Video game developer 343 Industries isn’t slowing down as it builds anticipation for next month’s Halo 5 release date. Just a day after it introduced a new season of its podcast to hype the game’s story, Microsoft is back with a new video that introduces the Blue Team and teases the game’s campaign. What’s more, it’s letting journalists talk about their experience with the game so far.
Microsoft added the trailer to its Xbox Wire news blog last night. Then this morning video game websites began publishing articles describing their time with the game’s campaign. It was only yesterday that Microsoft began releasing new episodes of its Hunt The Truth podcast setting up the Halo 5: Guardians story. The whole thing is a massive effort by Microsoft to built the game’s profile ahead of release on October 27th. Halo 5: Guardians is the crown jewel of Microsoft’s holiday 2015 line-up. With a weak line-up of exclusives on the PS4, many believe its Microsoft’s last hope of catching up to its Sony-made rival in sales.
The Halo 5: Guardians trailer that Microsoft released early this morning is ripped straight form the second mission in the game. In the video we see Blue Team, preparing for a battle in what appears to be a deep space with the Covenant, a dangerous race of aliens who’ve tried to destroy Earth and her colonies since the beginning of the series.
As the Blue Team suits up Master Chief is seen running his finger over the port in the back of his helmet. This is the same port that he used to insert the chip carrying his virtual side-kick Cortana into. According to a post accompanying the video, Blue Team is on its way to make sure that a ship carrying classified information about Earth’s military doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Besides the Chief, the team is made up of Kelly, Linda and Fredric.
All told, the trailer doesn’t reveal too much about the game, but does give the Blue Team time in the spotlight. A lot of the previous reveals showed the game’s other team of Spartans, Fireteam Osiris. We do know that at some point Osiris is sent to hunt down Master Chief John 117. Early trailers for the game say as much. With this tease officially available online, we’ve now seen cinematics from two different missions in the campaign. Fireteam Osiris was on a desert planet hunting something down in the last official clip.
To be clear, the previews that video game websites are publishing this morning aren’t small hints at what’s coming in Halo 5: Guardians. Some of them are huge breakdowns of the game. Polygon, for example, guides players through the mechanics of the first two missions. No story information is included in the breakdown, but gameplay is.
One of the things the report notes early on is how faster Halo 5: Guardians feels. 343 Industries built this game to run at 60 frames per second, something that no previous Halo game has done. Mechanics like constant running and ground pound makes moving around the maps more fluid and faster. “So far Halo 5 has a more active feel to it, with more seeming options at any given moment due in part to the new abilities at your disposal at any given moment,” says Polygon.
The biggest gambles that 343 Industries is taking with the Halo 5: Guardians are sounding a bit rough. Adding more vertical gameplay has worked out, according to writer Arthur Gies, but the computer controlled team of Spartans who are supposed to assist players are described as “kind of dumb.”
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