Halo 5 Guardians: 343 Industries On Weapon Tuning And Spartan Abilities

The weapons and abilities that were available to Spartans in the Halo 5 beta testing period are being tweaked to help balance them. This includes tweaks to the bullet magnetism and per-weapon individual balance tweaks. In regards to the weaponry, 343 Studio Head Josh Holmes has said, “This has been improved since beta. All weapons have gone through substantial tuning as a result of feedback and data.”

He goes on to talk about the divisive smart-scope ability, saying, “Smart-Link transitions (in/out of zoom) have been sped up substantially since beta. Sniper Rifle was a big offender in beta and has had perhaps the most change, but all weapons are much faster to zoom in and out and it makes a big difference in the flow of combat”

Talking about the charge ability, Holmes explains that it’s third person because it, “gives players an opportunity to see their Spartan perform the move”, but more importantly because they had previously tried first person and it didn’t work. Speaking about this, he said, “We’ve experimented with first person charge, but it’s impossible to get it to read clearly without extending the range beyond what makes sense for balance.”

Finally, the ground-pound ability has been rebound to a new button, but we don’t know which. Talking about the risk/reward power, Holmes has said, “This will still be a risky move that should be used situationally, but executing the move feels much more fluid and intuitive.”