Much of the migration has naturally flowed toward the Master Chief Collection. But there’s one game conspicuously missing from it: Halo 5 Guardians. Despite being landlocked to Xbox, Halo 5 has seen a growing number of players filling its multiplayer lobbies, and for good reason. The fast pace of the movement and the intricate map design fulfil a unique niche in the series worth exploring. With 2025 marking Halo 5’s 10-year anniversary, there’s no better time take a look back on Halo Infinite’s predecessor.

The only way to access Halo 5 is through the Xbox ecosystem. The new ROG Xbox handheld is a good candidate to access the game, but for most, an old Xbox One or Series X/S will do the job. There’s been no word on an official PC release and Halo 5 remains the only one missing from the Master Chief Collection besides Infinite, putting Halo 5 in an inaccessible position today.

Still, multiplayer lobbies continue to be populated. It’s still relatively easy to find matches in Slayer, Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag modes. And then there’s the game’s 24-player Warzone mode, which can take longer to find matches in, especially outside of peak hours. Expanded search is a good way to find custom lobbies already in progress. In general, the Halo 5 multiplayer community is surprisingly active despite being landlocked to the Xbox ecosystem.

Halo 5 may be 10 years old, but it still looks like a new game. Since the scope is more zoomed-in and focused than Infinite, graphical fidelity was still high and framerates manage to be smooth. It looks especially impressive with Xbox Series X’s backwards compatibility. Until it gets an official PC release, the Series X remains the best way to play Halo 5 today.

Multiplayer has continued to be the lifeblood of Halo 5. Many fans consider Halo 5 as the pinnacle of Halo multiplayer in general, but especially of the 343 era. What does it do so well, though? First, there’s mobility. Halo 5 added infinite sprinting and a slide to its movement. While Halo Infinite has sprint, Halo 5’s sprint is notably quicker than Infinite. That extra dash of mobility combined with the gravity-defying jumping ability of Spartans make for some incredibly fun and fast-paced matches.

Halo 5 also emphasized aiming down the sights for its weapons to an unprecedented degree in the franchise. Just about every single gun in the game has sights the player can aim down, making precision shots more feasible than ever before. The ubiquity of sight-aiming along with the sprint led to an overriding sensation that Halo 5 was becoming homogenized. But rather than drag it down, this level of dynamism helped Halo 5 gain a reputation for being the most competitive entry. The quick movement and precise weapon feel lends itself well to top-level tournament play. One can imagine how big the Halo 5 e-sports scene could get with a remastered PC release.

But it’s not just more competitive—Halo 5 also retains the sense of fun that defined the classic games. Player collisions add a mix of comedic relief and physical realism, keeping matches unpredictable and often delightfully chaotic. The thruster pack provides bursts of speed and verticality, which lets players leap across distances with reckless abandon. And then there’s the special air-time ability when aiming down the sights, which grants splash AOE damage.

Forge mode, meanwhile, carries over much of what made Halo 3 and 4’s Forge so fun. Players have a robust set of tools to build, script, and decorate maps and create modes from scratch. Sure, Infinite’s Forge iterates with new additions and features, but Halo 5 has a wealth of creations in its library through the 10 years it’s been active, giving it some seniority over Infinite with regards to its content pool.

Speaking of maps, the multiplayer map design is much more compact and intricate than Infinite’s sprawling zones. There’s more nooks and crannies to hide in and a significantly increased pace thanks to the faster movement speed. The Plaza map’s vertical design, for example, highlights the game’s mobility remarkably well. And objective-based maps like Truth or Colosseum represent some of the most balanced map design in the series’ long history.

The weapons also pack quite a punch. A punchy sound effect unique to Halo 5 accompanies all headshots, distinguishing them from normal hits. The Promethean weapon designs were totally distinct and different from anything else in the series too. Again, accompanied by punchy distinctive sound effects and some cool animation quirks. It’s often argued that Halo 5 has some of the best weapons and it’s not hard to see why.

It’s just a tad unfortunate that the game’s large-scale mode isn’t as active as it once was. The 12v12 Warzone mode was a trend-setter at the time, blending traditional PvP play with AI enemies and boss fights to take down as a team. Warzone was something of a proto-Halo Infinite, with its large map design. It also introduced a controversial loot pack system injected with mircrotransactions, something that would carry over into Halo Infinite as well. Still, the cooperative mayhem with the PvP/PvE layout was unique and provided many unpredictable matches, with plenty a player claiming it as their favorite mode. Warzone servers are still up and active, though notably less so than the compact deathmatch modes today.

The campaign in Halo 5: Guardians is often regarded as lackluster and, for most, the weakest in the series’ rich history. From both a gameplay and story perspective, Halo 5’s single player offering suffered from a number of substantial issues, making it difficult to come back to and recommend today.

Gameplay-wise, the campaign leans on frustrating design choices that make combat repetitive and unbalanced. The overuse of homing enemy weapons from Promethean units forces one into a constant loop of retreating to cover rather than improvising with other tactics. Turning Halo into a cover-based shooter just wasn’t the way to go. Encounters quickly become predictable, undermining Halo’s classic face-paced ‘get-up-and-go’ rhythm. It’s especially egregious considering the enhanced mobility injected into the entry.

And then there’s the squad system, which was meant to add teamwork and tactical depth but often does the exact opposite. Unlike other Halo games, you issue commands to your team of Spartans and must rely on your mates for success. A team-based campaign is awesome in theory, but the AI here is just too unreliable and awful in some cases. AI Spartans will often ignore your pleas for help even when they’re just a few feet away. The campaign’s difficulty balance assumes that these revives happen regularly, which makes the experience frustratingly uneven. Not only do you not feel like a one-man army here, you don’t even feel like much of a functional team because the AI fails you so often.

There’s also the spongy boss health which pad out the experience, making it more monotonous and irritating than it should be. Seriously, if I have to fight another Warden Eternal, I’ll consider just playing Infinite instead. Those enemies don’t just have padded health, their attacks are repetitive and uninteresting to boot. And don’t get me started on the higher difficulties.

Narratively, it ain’t much better. Playing a story version of “Red Vs Blue” can be intriguing for some players, and could have been amazing, but it just kinda fell flat for most. Playing as Locke is cool at times. He’s a Spartan with some depth and a likeable personality, but the other no-name Spartans hog a lot of the screen time. And the worst thing is Master Chief gets a mere three missions total in the campaign and that’s it. The insistence on focusing on a bunch of no-name Spartans at the expense of the Chief is both puzzling and lame, especially since many of them are about as interesting as my Forge creations.

There’s also a bit of external homework required to understand details of the story, which is unfortunate. A mainline game shouldn’t require external narrative research to comprehend, especially with an iconic story-focused series like Halo. And finally there’s the nail in the narrative coffin. The  story twist with Cortana, which understandably confounded and angered players. If you’re going to pull a cheeky narrative subversion for shock effect, at least make it somewhat consistent with the character.

Between Halo Infinite’s declining player base and Halo Studios’ silence regarding a new entry (besides the recently revealed Halo 1 remake), the future of the series seems like it’s still a tad bit in the air. But remastering Halo 5 and putting it on PC would be a step in the right direction. If the team wrinkles out some of the microtransaction gunk and polishes optimization for PC support, it would rekindle some of that old-school Halo flame that seems to be dimming in recent years.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Microsoft recently announced that Halo: The Master Chief Collection would be getting a dedicated Xbox Series X/S optimization on November 17, adding 4K support on Xbox Series X, 120 FPS support in campaign and multiplayer, split-screen improvements, and more. With many major Microsoft first part games getting similar enhancements on the upcoming consoles, many have been wondering- should we expect similar treatment for Halo 5: Guardians as well?

343 Industries recently addressed that question in an update on Halo Waypoint. The developer confirms that while there won’t be a dedicated next-gen optimized release for Halo 5, the game will, thanks to the Xbox Series X/S’ system-level backward compatibility features, benefit from things such as faster load times and higher resolution gameplay.

“After we announced the enhancements that MCC would be getting on the Xbox Series X|S, we did see questions rolling in about how Halo 5 would play on the new consoles,” the developer wrote. “While Halo 5 is not getting the same optimizations for Xbox Series X and Series S as MCC, owners of the next-gen hardware are still going to see the benefits of faster load times and consistently higher resolution gameplay. We’re excited for you all to jump on and give it a go with that extra power”

We also know that Halo 5 will have HDR on the Xbox Series X, thanks to the console’s auto-HDR feature.

Halo 5 is currently available only on Xbox One. 343 Industries recently re-iterated that the game won’t be added to The Master Chief Collection.

Over the course of the last few months, 343 Industries have brought over nearly the entire Halo: The Master Chief Collection over to PC, one game at a time. Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST were the most recent ones, both joining the collection within two months of each other, which means that Halo 4 is now the only game left.

But, of course, a question that has been asked quite often is being asked once more- will Halo 5 eventually make it into The Master Chief Collection as well? 343 Industries have, in the past, said that that won’t happen, and recently, they did so again.

In an update posted on Halo Waypoint, the developers quickly dashed any hopes of Halo 5: Guardians being added into the collection. “This is the last Halo title we currently have planned for the collection (sorry to crush your Halo 5 in MCC dreams), so let’s finish strong,” the wrote.

This, of course, also means that once Halo 4 is out on PC as well, Halo 5: Guardians will be the only game left in the series that won’t be playable on PC.

Halo 4’s beta testing (or flighting) will begin soon, but a specific release window for the full game hasn’t yet been nailed down.

Retro Studios have bee actively working on Metroid Prime 4, looking to recruit various people to bolster their team for the project, and now they’ve added yet another name to their ranks. Kyle Hefley, who was the senior character modeller at Halo developers 343 Industries, has joined Retro Studios to work on Metroid Prime 4.

Hefley’s LinkedIn profile mentions that he was at 343 Industries for nearly 9 years, having worked on both, Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians. He now serves as the Lead Character Artist on Metroid Prime 4. The Metroid games – the Prime subseries in particular – have a very distinct and particular visual aesthetic, so it will be interesting to see what flavour Hefley brings to the table.

Metroid Prime 4 was first announced all the way back in 2017, but earlier this year, Nintendo announced that development on the game had been restarted from scratch, with Retro Studios taking over as lead developers (something that they pitched themselves, apparently). As such, it’s going to be a while before we hear anything new about the game, much less get a release date. Hopefully Nintendo will release the long-rumoured Metroid Prime Trilogy in the meantime to tide us over.

For some time now, fans of the Halo games have been hoping for some of the later games in the series to release for the PC. In fact, in a Resetera thread, it was speculated that Halo 5: Guardians could be coming for the PC sometime soon.

In the original thread, a user spotted that on the official Xbox website, it stated that the game was available exclusively on the Xbox One and Windows 10. This was followed by many users speculating about different possibilities. A 343 Industries developer soon entered the thread and confirmed that this rumor was false and that Halo 5: Guardians wouldn’t be available for PC. The developer said that while it was not impossible for the game to be brought to PC at some point in the future, it is not something that is currently being worked on.

Hopefully, this puts some fans’ minds to rest and we can all just wait for the release of Halo Infinite. 

Those two games sent the biggest shock waves through the first person shooter genre since Doom and Wolfenstein popularized it back in the day, and its  hard to think of any games since that have matched them in terms of cultural impact. The enemies were creative, the story was interesting, and the game play was just accessible enough to get its hooks into young gamers yet intricate enough to keep hardcore players thoroughly amused. On top of being great single player experiences, the franchise also played a major part in popularizing competitive online play and paved the way for other franchises like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and others to carve out their own audiences in that new frontier.

This was an era where online play was certainly doable, and the infrastructure was there with cable internet finally becoming standardized and affordable for most, so Halo came along at the perfect time to really run with it, and run with it Halo did. Major tournaments on college campuses, massive LAN parties that filled apartments and houses with Xboxes and TV’s were a common sight for many years during the reign of Halo and Halo 2. And if you were to tell the 2003 version of me that eventually there would be a Halo game that drove players nuts with how mediocre it was, I’d laugh in your face, but here we are. So what the hell the happened to Halo?

Halo 4 was relatively divisive among long-time followers of Master Chief’s story, with imperfect but still relatively strong showings commercially and critically, but Halo 5 was the final straw for many. 343, actually came out and apologized at one point, admitting that the campaign was full of mistakes and that they would engage in some major course correction in the future.

Lots of complaints were leveled at 343 for the most recent iteration of Halo, From its lack of story substance to complaints about the game play itself being too co-op focused and leaving little room for solo players to also enjoy the game. Terrible AI that reduced non playable characters to lobotomized bullet sponges, unfinished half-baked mechanics and just an overall lack of fun factor all added up very quickly in the eyes of fans and Halo 5 quickly became what is largely regarded as the least favorite among the main-line games. Some of that could also be attributed to out of control hype, which is something lots of games suffer from when their marketing goes too far and fails to paint a realistic picture of what gamers should expect, but ultimately 343 made that bed, and had to lay in it.

However, on the flip side, you could argue that any game 343 would have put out at this point might not have lived up to expectations. 343 was not the original developer of the franchise, and they certainly had their purist detractors for simply making Halo games at all, as we saw from some reviews of Halo 4. On top of that, as I mentioned before, the marketing for Halo 5 had gotten out of hand. This is a problem that can escape developers as they are toiling away on a game, trying to make it good, or at least what they think is good, while the marketing team is in another building, miles away doing their own thing and trying to sell as many copies as possible so they can get more marketing gigs later on.

Both parties are just trying to do a good job, but when there is a “disconnect” as the studio later admitted there was, that can spell disaster for any creative project. Halo was marketed extremely well, and painted a picture of a conflict between the two main protagonists that was sure to make the player see things from angles that, perhaps, they didn’t expect and possibly even make master chief a villain of sorts.

This was intriguing to many and fit right into what a lot of fans wanted at this point, as much of the core Halo audience had gotten older and more mature since the original games, and thus had developed a more refined complex taste in their games. On top of that, Halo 5 was going to be the first real Halo game for the Xbox One, a console that has struggled to deliver quality first party titles up to that point. So the pressure that 343 was under was probably an unfair amount that any developer would have struggled to totally handle. This is not to say that they didn’t drop the ball independently of those factors, as the game that was released ended up being almost nothing like what was implied with the advertising, and left fans feeling lied to, and understandably so, because they kind of were.

So even though the level of scorn that 343 deserved at this point might not’ve been equal to what they ultimately received, they still unquestionably dropped the ball here in many regards. Making a mediocre game is one thing, but when its was advertised as something completely different to a fan-base that has been loyal to the franchise for over 10 years, now you’re really asking for trouble. Add on a bland multiplayer mode with muddy textures, micro-transactions, boring map layouts and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a complete disaster.

This bad combination of failures couldn’t have come at a worse time for Halo 5, either. Fans were clamoring for a return to form after the third and fourth games, which weren’t bad but also weren’t quite the successors that Halo 2 deserved. If there was ever a time that 343 and Microsoft needed to get something right, it was with this game. Any iconic franchise that teeters on the edge of becoming mediocre can be greatly affected by its next installment, for better and for worse.

Unfortunately, when it came down to it, Halo 5 brought the franchise down from what would be described as “an overall good franchise with a couple great games” to “a franchise that used to be good”. Which is a sad place for a series with such high highs to be. Thankfully, 343 does appear to be on the same page as fans now, and its not like they’re a bad developer. 343 certainly wouldn’t have been entrusted with this franchise if they weren’t capable of moving it forward, and now that the bar is where it is, surely the team has the information and direction they need to deliver, at the very least, a totally decent Halo game next time around.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to GamingBolt as an organization.

The Xbox One X is now available worldwide and if you’re wondering how games run on the “world’s most powerful console”, you can check out a trailer that Microsoft has released showcasing enhanced versions of some of its popular games.

There are three trailers in total for the following games: Forza Motorsport 7, Halo 5 and ARK: Survival Evolved. The trailer for Forza Motorsport 7 also features commentary from developers who attest to the capabilities of the Xbox One X. As Dan Greenawalt from Turn 10 Studios comments, “the detail is insane.” The trailer for Halo 5 shows off the game’s performance on the Xbox One X and shows that it will run at 4K resolution with smooth 60 fps gameplay.

The trailer for ARK: Survival Evolved is a live-action teaser so we don’t actually get to see much in-gaame footage but the game features quite a few enhancements for the Xbox One X which you can read about here.

A user at the Resetera forums has reportedly obtained an Xbox One X console ahead of time. The user known as ‘Garcia el Gringo” then went on to share images of games that were enhanced for the Xbox One X.  The games that the player shows are Halo 5, Gears of War 4, Killer Instinct, Layers of Fear and Mass Effect Andromeda. Although these games were not running at 4K resolution but only at 1080p, the result is still gorgeous.

With a number of games such as Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim being enhanced for the Xbox One X,  it is likely that these will become definitive versions of these games. Even games that aren’t being specifically enhanced for the Xbox One X should still run well on the new console. Still, it’s nice that some fan-favorites can be revisited with a significant upgrade in visual quality.

You can check out images of Halo 5, Gears of War 4 and Killer Instinct below. Furthermore, you can also check out Mass Effect Andromeda, Gears of War 4 and Layers of Fear running on the Xbox One X through these links: 1, 2, and 3.

Sources: 1, 2.

Havok remains this industry’s premier provider of technology for providing a framework of realistic physics- it has been used in so many games consistently over the years, and if you thought that age would lead to developers looking for better replacements, you were wrong. A list of upcoming games that are using Havok Tech was just shared by the company, and basically, pretty much every single major AAA game that you can think of will be using it.

“We were so happy to see all the amazing work of our development partners and the industry in general at E3,” said Havok VP of Sales and Marketing Brian Waddle. “Their hard work and innovation is being rewarded by the sheer excitement of gamers around the world. We’re proud that developers behind some of the biggest AAA titles in the world are turning to Havok to realize the true potential of the new console platforms. We’re beginning to see the future of gaming come to fruition, and that future is spectacular.”

The list of games is:

• Star Wars Battlefront – Electronic Arts
• Dark Souls III – BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
• Fallout 4 – Bethesda Softworks
• Halo 5: Guardians – Microsoft Studios
• Horizon: Zero Dawn – Sony Computer Entertainment
• Just Cause 3 – Square Enix
• Need for Speed – Electronic Arts
• No Man’s Sky – Hello Games
• The Last Guardian – Sony Computer Entertainment
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege – Ubisoft
• Tom Clancy’s The Division – Ubisoft
• Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Sony Computer Entertainment
• DOOM – Bethesda Softworks

So basically, yeah, Havok is the secret king of the gaming industry.

Those of you who are Halo fans have a reason to rejoice, because footage has been leaked from  Halo 5: Guardians . However the footage was taken down a few hours later. For those of you who saw it, would have just seen a glimpse of what is to be expected in the next Halo game.

The footage doesn’t show much other than 15 seconds of footage and hardcore Halo fans now have a reason to get stoked about the next Halo game. The footage showcases some multiplayer action, and as usual no one knows where the footage came from, or who was responsible for leaking it.

However, 343 Industries Studio Heads Bonnie Ross and Josh Holmes have revealed more information about the trailer and also encouraged fans to play before they judge. Bonnie Ross  tweted “Leaks are always fun. Tune into #halofest for more on halo 5. Play it at the fest, play in Dec beta and give your thoughts.”

Josh Holmes tweeted “No penalty to hip fire in H5, no movement penalty when scoping/zooming, no flinch. Tune in for the beta gameplay reveal at #HaloFest Monday.” He additionally went on to tweet” Descope is back! And… that’s the last thing I’ll confirm before tomorrow. Don’t want to spoil the reveal! :)”. Halo 5 is expected to release in fall 2015.

Source: Twitter [1,2]