New Halo 5 Details Emerge: Free DLC and Blue Team
The latest edition of Game Informer has revealed a truckload of new information about Halo 5: Guardians. While the online article is a bit sparse on detail, a NeoGAF user has summed up the highlights of the actual magazine story nicely.
Perhaps the biggest news is that Halo 5 will differ significantly from other titles in the series by providing the player with a fireteam that can be directed to carry out tasks and functions on the battlefield. When playing as Spartan Locke this will involve a team of Spartan IVs, including the ex-ODST Edward Buck from Halo 3: ODST. However, when playing as Master Chief the player will be joined by the legendary Blue Team, made up of the Chief, Fred, Kelly and Linda.
The group members are some of only a small number of surviving Spartan IIs that were abducted as children, trained in military combat and given extreme body augmentations to make them the super soldiers as seen throughout the franchise. Master Chief was part of Blue Team before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved and has spent most of his life fighting with Fred, Kelly and Linda, although these adventures have only taken place in the expanded universe. This will mark the first time that multiple Spartan IIs have been shown in-game.
When playing in four player online co-op, each player will take on one of the members of each fireteam and will be able to revive teammates, carry out specific tasks and develop new strategies that allow single player campaign levels to be tackled in a number of ways. These additional A.I. characters effectively replace Cortana as they will be the focus of much of the story and flesh out their characters through chatting with the player. Additionally, an Xbox Live Gold account will not be needed for online co-op.
Other news includes the fact that there will be a large number of multiplayer maps available from the title’s release, said to be 20 at the moment. 15 additional maps will be released by June 2016 to expand the experience and uniquely, all of these DLC maps will be available free of charge. This also marks a significant change for the series as in the past DLC map packs have almost always been charged for.
The magazine story also teases a brand new multiplayer experience that has never been seen in the franchise before. The “completely new, epic multiplayer experience” will be revealed at E3, and will combine “all aspects of the Halo sandbox for the first time ever.” This suggests that rumors of a Battlefield like gametype with destructible environments and large open battlefields could be true.
More news is sure to drop at this year’s E3 as Microsoft will be showcasing Halo 5: Guardians during their press briefing as the games release date approaches in fall.