New Halo 5 Videos Reveal Warzone & More Story

The Warzone multiplayer mode built into Halo 5: Guardians is the most ambitious sandbox Microsoft’s 343 Industries has ever created, and the company wants users to know it. New Halo 5: Guardians videos posted to YouTube reveal the full Warzone experience. That’s on top of the new Halo 5: Guardians television ad campaign that started on Sunday.

Popular Halo focused YouTube channels and gaming publications began posting video of Warzone ahead of the official Halo 5 release date on Monday. Warzone is a new multiplayer mode that replaces the Firefight mode from Halo Reach and the Spartan Ops episodic stories that debuted in Halo 4. Warzone is a giant battle arena where 24 players fight to kill as many covenant and control as much of the landscape as they possibly can.

The Halo 5: Guardians video posted by IGN goes into a lot of detail. Rather than focus on just highlights, the video shows a complete Warzone match from start to finish. It lasts a 29 minutes.

Hosts of the video spend the first moments explaining how the basic mechanics of Warzone work. Past Halo games have offered a player-vs-player experience and a story mode that has users fighting computer-controlled characters. Warzone combines the two. The overall Warzone objective is to unlock more power-ups and take control of the map away from the opposing team. To get there teams have to defend themselves against each other and waves of Covenant alien forces.

Soon the two commentators are deep within the Warzone experience, explaining some of the finer mechanics that govern each match. Taking control of bases requires that teams first clear out any Covenant foes in that area. Icons appear on-screen for each enemy, letting players know exactly what they’re getting into before they arrive. Of course, besides killing the Covenant players need to stay alert as there could  be members of the opposing team trying to take the same base. When players kill a member of the Covenant, they earn points towards the overall match.

Read: New Halo 5 Gameplay Videos & Details Arrive

As the match progresses players are able to access more weapons, vehicles and power-ups from Req stations scattered throughout the levels. 343 Industries detailed the Req system in a post fairly recently. Killing a member of the opposing team or the Covenant earns users more currency for the Req system. The more points a user has, the better equipped they’ll be for Warzone. The longer the match runs, the better weapons users have at their disposal.

Warzone isn’t an entirely new idea for multiplayer shooters. Last year Titanfall launched exclusively for Xbox One and Xbox 360. The entire game takes place in a Warzone-like multiplayer system with huge maps and an opposing team competing for resources and kills. It also had a collectible card system similar to what’s available with Reqs in Halo 5. The big difference between these two games are graphics and extras. Titanfall couldn’t be played offline and had a pretty weak story. 343 Industries is putting a big spotlight on Warzone, but Halo 5: Guardians has a huge campaign complete with computer controlled team mates and a seamless co-operative play experience. What’s more, the classic Halo style multiplayer – now called Arena – is also available.

Read: 5 Things To Do before the Halo 5 Release

The Halo 5: Guardians release date is now less than a month away. Shoppers will be able to purchase a special edition Xbox One console that comes with a digital download of the game on October 20th. The game unlocks and becomes available to play on October 27th. Amazon has the Xbox One 1TB Halo 5 console available for pre-order for $499. A standard copy of Halo 5 costs $59.99. Pre-orders are also available through the Xbox Store.

https://youtu.be/SENJV2_XuLM

Microsoft began airing a new Halo 5: Guardians ad revealing the death of the Master Chief earlier this week. Rumor is that the death shown in the trailer is a lie.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

> 1 / 5

Very few titles could rival Halo 5: Guardians in terms of excitement and fan base. Luckily for Microsoft, it managed to snatch up one of them for its users in a historic exclusivity deal. Rise of the Tomb Raider isn’t coming to anything but the Xbox One and Xbox 360 on November 10th. That’s despite the franchise even pre-dating the Xbox. Read: Fresh Rise of the Tomb Raider Trailer Arrives Rise of the Tomb Raider takes place in Siberia. Lara Croft is hunting for the world’s treasures again, having successfully navigating the dangers of the last game. Video game developer Crystal Dynamics has enhanced the experience here with a huge open world and new systems. There’s a day and night cycle that requires users to be smart about crafting and hunting. Combat seems more refined, with many situations giving users multiple options for takedowns. Rise of the Tomb Raider won’t arrive on Windows PCs and Sony’s consoles until 2016.

> 1 / 5