Revealed at Halo Fest, 343 showed off the first ever gameplay of Halo 5:Guardians and i got to say i'm optimistic. The gameplay look real good one of the biggest changes of course is your Spartan's crazy mobility. Can't wait to try out the Beta.

Smart Scope

Now this will be a change all weapons in some capacity will have this, but it's not ADS like COD. It's pretty much zoom with different cosmetic look to appeal to COD crowd. You can still get the same shots off from hip like Halo.

AR smart scope

General

• still red vs. blue
• shields remain at top mid of screen
• even abilities all the time
• radar and no radar setting shown, radar remains at bottom left
• callouts all created by pro team at 343i
• Perfect Kill = new medal for perfect 4 shot kill
• descope returns
• no more ordnances
• power weapons on static timers
• can carry 2 primary weapons (no mods/packages needed)
• medals feed now middle bottom of screen
• appears to be a faster pace overall
• Carry 2 frags and 2 plasma grenades
• new spectator mode
• 5 seconds respawn for normal death

Spartan Abilities

They dabbled with mods before in reach and halo 4, here they are just giving it to everyone, equal starts for all

• Thruster (works multi direction)
• Ground pound
• Clamber (really hard ledge grabs work like classic crouch jumps for good players)
• Slide (full sprint velocity then crouch to slide)
• Charge (full sprint velocity then melee to slide)
• Sprint (while sprinting shield does not recharge, must walk or stop to recharge) Balanced
• Smart scope (hip fire accurate, no penalty to movement), allows descope

Press Impression

IGN

A level playing field. Smart Scope. Sprinting. Strafing. Charging. Ground-pounding. The stabilizer. Midship. The Prophets’ Bane. Breakout mode. My first taste of the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta was filled with fascination, but these are the things I enjoyed the most. This is clearly a new Halo for a new era, but in many ways it also feels like an evolved Halo 2. And that’s a good thing.

The Verge

'Halo 5: Guardians' returns to what made 'Halo' great

Eurogamer

343 is trying to get the core back onside with Halo 5 while ensuring it has all mod cons. Halo returns to a level playing field while adding cosmetic iron sights. Halo returns to descoping while adding a Thruster Pack. It's a tricky balancing act, for sure, but I like what I've played.

Shack News

Halo 5: Guardians feels certainly feels like something new and different. It's too early to tell whether it's going to necessarily be better, though. The fundamental issue is that while a lot of bells and whistles have been added, it's hard to tell whether it still feels like Halo. Even maps like Truth and Crossfire feel distinctly different from the previous Halo visual aesthetic, opting more for a space age-y, futuristic vibe.

Of course, this is just the beginning and there's still plenty for 343 Industries to bring out in the coming year. Time will tell how Halo 5: Guardians will continue to evolve the franchise.

Team Beyond [Halo Pros]

My time with the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta was a very strange experience. I went in thinking I was going to play a competitive arena shooter with very basic mechanics similar to Halo: Combat Evolved but I was presented something completely different. The game felt very complex to begin with, but once I got used to all the new Spartan Abilities, a skill gap did emerge.

If you are looking for a classic arena shooter that resembles Halo: CE and Halo 2, then you will be disappointed. This is a next generation arena shooter that can be picked up and enjoyed by new players, but it also introduces a lot of new decision making that creates risk-reward situations. This new meta that combines new features and abilities will most likely generate a noticeable skill gap.

Destructoid

After I had finished my 90 minutes with Halo 5: Guardians it was clear that 343 wants this game to be more energetic, faster, and physically dynamic. I fear, however, that in their quest the good people of 343 Industries have changed so much that what's left can not be properly identified as a Halo game.

I was watching Halofest yesterday, and the beta looks just nuts. Halo 5 looks like it was made for e-sports. Ground pound goes hard, yo!

Made a thread yesterday, and my reaction was very positive. I'm down with a speedier Halo.

Don't want the highlighted press previews to be TOO one-sided. Well, Ryan at IGN talks about how it's the first Halo game where he's had to fight the controls but some people just read conclusions.

Destructoid

After I had finished my 90 minutes with Halo 5: Guardians it was clear that 343 wants this game to be more energetic, faster, and physically dynamic. I fear, however, that in their quest the good people of 343 Industries have changed so much that what's left can not be properly identified as a Halo game.

"Hip fire accurate" doesn't seem to be true. The reticle expands when you're shooting the AR and SMG hipfire and it doesn't when you're on ADS/zoom(see gif for example on the latter).

So far so good IMO. These changes actually seem interesting, and they don't seem to interfere with the core Halo gameplay so that's a definitive plus.

The ground pound is clearly destiny inspired, only it's much more fair from the looks of it and doesn't clear everyone on the screen with one blow.

Great minds think alike?

Seriously though, your shields only recharging when you're walking sounds like a great move. This already looks much better than Halo 4.

That's some Call of Duty-lookin Halo. Announcer is pretty goddamn annoying too.

To be fair, I only really played a ton of Halo 1 multiplayer, so for all I know this is just where there series has been going.

I'm very exited for Halo 5, quite easily my most desired game for 2015.

I'd totally forgotten about Halo 5 as a thing, but that beta reveal got me surprisingly hyped. No shield recharge while sprinting seems so obvious in retrospect. Keeps the pace deliberate without sacrificing the maneuverability that people expect out of modern shooters. I shall be all over that thing in late December!

Watched Nick Robinson's video about this and I thought it looked super rad. They made a lot of cool changes

I'm optimistic and the game definitely looks like the presentation is amazing. But I'm still worried, I love Halo and just want what's best for it, I hope with a Beta a year out from launch they can get the feel and flow down by launch so it is a balanced, fun Halo game.

If they can balance the feeling of being an unlta powerful Spartan with the balance of a Halo game before Reach that'd be amazing.

The guns even SOUND like something from Call of Duty now.

I understand that they need to change it up in order to get that CoD crowd back into Halo (and with the waning interest in Advanced Warfare, I figure they might get them). I just... I really wish they could've kept it in the true vein of Halo.

This stuff looks great so far to me. As long as it's not one shot/twitch kills then it's not COD like at all to me. Which is what I want. Can't wait to give it a try!

Some of this reminds me a lot of Titanfall.

It looks interesting but I really don't like the esports take on all these previews 343 is putting out. I understand esports is big but I'd rather them make a fun and balanced game not a competition focused balanced game. Personally I don't take shooters too seriously but I do like to do well in one but never at the expense of having fun. I feel like this will take away some of the fun.

As a long time Halo fan, following all the changes from iteration to iteration, I think this is a welcome return to 'Halo' after Halo Reach and Halo 4. It doesn't seem like it on the surface, but let me explain:

When you say Halo multiplayer, I think of the combat trinity ( gun/grenade/melee), and balanced starts. These should not be messed with. Unfortunately even Bungie was guilty of this in Reach by decreasing the effectiveness of guns (by bringing in reticule bloom), changing the way melee worked (remember EARLY Reach multiplayer? Bunch of dudes bouncing off each other like bumper cars trying to double melee kill), adding loadouts, and introducing unbalanced armor abilities. I absolutely loved Reach and sunk a lot of time into it...I'm not saying it was bad, just that it did not feel like Halo.

When Halo went over to 343, I was extremely worried, but one of the first things they did with Reach was rebalance it (mainly for CE Anniversary, but welcome changes), including rebalancing abilities, fixing melee, and decreasing or removing the bloom. Unfortunately, Halo 4 was a step backwards with a focus on unbalancing starts (ordnance drops, loadouts, perks, etc). Again, I still had fun with the game, but it was 'less Halo' than 1-3.

Now I realize that these changes to Reach and 4 were done with good intentions - trying to modernize Halo for the COD crowd. I get it, it needed to be more relevant. Unfortunately, taking away the 'Halo-ness' of it, was not the right way to do it. The upside to all of these changes though, is that the great story driven campaign with sandbox battles were maintained in single player.

So, how do you modernize it without losing what makes it Halo? Focus on the movement, yes this has been done in Titanfall and COD, so it sure does work in Halo. Clambering, sprinting, boosting - these are not loadout choices, everyone has it, in other words, the even starts and balance is kept. So why is this a return to Halo if it is just copying the movement from the other games? Because the combat trinity is kept...as I said, the starts are even: on map weapons return and are fixed. No loadouts and perks. Smart Scope is new, but you will not be penalized for hip shooting. This is Halo. It remains to be seen if the abilities (ground pound, shoulder charge, etc) will be balanced, but if it is even, it is much more Halo to me than Reach and 4 were.

Wanna do some clamberin'

Yes the reticle doesn't expand but I think that's more of a visual choice than anything. Its still hip fire accurate since the spread of the gun fire remains unchanged from firing from the hip, even if the recticle doesn't expand during the scoped mode the spread when the AR fired remained the same.

@thiago123: I think the shoulder charge insta-kill kinda reminds me of the times when someone would just sneak up on me and just melee at the back before assassinations where even included. I like this faster pace Halo. Because of more movement options and the gun play remaining more or less unchanged it feels like we're going back to the days of Unreal and Tribes with the speed and movement.

@jakob187: To be fair, 343 did change the sounds back in Halo 4 where they based some of the sounds from real life weapons and altered it. There's dev videos of when they went to gun ranges to record sounds before Halo 4 was released.

@finaldasa: I don't think them catering more to the competitive scene is going to be detrimental. If anything it makes sure that the game remains balanced or is already very balanced from the get-go and that's not going to take away from the fun of the game and only contribute to it. It would suck if you go online only to be constantly decked by a mechanic/weapon/strategy that was very overpowered. Competitive players do take advantage of that BUT a lot of them would say that kind of imbalance makes it also very unfair and thus not fun to play. Competitive games at its core have to be fun for it to be appealing in the first place anyway so I don't think you'd have to worry about the game not being fun.

@gaspower: It's not a visual choice, it impacts accuracy. If ADS and hip fire both have the same spread but one has a means of aiming that is static, then that one is superior. This is silly.

@ez123: If the reticle remained the same but fire spread was still not hitting at the point of the reticle (or rather not all the bullets fired hits at the point of the reticle at longer ranges) anyway, is it still MORE accurate or superior? Means of aiming is static but you're still not hitting all the bullets fired on the reticle because the fire is not pin-point accurate, it spreads as you fire anyway and is STILL inaccurate at longer ranges.

To be fair, in Halo, even with a smart scope or zoom, no one would use the AR to kill people from afar. The BR or DMR (or other similar weapons) is still better.

Doesn't matter, reticle bloom is still destabilizing. So like I said, the spread is the same for both except one is expanding and the other is staying the same but somehow they're equal?

Didn't a 343 guy already say on Twitter there is no penalty to hip firing? They mention it on the bombcast this week.

@zombie2011: Yes, he did. We have gameplay footage though

Have they actually confirmed that the fire will have a spread/bullet physics like Halo 3? Halo 1, 2, and Reach were all hitscan if I recall correctly (?, not positive about Halo 4 off the top of my head, but I believe it was also). So it seems like 343 would want to stick with that. Going from Halo 3 and returning to hitscan in Reach I though was part of the reason that Bungie was more comfortable adding reticle bloom to the DMR. It also makes sense that it would be hitscan because then hipfire would be just as accurate as ADS MINUS scope magnification. Might be mis-remembering it a bit.

On another topic, I'm loving the sound design. Like the new shield noise and LOVE that they added a hit confirm sound similar to Halo CE. Very Killzone 2 like sounds.

So I have been thinking about this, I'm pretty optimistic to be honest, I played with Thruster pack in Halo 4 which I think is largely why I actually enjoy Halo 4. I liked the core combat in that game but hated the AA's that were not thruster. They broke the game and added nothing positive to the combat, they were crutches plain and simple. At launch Halo 4 was a bit of a mess, unbalanced sandbox and random ordinance were the worst. Eventually they updated that and the game became an enjoyable experience outside of the AA's and ordinance drops, those were still in.

I'm a dude who has put about 150,000 kills into Halo multiplayer, I am probably the most Halo duder you can find. That said Halo 5 is actually what I think I was looking for in a few ways. That thruster pack is super rewarding to master, it feels balanced and requires skill to use properly. The lack of AA's and any sort of custom loadouts is a big thing, and the additions that I have seen are starting to grow on my after watching some good gameplay videos.

The Beta will likely have some major balance issues and I think it's not too surprising that the game is in sort of a more crazy state a year out from launch. But I'm hopeful that they can take the info that we give them and hone Halo 5 into a Solid and more modern Halo Game. I'm even hopeful that post launch they will continue to balance the game with regular patches based on fan input.

The brutal truth is that "esports" is largely a marketing ploy. End result is that I can't enjoy Halo 2 Anniversary with ranked playlists because "esports" dictates that the "pro" thing to do is play all battle-rifles resulting in only mid-to-long range gameplay. They might as well have not even included the other game modes, the two people who vote for them never get to play them. Every Halo 2 map had a couple BR spawns- because when the game was designed it wasn't originally intended that the entire game revolve around that one weapon.

It's sad that the culture is becoming so narcissistic that every game panders to it.

There is no way Halo 5 will be a return to what made Halo's heyday great; they couldn't even pull it off with the "anniversary" edition of their game, which should have been a simple remake. Instead what we have is three maps playable out of over a hundred and a whole two game modes to boot.

Halo 5 is going to be great, but the values in use here aren't the values that created Halo 2, which was a fairly off-the-cuff and care-free affair.

You clearly didn't play Halo 2 multiplayer when it was current. Every MLG game revolved around BRs. Hell, BR was so popular that there were even separate Team Slayer and Team Slayer BR playlists (there's that 'even start' concept rearing its head again). As someone who was so into Halo 2 multiplayer that a friend of mine connected his Xbox to XBL through a bridge on his PC so that he could guarantee he would always have host advantage (and have the ability to bluescreen games he was losing, lol), BRs have literally always been the weapon in Halo 2 MP; the fact that you're claiming otherwise to substantiate your hate for 'today's culture' and 'esports' is laughable. Rants don't do much to earn themselves support when their base claims are certifiably false.

The reason I stopped playing Halo after Halo 2 was because I got a pc and started playing faster paced shooters. Once I had gone that direction, I could never really go back. Halo has felt very sluggish to me since, like you are moving through treacle. This new game actually has me interested in Halo again, which I never thought would happen. I think I am the exact target demo they were aiming at with these changes.

Of reticle bloom, which doesn't prove anything. There's been no comparison of actual bullet spread.

You're right.

There was a hugely popular separate playlist for battle rifle play.

This game includes only the hugely popular playlist.

Just one of the many reasons I returned the game for a full refund; though the largest was the lack of a real file-share (allowing any stranger to look up a person's gamertag and peruse their Forgery wares) which fosters an active custom community. You seem a little aggro that your Halo experience isn't everyone else's; and when I played Halo 2 on the original Xbox I didn't play a playlist that gave everyone a Battle Rifle at all times - ever. That playlist actually didn't exist until several months after the game's release, which is why every map has two BR spawns.

I told support that if they make it so that I don't have to mutually friend any player and be online for them to access my file share, I would buy the game again. For now, I'd rather have my $65 on DA:I.

Also, 16 players is printed on the box but the largest game size is 12 players.

Also, All-chat should be on by default with the ability to mute people via scoreboard. What they (probably Microsoft's initiative, or otherwise at least Microsoft and Activision) are doing is a carebear cop-out of liability should anyone get their feelings hurt; and it's severely damaging the social aspects of many games I love.

The problem isn't that "Halo was an esport so they can do it again" but that "esport has changed". As long as there is no way to stage a camera quickly where it is easy transition from a "see everything skycam" to a "chase camera" then it will be at best a niche game in the esports scene. You need these external camera controls or it gets hard to get a sense of what is going on in a match for the casual viewer or layman to follow which is key to get a following.