The Halo 5 Warzone Firefight update came out few days ago. Earlier this year 343 launched the Firefight beta to gather essential feedback to full release. Was the feedback implemented? Yes. Let’s see what I like about the new Warzone Firefight mode and what I don’t like.
What I like:
The objectives – This is something I like in the new Firefight version in Halo 5. Each map has their new objectives like defending Promethean cores, defending the garage, Armory, more depending the map you’re playing, and kill a number of Legendary bosses. Definitely offers a lot of mixture to prevent players getting uninterested real quickly. On top of that, it’s quite stimulating!
Rewards are tidy – If you’re a gamer like me who likes to grind real hard then Firefight is for you. Each game can last between 10 and 15 minutes depending how fast you finish the rounds awarding you a lot of REQ Points and as well XP. For better awards, use the boosts!
Maps fit well in Firefight – There are 6 maps available in the mode. The majority of them are nice to play aside from Urban. Urban is not user friendly with ground vehicles like the Scorpion mainly because there are a lot of obstruction preventing your mobility to be smooth and gratifying. Attack on Sanctum is the new Sanghelios map 343 launched this past Wednesday with the Warzone Firefight update. Just like the campaign, it features their gorgeous landslide. Certainly it’s a map you will love battling the Prometheans, the Covenant.
The new Warzone Boss – If you haven’t heard about the new Warzone boss, shame on you! No really, Grunt Goblin is such a fresh, interesting and funny Boss to fight along with your fireteam friends. Grunt “Mech” features a loudspeaker allowing him to trash talk, and make fun of you when you’re Killed In Action. Goblins are kitted out with a double-barreled heavy Needler, which can do massive damage to vehicles. Goblins are also capable of a needle barrage, a multiple-launch system that can target up to eight players at the same time. It’s a nasty talent, but one that’s easily disabled by knocking out the Goblin’s backpack.
Now let’s check out what I don’t like about the new Firefight.
Respawn Timer – One of the things the community felt during the Firefight Beta back in April was the fact being too easy to win the games. Well 343 took that feedback and completely changed the Respawn timer. Now, each round has an additional 5 second timer. It sucks having to wait 30 seconds in Round 5 to spawn and rush immediately to the objective. Die twice and you spend 20% trying to spawn. The studio should change that, and punish the players for dying too much.
Some enemies feel like Bullet Sponge– The lowest tier of enemies like the Unggoy, Crawlers, and Jackals can decimate you in a blink of an eye. Even if you fail to headshot each one of the low tier enemies, it still takes too much bullets to end them. Moving to above tiers, I have no complaints about the Elites because they simply don’t feel like bullet sponge. The Prometheans however do feel, especially the Soldiers and Knights. Both of them take an insane ammo to kill and it’s feel like a chore to do so rather than having fun. Let’s hope 343 lowers their health.
AI is too accurate- Since the launch of Halo 5: Guardians when we were introduced to Warzone I always despised the AI primarily because they rarely fail their shots. Elites using the storm rifles would always hit you no matter the distance you were from them, and that really pissed me off how quickly they could kill me. This escalated in Firefight with the insane enemies in the battlefield. Some of the Soldiers using Splinter Turret 90% of their shots always hit you whether you are in an Air Vehicle or in a slow vehicle like Wraith and the Scorpion. 343 definitely needs to tone down their accuracy to feel like that we aren’t playing against AI with “aimbots”.
Image by a user on /r/Halo
Spawning too far from the objective- This problem existed in the beta and now it exists in the full release. Lots of complaints regarding this issue were said during the beta, but 343 didn’t fix it. Since Warzone maps are the biggest maps we ever had in Halo it only makes sense to spawn at the nearest safe location to achieve your goal faster. But no…You can spawn very far from the objective spending 20 – 30 seconds running just to help your teammates. This also applies to being restricted spawning at the Garage with a Vehicle losing precious time just to get to the action field.
Things I like and the things I don’t like are my opinion. You may have a different opinion and that’s alright. 343 can easily remedy the awful stuff about Firefight, and when they do I will happily change this article.