Halo 5: Guardians

Halo 5:Guardians

 is a first-person shooter video game developed by 343 Industries and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One home video game console. Part of the Halo series, the game was released on October 27, 2015. Halo 5's plot follows twofireteams of human supersoldiers; when Blue Team, led by Master Chief, goes absent without leave to track down the artificial intelligence construct Cortana, the Master Chief's loyalties are called into question and Spartan Locke along with Fireteam Osiris are sent to retrieve him.

343 Industries started to formulate concepts and objectives for Halo 5 shortly after the release of its predecessor. In late 2012, the team set out goals for the game, including larger campaign and multiplayer areas. Microsoft announced Halo 5 for the Xbox One at the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Halo 5 features a game engine that dynamically scales its resolution in order to maintain aframe rate of 60 frames per second.

Halo 5: Guardians and game-related hardware grossed over US$400 million in its first twenty-four hours and US$500 million in its first week. The game received mostly positive reviews from critics. Halo 5's gameplay and multiplayer component were praised, but response to its story had mixed reviews. 343 Industries supports the game post-launch with additional downloadable content

Guardians is a first-person shooter, with players experiencing most gameplay through the eyes of a playable character. The camera switches to a third-person view for some cinematics and gameplay sequences.

The game preserves many of the core features of the Halo franchise's gameplay experience. Players step into the MJOLNIRpowered armor of a Spartan and control that character's actions. MJOLNIR armor provides deflector shields, which diminish whilst protecting the wearer from weapons fire but recharge after a short recovery. Spartans may only carry two personal weapons at a time, but may swap them out at any time for any other weapon (including those dropped by slain enemies) and may also carry and fire a crew-served weapon (discarded when the player switches back to a personal weapon). Spartans may also throw grenades and use their weapons for pistol-whipping. Finally, some of the vehicles and their mounted weapons are available for use.

New to the series are "Spartan Abilities", replacing the Armor Abilities of previous games. In-universe, the characters' MJOLNIR armor has been upgraded with various thrusters that allow them increased mobility options in all three axes of movement. They are context-dependent and can be used for attack, defense and evasion. Additionally, all Halo 5 firearms can be aimed by looking down their iron sights, a capability restricted to specific weapons in previous games.

Though previous games in the franchise have featured brief gameplay segments where the player character is accompanied by non-player character (NPC) companions in the form of United Nations Space Command (UNSC) Marines, non-human allies like the Arbiter, and occasionally other Spartans, Halo 5 takes it one step further by equipping the player with a persistent fireteam of NPC Spartans who are present at all times and can be given limited orders using the Xbox controller. During cooperative play, other players assume control of these Spartans; each Spartan has different gameplay attributes. If any Spartan, player-controlled or not, takes too much damage, they enter an incapacitated state, and a teammate must rush over and revive them before they die.

Unlike previous first-person shooters in the Halo franchise, Halo 5: Guardians does not feature any offline capabilities, including split-screen cooperative campaign and multiplayer modes; it also does not have any local networking options.Microsoft Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer commented on the lack of split-screen, stating "We see the robustness of what Xbox Live is today and where people are playing across Xbox Live—you at your house, me at our house. We know that's the vast majority of the co-op play. With Halo 5, the team really wanted to focus on making that experience great, both visually on the screen that you're looking at, and all the systems in place