Halo 5: Guardians is a 2015 first-person shooter game created by 343 Industries and released by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One. The game is set in the 26th century and follows two groups of human soldiers: Blue Team, led by Master Chief, and Fireteam Osiris, led by Spartan Locke. When Blue Team disappears to search for an artificial intelligence named Cortana, Master Chief’s loyalty is questioned, and Fireteam Osiris is sent to find him. Players use a variety of weapons and vehicles to fight enemies in story-based and multiplayer modes, including a 24-player mode called Warzone.
343 Industries began planning Halo 5 shortly after the release of Halo 4. In late 2012, the team set goals for the game, such as creating larger campaign and multiplayer areas. Different departments worked together to build on each other’s ideas for the campaign mode. The Xbox One console allowed the development of Warzone alongside traditional multiplayer modes, which supported different ways to play. The game’s engine changes the resolution automatically to keep a frame rate of 60 frames per second. A focus on performance meant the game did not include offline features or local networking.
Microsoft announced the game at E3 2013. It sold five million copies within three months and became the seventh-best-selling game for the Xbox One. Critics praised the game’s gameplay, visuals, level design, and multiplayer modes. However, the single-player campaign received mixed reviews, with some critics criticizing its story, writing, and ending. A sequel, Halo Infinite, was released on December 8, 2021.
Gameplay
Halo 5: Guardians is a first-person shooter game. Players take the role of strong "Spartan" soldiers with special skills. They use guns, grenades, and close combat attacks in story-based campaign and multiplayer modes. Players can run without stopping, unlike earlier games in the series. However, their shield that blocks damage does not refill during multiplayer. At top speed, players can slide or charge into enemies. A thruster pack helps players move faster or shift sideways, and they can climb ledges to reach higher areas. All weapons can be aimed while zoomed in, like using iron sights. Firing for too long forces players out of the zoomed view. If players zoom while jumping, they can hover briefly and attack the ground with an area attack. The game introduces many new weapons.
In the campaign mode, players control two main characters: Master Chief and Jameson Locke. Each character is supported by a group of non-player character Spartans—Blue Team for Master Chief and Fireteam Osiris for Locke. These Spartans are always present. During cooperative play, other human players control these Spartans, who have different weapons and abilities. Players can direct computer-controlled Spartans using the d-pad to pick up weapons, enter vehicles, or target enemies. If a Spartan is hurt too badly, they become unable to move and can be revived by another team member before dying. The game adjusts its difficulty based on how many human players are playing.
Xbox Live multiplayer includes many competitive and cooperative game modes. Traditional four-versus-four modes like deathmatch and capture the flag return. A new mode called Warzone allows 24 players to compete in a 24-player game where two teams battle. Players earn points by capturing map locations or defeating computer-controlled enemies. The game ends when one team destroys the other's base or reaches 1000 points. Players earn requisition points during matches, which can be used to summon weapons, vehicles, or powerups based on rewards from requisition packs (REQ packs). These packs can be earned through in-game progress or purchased with real money. In ranked play, players complete matches to determine their skill level, which changes based on wins or losses.
Halo 5 includes a level editor called Forge, where players can create custom multiplayer maps. The mode uses a new control system compared to Halo 4 and includes tools for scripting actions on game objects. Unlike earlier Halo games, Halo 5 does not support offline multiplayer, such as split-screen cooperative modes or local networking. The game was supported through the Halo Waypoint website, which tracked player stats and offered features like Spartan Companies. These groups let players join teams of up to 100 players to complete challenges and earn cosmetic rewards.
Synopsis
Halo 5: Guardians takes place in the year 2558, eight months after the events of Halo 4. The game follows two fireteams of supersoldiers from the United Nations Space Command (UNSC). Blue Team is led by Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 and includes Linda-058, an elite sniper; Kelly-087, a scout; and Frederic-104, a hand-to-hand combat specialist. Blue Team members are among the last Spartan-II soldiers remaining. Fireteam Osiris is made up of Spartan-IVs, a newer group of Spartans. Osiris is led by Jameson Locke, a former assassin and tracker from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). The other members of Osiris are Holly Tanaka, a combat technician and survivor of a Covenant attack on her planet; Olympia Vale, a political liaison and signals intelligence agent who speaks many alien languages; and Edward Buck, a veteran trooper who appeared in Halo 3: ODST.
Supporting characters include Captain Thomas Lasky, the commanding officer of the UNSC ship Infinity; Spartan-IV commander Sarah Palmer; Roland, Infinity’s artificial intelligence (AI); and Catherine Halsey, the scientist who created the SPARTAN-II program. Returning characters include Arbiter Thel ’Vadam, who leads the Sangheili against a Covenant faction led by Jul ’Mdama, and Cortana, Master Chief’s AI companion, who was thought to be dead after Halo 4.
Fireteam Osiris is sent to the planet Kamchatka to rescue Halsey during a battle between Jul ’Mdama’s Covenant and Forerunner Prometheans. The team defeats ’Mdama and retrieves Halsey, who claims to have information about attacks on human worlds. Meanwhile, Master Chief leads Blue Team to secure a derelict research station, but a Covenant fleet arrives, forcing Blue Team to destroy the station instead. Master Chief receives a message from Cortana, directing him to Meridian, a human colony. When ordered to return to Infinity, Blue Team disobeys and follows Cortana.
Captain Lasky declares Blue Team absent without leave. Halsey believes Cortana’s survival using Forerunner technology makes her unpredictable. Fireteam Osiris is sent to Meridian to find Blue Team. There, they discover colonists under attack by Prometheans. Following Blue Team’s trail, they face the Warden Eternal, a Promethean enforcer for Cortana. After defeating the Warden, Osiris locates Blue Team and orders them to stop. Master Chief defeats Locke in combat, and Blue Team boards a Guardian, a massive Forerunner construct. As the Guardian teleports to the Forerunner planet Genesis, Osiris escapes the collapsing colony. Cortana reveals her terminal condition was cured by Forerunner technology.
Osiris travels to Sanghelios, the Sangheili homeworld, to use a buried Guardian to track Blue Team. Sanghelios is in a civil war between the Arbiter’s forces and remnants of ’Mdama’s army. Osiris helps the Arbiter attack the Covenant’s last stronghold and board the Guardian before it disappears.
On Genesis, Osiris meets the AI 031 Exuberant Witness, who joins them to stop Cortana. Osiris finds Blue Team, who explain Cortana plans to use Guardians to force peace by ending all fighting. Master Chief tries to convince Cortana to stop, but she refuses and imprisons Blue Team in a Forerunner prison. Osiris restores control of Genesis to Exuberant, who frees Blue Team before Cortana leaves. AIs across the galaxy pledge allegiance to Cortana. Cortana targets Infinity, but Lasky retreats until a solution can be found. Osiris returns to Sanghelios to reunite Blue Team with injured Commander Palmer, the Arbiter, and Halsey.
In a post-credits scene, unlocked after completing the campaign on the hardest difficulty, a Forerunner Halo installation activates while Cortana hums.
Development
Before Halo 4 was released in November 2012, 343 Industries’ creative director, Josh Holmes, began looking for someone to take his place for the next Halo game. In late 2012, Tim Longo became the new creative director, and Halo 5 was already in the early stages of development. General manager Bonnie Ross explained that after Halo 4, the team spent time discussing where the Halo series should go next, based on fan feedback about what worked and what did not. Longo, along with game leads David Berger and Chris Lee, shared the studio’s vision for Halo 5, focusing on using the Xbox One’s hardware and Microsoft’s cloud technology to create larger game worlds, improve player systems, and achieve a smooth 60 frames per second (FPS) frame rate.
Longo said changing from 30 to 60 FPS made development much harder, especially because the team also wanted bigger environments. To keep the 60 FPS frame rate, Halo 5’s engine lowers the game’s resolution during intense scenes and then increases it back to 1080p. To help with this, 343 Industries used Havok software. However, trying to use the hardware sometimes caused problems. The art team created fully animated cacti that reacted to gunfire and covered campaign maps, but these became the biggest technical issue and had to be removed. Because of the focus on performance, split-screen play, which was in all previous Halo games, was not included in Halo 5.
Holmes said the team wanted Halo 5’s multiplayer to offer variety and support different play styles. In the game’s Arena mode, 343 Industries removed a loadout system to create a fairer playing field, similar to older games like Quake. The Warzone mode was first planned in 2012 as a four-versus-four match with AI enemies defending an objective. The studio had tried to include this mode in Halo 4 but could not achieve it due to hardware limits on the Xbox 360.
A major goal for Halo 5 was to expand the universe with new and returning characters and settings. Longo wanted to introduce more main characters besides Master Chief and explore the story from different perspectives. He said the team wanted to create mystery around Master Chief’s motives, similar to how Halo 2 told the story. The studio also wanted to contrast Master Chief and Blue Team with another group of characters. Initially, they considered using characters from Halo 4’s Spartan Ops series, but later created a new fireteam named Fireteam Osiris. This team included three Spartans named Smith, Jones, and Brown, with Halo 4 characters Gabriel Thorne and Sarah Palmer also considered. Later, the team replaced Thorne with Buck after Nathan Fillion became available. The names of the Spartans were eventually changed to Locke, Vale, and Tanaka.
Unlike previous Halo games, the team focused on making the campaign different. Instead of building levels first and then adding art and characters, teams worked together regularly to build on each other’s ideas. Holmes said that for Halo 5, the team focused on creating the core gameplay early, rather than growing the team during development as they had done with Halo 4. Combat was designed around areas called “bowls,” which allowed four-player fireteams to have action and tactical choices. Some Spartan abilities, like a double jump, were tested but later removed. Level designers hid secrets, such as better weapons and audio logs, to encourage players to use the abilities. Ross said the Xbox One’s hardware allowed 343 Industries to expand the game’s scope, including more enemies and a larger scale for co-op play. A dynamic AI system was created to help fireteam companions assist players when playing alone.
About 150 artists worked on Halo 5. Kenneth Scott, the art director for Halo 4, left in January 2014 and was replaced by Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier, a concept artist who joined Microsoft in 2009. Bouvier said the early stages of art design were like sculpting from marble, starting with a loose idea and refining it. Kory Lynn Hubbell, a concept artist, said the game’s art had to have a believable story behind it. For example, a planned fountain on the mining world of Meridian was changed to a holographic tree to match the planet’s barren landscape. The art team took inspiration from real-life space programs and science fiction films to create unique designs that felt real and connected to previous Halo games. Most existing assets were rebuilt or redesigned for the game’s high-quality graphics.
The artists and designers worked to make each Spartan fireteam look different. Bouvier said Locke’s design reflects his mission to find Master Chief, with a simple and non-distracting armor style.
Promotion
At Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2013, Microsoft introduced a new, unnamed game in the Halo series with a trailer featuring Master Chief. After E3, Xbox executive Phil Spencer explained that the previously announced "Reclaimer Trilogy," which included Halo 4 as its first game, had grown into a larger story. Developers decided not to limit the story to only three games. The game’s title and 2015 release date were confirmed in May 2014 as an Xbox One exclusive. Television advertisements showed the October 27 release date. Gameplay from the main story was displayed at E3 2015. A documentary series called The Sprint covered the game’s development. It first appeared on the Xbox One’s Halo Channel and was later shared on YouTube.
Halo 5 had a multiplayer beta test that ran from December 29, 2014, to January 18, 2015. Players joined the beta by buying Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The beta included a sample of Halo 5’s multiplayer arena gameplay, with three game modes, seven maps, and eleven weapons. The development team wanted to test the game early so players could share feedback, which helped improve gameplay and map designs. The beta used special servers. 343 Industries, the game’s developer, aimed to ensure Halo 5 launched better than The Master Chief Collection, which had technical problems.
Merchandise related to Halo 5 included Minecraft skins with Halo 5 themes. Microsoft sold a limited-edition Xbox One bundle featuring Halo graphics and blue details on the console, and a gamepad modeled after Spartan Locke’s armor. A separate gamepad themed after Master Chief was also made. Halo 5 was promoted at sports events: Seattle Sounders FC wore jerseys with Halo 5 ads, and NASCAR drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jamie McMurray raced in cars with Halo 5 themes. A fan in Australia played the game from a helicopter while an aerial screen showed gameplay from 2,000 feet above.
On March 22, 2015, Microsoft released Hunt the Truth, an audioplay similar to radio series like This American Life. The first season followed a fictional journalist and war photographer named Benjamin Giraud (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) as he investigated Master Chief’s background. Giraud discovered that the official story about Master Chief’s origins was false and tried to reveal the truth.
The first season of Hunt the Truth was very popular, with 6.7 million listeners on iTunes. It won a Clio Award for its advertising team. A second season began on September 22, 2015, focusing on ONI Agent Maya Sankar (Janina Gavankar), who returned undercover as FERO to investigate attacks on human colonies.
Release
Halo 5 was released worldwide on October 27, 2015. In the United States, it was the first game in the Halo series to receive a Teen rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), rather than a Mature rating. Microsoft executive Aaron Greenberg believed that the Mature ratings on earlier games were surprising because they had less graphic violence. He noted that the Teen rating allowed Halo 5 to reach a larger audience. The game was sold in three versions: standard, limited, and collector’s edition. The limited edition included a REQ bundle, character dossiers, the Fall of Reach film, a Guardian statue, and a "steelbook" metal case. The collector’s edition included all limited edition items plus a statue of Master Chief and Agent Locke. The collector’s edition came with a digital code instead of a physical disc. Due to fan feedback, Microsoft offered a limited-time free trade-in program so buyers could exchange the digital code for a physical disc. A Windows PC version of Halo 5: Forge, which includes the game’s map editing tool and multiplayer mode, was released for Windows 10 on September 8, 2016.
In its first week, Halo 5 sold more than $400 million in software and hardware combined, making it the largest Halo launch in Xbox history. It was also the best-selling digital title. According to NPD Group, which tracks physical sales in the United States, Halo 5 was the best-selling game in October during its first five days of release. In November, it ranked as the eighth best-selling game. It was the ninth best-selling game of 2015 in the United States.
In Japan, Halo 5: Guardians was the eleventh best-selling retail game during its first week, with 7,455 physical copies sold. In the United Kingdom, Halo 5 topped the sales charts, outperforming the new release Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. It sold 50% more copies in its first week than the previous Halo release, The Master Chief Collection, though its sales were lower than earlier major Halo releases. Sales dropped 78% the following week, and Halo 5 was replaced at the top of the charts by Call of Duty: Black Ops III. In Australia, Halo 5 was the tenth best-selling title of 2015. Frank O’Connor reported that the game sold 5 million copies in its first three months of release.
Halo 5 received free post-release updates that added new features, weapons, and multiplayer maps. The studio’s lead designer, Holmes, explained that the team did not want to divide the player base by offering maps as paid downloadable content.
Reception
Halo 5: Guardians received a score of 84 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 101 reviews, which means most reviews were positive. Arthur Gies, writing for Polygon, said that 343 Industries had much to prove with Halo 5 after Halo 4’s online player count dropped sharply, problems with The Master Chief Collection, and Microsoft’s need for a strong game to sell more Xbox One consoles. Gies wrote that 343 Industries responded by returning to the basics that made the Halo series popular. The studio updated the game’s mechanics to match modern standards and created the most cooperative campaign in Halo’s history. Mike Mahardy of GameSpot agreed that 343 made some of the best improvements in the series. Brian Albert of IGN said the game had the strongest combat in Halo’s history. Chris Carter of Destructoid felt Halo 5 did not excite him as much as earlier games, but those who enjoy Master Chief’s adventures might still be satisfied. However, reviewers for GamesTM said Halo 5 was “safe and unoriginal,” calling it one of the series’ weakest entries.
The game’s overall gameplay and multiplayer features were praised. GameSpot said Halo 5’s multiplayer was the best it had ever been, especially because it returned to “universal” weapon loadouts, where players receive weapons directly on the map instead of unlocking them as in Halo 4. The Warzone mode was called one of the best new ideas in the Halo series and the genre. It was praised for its MOBA-like mechanics and large maps, with reviewers saying the game requires adaptability rather than consistency. Albert noted that the campaign had challenging enemies and environments filled with secret paths and hidden weapons, making it fun to replay and play with others.
The game’s AI received mixed reactions. Chris Carter said the squad controls were basic but appreciated the team chatter and support. GamesTM criticized the AI for having overpowered bosses and too many instant-death threats, even on Normal difficulty. Reviewers also noted that allies sometimes failed to revive players, even when standing nearby.
The campaign and story received mixed reviews. Timothy J. Seppala of Engadget said the campaign felt like a step backward compared to Halo 4, as the team changed how campaigns worked in a way that did not work well. Matt Peckham of Time said the story felt predictable compared to the exciting setup in Halo 5’s marketing and the Hunt the Truth series. Mike Mahardy of GameSpot said the plot had potential but missed chances to make the story engaging, with cutscenes ending too quickly and character motivations changing suddenly. Paul Thier of Forbes and David Houghton of GamesRadar said players had little influence on the story’s direction, and the game ended the first act with a cliffhanger. However, Albert praised Cortana’s motives as more complex than previous villains and said background chatter helped players learn more about characters.
The game’s marketing was criticized for not matching the story. Phil Hornshaw of Digital Trends said the marketing suggested a strong conflict between Master Chief and a character named Locke, but these moments were barely in the game. 343 Industries later said they heard complaints about Master Chief’s limited role and promised to focus more on him in future games.
In a 2022 ranking of the Halo series, Game Informer called Halo 5 the most controversial game in the franchise. The game was followed by a sequel, Halo Infinite, released in 2021.