • BLASTacular (10G) – Destroyed all the Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer BLAST soda cans.

Halo-2-Annivsary-Blast-Soda-Emblems

 

Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta Reveal

At Halo Fest 2014 they revealed gameplay for Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta! The Halo 5 Beta will be available to those who pick up a copy of Halo: The Master Chief Collection and will run from Dec. 29, 2014 through Jan. 18, 2015.

Here’s a Halo 5: Guardians Multilayer Beta ViDoc they aired


Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta Gameplay

Slayer on the map Truth, the remastered Midship for Halo 5: Guardians

Slayer on the map Empire

Breakdown on the map Crossfire. Breakout is new gametype where 2 teams play best of 9 rounds where you have 1 life – first to 5 rounds wins