Halo Community Update – Warzone Firefight Preview

From the latest Community Update, we get an early glimpse on what to expect from Warzone Firefight as it launches Wednesday, June 29th.  Also, there will be a livestream that will show case all the content that will be available in the update which will be showcasing Tuesday, June 28th at 2 p.m. PST, which will be going live here.
For those who are not familiar with Warzone Firefight, it’s a brand new 8-player Co-op mode where you and your friends must overcome 5 rounds of incredibly challenging goals in order to come out victorious.  Since the beta, the HUD and UI elements have been updated on where the player stands on their performance.  The logic based on the objective has also been simplified to where the player can prevent the enemy from capturing the objective before time runs out, instead of killing the designer-prescribed quantity of enemies without capturing the location in order to complete the round.  However, aggressive players will now have the advantage to completing the objectives faster by mopping up the majority of attacking forces.
Yet, another change that has been added since the beta is related to the respawn timer that will gradually add five more seconds each time the player dies, which means that dying in round 5 will have a huge impact based on the amount of time the player dies.  This change is meant to encourage more team coordination and communication if they ever want to succeed at winning each round.
Moving on, there has been another change to where each round starts, the player will be notified on what current objective to focus on when every round starts as shown below.

One of the things you may be noticing based on this pic is the changes made on the mini scoreboard on the bottom right.  As the player’s score is shown on the bottom half of the score board, there will also be an update on your team’s progress based on the current objective on the top half.  Depending on the scoreboard on each round, it will display different objectives to inform the squad on how they are standing out on the round.  For example, if the objective is to eliminate over a million grunts in mech-suits (or the Goblin for instance), the red bar will fill from the right to left as you take every solitary one out. Or if the player and his/her teammates need to defend an objective, there will be a blue bar that will decrease from left to right as the enemies are capturing it.

Another things that is probably worth mentioning about the changes also made in this update is how the personal score is displayed.  During the intermission of each round, a report card will be shown that will display the player’s progress made on each round.  The scoreboard will also show the player’s progress on the current round, as well as the bonuses based on performance.  For instance, if the player managed to complete a round without dying, defeating a massive number of enemies, or rack up a bunch of assists, he/she will win bonuses, and if the team players manage to finish a round quick, they will all get bonuses.

Players who are familiar with the Firefight modes from previous games such as Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach whenever they gain points from defeating an enemy resulting a score value being outputted on the right side of the screen informing the player on the amount of points they have received, will also be present in Warzone Firefight but in a different way as the “score feed.” It works quite similar from previous iterations, but what makes it different from them is while the score is visible on the screen, more points can be added to it, if the player defeats more enemies resulting to be a scoring chain.  If the player manages to create the scoring chain the font color on the score displayed on the screen will constantly chain and grow larger.

Based on fan feedback, there will also be a new objective type “Protect Object(s)” that will be present on every map.  In order for the player to succeed in these new game types, players will need to work together in order to prevent the enemies from destroying the high value targets.  For example, players may be tasked to protecting UNSC generators from an army of Knights, or protecting hordes of Forerunner artifacts from greedy Jackals.  
Since that basically concludes the features that will be available in the Warzone Firefight Update, the mode will launch will feature a variety of dynamically objective combinations on six following maps:  Escape from A.R.C., March on Stormbreak, Raid on Apex 7, Skirmish at Darkstar, Urban, (and the brand-new) Attack on Sanctum.
Comparing to traditional Warzone, Warzone Firefight will be a completely different experience.  First, setting a baseline is part of the rewarding experience by being part of the match and setting it up for completion.  Second is based on how your team ranks.  Also, participation is usually based on how long you have been playing, but in Warzone Firefight, the players will be rewarded based on efficiency.  Personally performance is very crucial for this mode, but teamwork is as well.  Not just that, the players will also be rewarded XP and RP based on the amount of rounds they manage to complete.  The speed bonus will also be applied if the players manage to complete all the rounds.
That is all the main info that has been covered on the latest Halo Community Update, and here are some screenshots based on the content that will be coming with the update.



For more on the latest news on Halo 5, stay tune and stay Rectified.