Editorials

Halo 5 Release: 5 Things to Know Now

Published

9 years ago

06/05/2015

Halo 5 Changes from the Beta

The Halo 5 beta late last year delivered a chance to play with the new weapons, maps and Spartan abilities. Part of this beta served the purpose of helping the team find what to change before the Halo 5 release in October.

Here are some of the changes to Halo 5 from the beta, as detailed by Josh Holmes on the Halo Waypoint blog.

One thing that users can do is turn off the Spartan abilities in custom games for a similar feel to the older style of Halo. The video above walks through the new Halo 5 Spartan Abilities.

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.)

From a weapons standpoint there is a new option that makes it possible to zoom in with every weapon. There are changes to the new Hydra weapon that can curve fire around an obstacle at a distance. The final version of Halo 5 delivers a more effective weapon when not used in zoom. Other Halo 5 weapons changes include;

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 weapon
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

The team also changed the presentation of the game to allow users to opt in to a post death replay. There is also a decrease in medals, an option to control Spartan chatter, making it easier to see dropped weapons and tuning to the overall gameplay.

Halo 5 includes a new seven tier skill ranking system with a bigger focus on team play. After the Halo 5 beta the developers tweaked the skill detection, improved matching and team balancing. There are also features in place to prevent skill boosting.

The Halo 5 multiplayer matchmaking experience also gets an overhaul thanks to the beta. The changes include faster matches, better matches and better feedback. People can set a desired matchmaking center to get faster matches. There is better support for party vs party matchmaking and a new lobby that hides the Competitive Skill Rating until in the match to prevent people leaving the lobby. There are also CSR penalties and matchmaking bans for quitters.

In short, this is not the same game some users played in December.