Title – Halo Wars 2
Developer – Creative Assembly / 343 Industries
Publisher – Microsoft
Release Date – February 17 for Ultimate Edition owners, February 21 for everyone

Real-time strategy is back on Xbox One with Halo Wars 2 and its full of chaos from multiplayer to the campaign. First off I want to talk about Blitz mode – and especially Firefight Blitz – because these are some of the best game-types I’ve played in this game so far, and if there is a reason to continue playing, those are it.

As a casual gamer you want to cause chaos and nonsense, so you really don’t care about winning or losing, you just care about having a great time. Well Halo Wars 2’s Blitz Mode is the perfect fit for you, because depending on which leader you have and the cards you unlock and if you are good enough to collect the energies you will be able to cause tons of chaos and frustrate the enemy.
Now Blitz Firefight mode is fun at first but then gets even worse as the rounds get further every wave new enemies come in and of course the first few waves are set to easy. You have to make sure they don’t capture any of the bases and this is where team work and communication can be helpful. Whiplash and I were playing Firefight and we made it to about Round 12 and that was already in Hard mode we got taken over massively just because we weren’t thinking about what we were putting down and looking at the energies.

I am not going to talk too much about the campaign so do not worry about spoilers. The first three missions basically gets you comfortable with the controls and makes you a better strategic gamer because coming into Halo Wars 2 I probably wasn’t the best, but after all the tutorials I became a lot better. You’ll encounter so annoying enemies throughout the first few missions and you’ll be in frustration at some parts. The campaign is pretty difficult compared to other Halo games to us and we have been playing Normal and Heroic; there is a huge difference in the difficulties when it comes to this game and we could only imagine how hard legendary solo is.
One of the great features in the campaign is the Blur cutscenes. Once again they did not disappoint you will get to experience them right off the bat when you hit play on the campaign and you will be blown away right away. The visuals are also great in this game you can really tell how great the art is once you play a mission on the beach because the lighting on the sand shows and the water is crystal clear; very good by Creative Assembly/343i
 
 
When it comes to the multiplayer maps they are a very good size for either 1 v 1’s or with multiple players that is something they did right in my opinion. Halo Wars 2’s UI is very clean and probably one of the best UI’s I have seen in a while when it comes to Halo games, it is not too cluttered. The controls are easy once you get the hang of it especially if you are on Xbox One it will take a little time getting used to.
Halo Wars 2 looks like it is going to be a better game than most people thought and it may shock some people how the multiplayer gets such as Blitz Firefight that has to be one of my favorite modes like I said above. The campaign is great so far and the blur cutscenes are a favorite.
Stay tuned for our full review this week.