I've been playing Halo 5 for almost 2 weeks now. For anyone interested, here are my early impressions (spoiler-free, of course)

It's really freaking good.

Some background: I love Halo CE - Reach, not crazy about Halo 4. I like a challenge, so I play almost exclusively on Heroic or Legendary. I play an even mix of Campaign and Multiplayer. I don't really have a favorite Halo game; there are aspects of each that stand out to me. But if I had to pick one, I think Reach offered the best "total package".

So about Halo 5:

I think the campaign is excellent. The squad dynamic is a nice twist on the usual Halo combat loop. It feels new and different, but it fits perfectly into the sandbox. You feel like a wave moving across the battlefield, crashing into anything that stands in your way. The new movement abilities play into that perfectly, as you climb, sprint, and leap all over the place.

In terms of difficulty, Heroic feels like the sweet spot to me. It's challenging, but it feels well balanced. Legendary is fun from a "I want the ultimate challenge" point of view, but it's so punishing that you end up spending most of your time cowering behind cover and looking for safe corners where the enemies won't follow. It also reduces your AI companions to "useless" status. It's doable, but you don't feel much like a Spartan on Legendary (side note: this is one of the things I love about Reach... they hit a perfect sweet spot with the legendary difficulty. It's incredibly challenging, but doesn't reduce you to cowering the entire time).

As far as the story goes, Halo 5 might be my favorite in the franchise. The plot itself is nothing groundbreaking, but I found some of the little character moments to be a lot more subtle and interesting than what we usually get in a Halo game. They also avoid hitting us with a big info-dump or 20-minute cutscenes purely for exposition. Instead, the leverage the fact that you always have AI characters around you and reveal a lot of the context and backstory through dialogue as you make your way through the missions.

It's worth mentioning that the whole "Hunt the Truth" campaign is hugely misleading. I won't say what this game is *actually* about, but it certainly isn't Locke vs Chief. There's a tiny bit of that in there, but not much. I only bring this up in the spirit of expectations. It didn't bother me as I was playing the game, but if anyone goes in hoping for the ultimate Spartan vs Spartan showdown, I think they'll be disappointed.

As far as multiplayer goes, I haven't played enough to say much. I think the new abilities all fit nicely into the PvP sandbox. Warzone (the 12 v 12 mode with AI foes and capture points) is a lot of fun. Hectic, but in a good way. Plenty of options when it comes to deciding how to approach the battle. Lots of room for coordinated teamwork and strategy.

The arena mode, I'm not sure about. Arena is the 4v4 mode, and includes plenty of classic Halo gametypes. I think that Halo 5 excels on the large scale: when there's loads of infantry and vehicles and AI bosses all scrambling around each other, it feels awesome. But the intimacy and simplicity of the 4v4 modes highlight a few weaknesses; Halo 5 looks and feels great, but not as good as a certain other FPS that many of us here enjoy. I was never able to play more than 2 or 3 games before switching back to Destiny just because it feels that much better. Still, I think there's a lot to love about Halo 5 multiplayer, and I look forward to seeing how it is after launch when we have more playlists to dive in to.

TL;DR - Campaign is excellent, multiplayer can be great, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet. Overall a huge step up from Halo 4.

I was looking on gamestop today and saw they had some trade in bonuses. so im going to take some games I don't play in and pick it up. While I am not as excited about this as I am fallout 4, hopefully its better than what I did this weekend on Destiny. Outside of the raid, I was really bored. I found myself just kind of meandering around the tower, hesitant to do strikes or crucible. Once I realized I was bored with destiny, I played ALOT of MGS V TPP. Then when it was raid time, I was nice and refreshed.

New Halo looks nice, I just hope they have a way to keep it fresh throughout the next year, not just an initial spark followed by dull multiplayer DLC.

New Halo looks nice, I just hope they have a way to keep it fresh throughout the next year, not just an initial spark followed by dull multiplayer DLC.

One thing worth mentioning; Halo 5's DLC will all be free. They're including cosmetic microtransactions to fund the DLC.

Seems to be a bit of that going around these days ;)

I'm going to guess you played the Beta?

I've been playing Halo 5 for almost 2 weeks now. For anyone interested, here are my early impressions (spoiler-free, of course)

It's really freaking good.

Some background: I love Halo CE - Reach, not crazy about Halo 4. I like a challenge, so I play almost exclusively on Heroic or Legendary. I play an even mix of Campaign and Multiplayer. I don't really have a favorite Halo game; there are aspects of each that stand out to me. But if I had to pick one, I think Reach offered the best "total package".

My opinion, too. Excited about Halo 5. Thanks for the write-up.

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I'm going to guess you played the Beta?

A few matches. My impression of the 4v4 mode was the same then as it is now; I'm not crazy about it. Just hasn't clicked with me so far.

I don't want to know about it otherwise I will start ranting...

I wasn't going to pick up Halo 5 because I only kinda liked Halo 4 and I had NO idea what was going on with the plot in 4 because it felt like it just went to hell. After seeing the latest 4 minute in game trailer, I felt better about it. At least enough to play the campaign. Now that you mention that it feels like Reach, that makes me feel much better about it because I loved reach.

I've been following HTT as well, but I never expected H5 to have a big Chief/Locke showdown. At most I expect there to be some chase, and heated words until Locke learns what Chief is REALLY up to, which will make Osiris look like little kiddie puppets of ONI. (Haven't played BTW, just my own rambling thoughts)

I always planned on getting the basic digital version, and your thoughts put my mind at ease about that. Thanks!

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Now that you mention that it feels like Reach, that makes me feel much better about it because I loved reach.

Just to be clear, I don't think I said it feels like reach. The only time I mentioned reach was to point out that I thought Legendary was a lot more balanced in Reach than it is in Halo 5. I think H5 is great, but I wouldn't say it is particularly close to reach in terms of overall feel.

Some background: I love Halo CE - Reach, not crazy about Halo 4. I like a challenge, so I play almost exclusively on Heroic or Legendary. I play an even mix of Campaign and Multiplayer. I don't really have a favorite Halo game; there are aspects of each that stand out to me. But if I had to pick one, I think Reach offered the best "total package".

This is very similar to how I feel, though I definitely play Halo games for the story first and foremost.

I was reading some reviews earlier today that had me worried about the story. Perhaps you can answer this: Is it true that you play as Locke for 80% of the campaign? Is that as disappointing as it sounds?

Did you say if you liked Reach more or less? Being a big fan of Reach, I'm hoping it hits that same balance for me.

Some background: I love Halo CE - Reach, not crazy about Halo 4. I like a challenge, so I play almost exclusively on Heroic or Legendary. I play an even mix of Campaign and Multiplayer. I don't really have a favorite Halo game; there are aspects of each that stand out to me. But if I had to pick one, I think Reach offered the best "total package".

This is very similar to how I feel, though I definitely play Halo games for the story first and foremost.

I was reading some reviews earlier today that had me worried about the story. Perhaps you can answer this: Is it true that you play as Locke for 80% of the campaign? Is that as disappointing as it sounds?

Yes, it's true you play as Locke most of the game, but I didn't mind it at all because it means your fighting along side Buck for most of the game. I don't really care which Spartan I'm playing as most of the time :-/

Did you say if you liked Reach more or less? Being a big fan of Reach, I'm hoping it hits that same balance for me.

Tough to say. Reach holds a very special place in my heart. I loved the art-direction and mood of the entire game. Plus I think it has the best encounter design of any shooter I've ever played. On top of that, Forge World was something really special to me.

So I'm hesitant to compare Halo 5 directly to Reach on any level, especially while it's so new. I guess the one thing I can say is that to me, Halo 5 feels like a logical and exciting evolution of the franchise, just like Reach did. It feels new, but still like "Halo", if that makes sense.

Wait. What's the Chief really up to? Is there a Halo story refresher? I forgot everything that happened in Halo 3 and 4.

Wait. What's the Chief really up to? Is there a Halo story refresher? I forgot everything that happened in Halo 3 and 4.

http://www.gamesradar.com/halo-story-so-far/

Wait. What's the Chief really up to? Is there a Halo story refresher? I forgot everything that happened in Halo 3 and 4.

Halo 3:

Chief saved the world, got dumped into space somewhere, went into cryo

Halo 4:

MC wakes up 4 years later to a huge forerunner sphere opening up. There's still some covenant that didn't split in the civil war.

MC crashes on planet and wrecks shop

The warthog sounds like a weed eater.

UNSC Infinity shows up (picked up Cortana's distress beacon from 4 years ago).

MC wakes up some pissed off forerunner guy

MC runs off to another Halo, but only a UNSC research facility in orbit

MC finds out that the forerunner guy is heading to earth to turn all the people into Forerunner AI's or some shit.

Captain of the UNSC infinity tells chief to stand down, b/c reasons.

Chief says "fuck off buddy, i have to save the world again" or something like that. MC commits Mutiny

MC saves the world again, kills forerunner guy. Cortana kills herself to save the MC from a nuke.

Captain of the infinity is court Marshalled for being a dumbass that almost wiped out humanity. younger guy that the MC saved on Reach during the "Forward unto dawn" series becomes commander

Halo 5:

apparently chief has gone AWOL, and Buck the ODST is a spartan now.

The arbiter has a big ass fancy helmet.

The warthog sounds like a weed eater.

I can't believe I missed that. Like, for cereal, I have no memory of any of that Halo 4 crap. I've gotta replay it, I think. I'm heading to the video store first thing in the morning for Halo 5 to play.

Okay. I mean, the end of the campaign alone is worth nothing but headshaking and laughter. Anyhow, back to Destiny!