Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta Initial Impressions: Early Access Weekend
This weekend, 343 Industries and Microsoft gave Xbox One Preview members and Press a chance to have an early look at the ‘Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta’. I (and many others on the team) was fortunate enough to be part of the early access group so I’ve been playing this since it first opened up after 8pm GMT Friday evening and overall, I’ve been really enjoying it.
On Friday, I left with mixed impressions and but after spending much more time with it Saturday and Sunday, I like it. I actually like it a lot. The first things I felt was that Matchmaking games felt much more fast-paced and the new default controller scheme makes things feel very different.
Everyone has ‘Spartan Abilities’ and the older ‘Armour Abilities’ concept has been scrapped and this has made for much fairer and competitive matches. Sprint has also been balanced by not allowing your shields to re-charge while sprinting.
It’s actually worth noting that I spent ages sitting on the title screen before early access begun and we were allowed to play. Why? The soundtrack. The Beta gives you a glimpse of the Halo 5: Guardians Soundtrack and I really like what they’re going for. It feels fresh and identifies a modern Halo while still having that Halo vibe (it actually reminds me of Halo: Reach’s Soundtrack a lot).
I’ve sat here listening to this for a good while and it sounds fantastic. I urge you to listen to this for some time whenever you get the chance.
Early Access consisted of one game type; 4v4 Team Slayer with two maps, Truth and Empire. The final Beta starting December 29th will feature seven maps and three game types and those will be added during each weekly beta period. 343 Industries have said the Beta is only “a portion” of the Multiplayer suite they’ve lined up for us in the final game, but seven maps is a lot in a Beta!
Here’s something that’s surprising. Matchmaking works great. I get into a game in literally seconds and after it loads up the map, we’re playing almost instantly! It’s great to be able to get into games this fast and there’s only odd disconnection issues.
There is an odd bug where if after a game someone backs out, it’s sometimes unable to find another player(s) in place of them, but this is common in a Beta so early in development. There doesn’t seem to be a way to open post-game stats after you close them. The Roster also has weird issues and for me, even causing the game to crash at one stage.
Audio also went funny (only playing sound during death cameras, the tense music but no in-game sound effects) at one point causing me to restart the game but again, it’s a Beta and these issues are normal.
The map Truth so far is my favourite in the Beta. It’s a remake of fan favourite ‘Midship’ from Halo 2 and contains one of the games new weapons, ‘The Prophets Bane’. It’s in the top-centre of the map and is usually the first thing everyone runs for at the start of match, I’m one of those people. When you’re using it, you love it. You could easily get a killing spree or frenzy with this and just dominate the game.
However, when someone else has it, specifically on the enemy team, you realize how over-powered it is. It also increases your speed movement slightly and is a one-hit kill. Killing someone who has this, isn’t easy and quite frankly, it’s annoying and will definitely lead to rage quits during the Beta.