After 343 detailed the next Halo Wars 2 update, now it’s Halo 5’s turn to receive yet another QoL (Quality of Life) update. It’s great seeing a company support a game two years after its release in a gaming age not many developers support. Let’s take a look at what’s coming this Thursday:
New / Updated Features
- Halo 5 now looks better than ever with 4K UHD support for Xbox One X!
- Play Ball! Oddball and Oddball FFA return as official game modes:
– New Oddball medals added
– New announcer voice over audio added
– New Oddball skull object added (it’s back!)
- Host and play low-latency Halo 5 multiplayer matches with the Halo 5: Guardians Local Server app for Windows 10 PC (to be released at approx. 2PM PT 11/2)
- Support your favorite HCS team with new weapon skins for Splyce, Luminosity, and Str8 Rippin. Current release dates: Luminosity 11/7, Str8 Rippin 11/21, Spylce 12/5
- Represent your Halo World Championship home region with new United States, Canada, UK, Mexico, and Australia weapon skins. These skins will be available during the Halo World Championship 2018.
- New Weapon Tuning for 14 items deployed across all game modes (full details coming Wednesday, 11/1)
- New Commendations added:
– Brute Plasma Rifle
– Sentinel Beam
– Gravity Hammer
– Reach Grenade Launcher
– Wasp Destroyer
– Wasp Gunner
– Grunt Mech Slayer
- Assault changes:
– Changed default settings for Assault to have ball explosion damage enabled on score
– Changed default settings for Assault to no longer include double thrust for a ball carrier
- Forge changes:
– Added the Relic Sword to the weapon palette
– Added Forge entries for the new Gunfighter Flagnum
- New Custom Game Options:
– Oddball support on default Custom game maps coming soon (in the meantime enjoy the new Oddball playlist – launching 11/2!)– Ball Mode Options:
– Ball Type: Allows selection between the default UNSC Ball and the newly added Oddball Skull for use as the game ball
– Ball Explosion Damage: Allows enabling/disabling of explosion damage when the ball is scored in an Assault mode
– Score Per Kill While Carrying: Allows configuration of points awarded for killing an enemy player while carrying the ball
– Ball Carrier Traits -> Melee Damage Modifier: Added a value for “Standard Weapon Melee Damage”, which configures ball melee damage to be exactly equivalent to that of a normal weapon melee
- Respawn Menu Options
– Player Follow Camera Enabled During Respawn: Enable or disable the Player Follow Camera screen during respawn
– Follow Camera Allow Enemy Player Selection: Allows the selection of enemy players in the Player Follow Camera screen during respawn
– Enable Stacking Team Spawn Influencers: Increases the chance of spawning with teammates
– Spawning Mode: Choose between default spawn selection and random spawn selection
- Flag Mode Options
– Flagnum Type: Set the type of Magnum (standard or Gunfighter) that will be wielded when holding the flagImprovements & Fixes
- General stability fixes
- Improved JIP (“Join in Progress”) rules for Social playlists
– Added thresholds that will prevent JIP in Social playlists depending on the remaining score to victory, score differences between teams in a match, and time remaining in the match. These are tuned on a per-game-mode basis with the goal of reducing negative JIP experiences.
- Fixed a number of exploits for Warzone
– Fixed ability to get inside bases to contest
– Fixed ability to get under the world
– Fixed ability to destroy the core when you should not be able to
– Fixed an issue where the red team shield door would sometimes not have proper collision
- BTB Assault matches now group properly under their own category in the Service Record
- Fixed an issue where REQ currency would sometimes not recharge properly when joining in progress to Warzone modes
- Fixed an issue where players who JIP’ed into Warzone games were not leveling up
- Fixed an issue where JIP’ing players sometimes caused momentary hitches
- Added a fix for the “black screen” bug (We believe this is addressed, and will be monitoring closely – please let us know if you experience this issue post-patch)
- Fixed a bug in which banned players could continue to play matches
- Fixed a bug where Snowzone and Urban home bases did not have player collision
- Fixed a rare crash players could hit if they died while picking up power-ups
