When Microsoft pulled the curtain to reveal it's supped-up Xbox One X at E3 last month there was a distinct lack of any Halo-related news. Even the list of existing Xbox One titles that Microsoft revealed would be getting Xbox One X specific updates, was Halo free. Until today. As part of a Halo Summer Celebration, Microsoft and 343 Industries announced that Halo 5: Guardians will be getting a "true 4K" update for the Xbox One X release.

No media was provided to go alongside the announcement but we should expect to see what Halo 5 looks like in 4K prior to the Xbox One X launch on November 7.

Alongside the announcement, the Halo Summer Celebration news also confirmed that Xbox 360 titles 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4, and Halo: CE Anniversary, will joining the backwards compatibility line-up. And that LAN play will be supported between Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles! Which, is the sort of crazy news that makes us happy -- even if we'll never use the feature.

For more info on the above and the Halo Summer Celebration, hear here.

Nathan "nachosjustice" Lawrence has put in the hard yards on Halo 5: Guardians, completing the game alone, and then in co-op (with our very own Joaby). He's also been dabbling non-stop in the game's addictive multiplayer (hence the slightly later review). So how does it hold up?

Here's a snippet:

Juggling fan expectations for the Halo series must be incredibly tricky for 343 Industries. It’s not just that the newish Halo kids on the block have inherited a hell of a mantle from Bungie, it’s also that we fans expect that a Halo game’s campaign experience will be just as compelling as the multiplayer (unlike, say, the Battlefield series). For the most part, Bungie achieved this lofty balance with its Halo games, but after an impressive first shot at the sci-fi series with Halo 4, 343 Industries has fumbled with one of the most important parts of a Halo experience: the solo campaign.

In retrospect, I was probably more lenient on Halo 4 because it was the first game from 343 stepping into incredibly large Spartan boots, and it was towards the end of the Xbox 360’s cycle, which means that developers tend to push for graphical fidelity increases over gameplay improvements. Actually, that’s been a trend of the series, with the original Halo more noticeably open in approach than Halo 2. Despite the funnelling in Halo 4, 343 replaced the tiresome Flood threat from older Halo games with the deadly Prometheans, and it helped to balance out some of the weaker parts of the campaign.

Click here for our Halo 5: Guardians review.

And it looks crisp, smooth, and very Halo. In this new video which details a portion of the Swords of Sanghelios mission, we get a decent look at single-player, which, still has the whole squad thing happening. But, gives players the ability to command their AI squad mates. Or, Spartans.

Check it out!


Also, in a recent developer post 343 Industries has confirmed that in order to hit a stable 60fps for the duration of the game, Halo 5 will adopt an adaptive resolution which will change according to the on-screen action. It's a great approach, and hopefully something that other developers could easily adopt.

Framerate is king for us on Halo 5. Gameplay is defined by the way that players experience the game from controller to screen. We want the connection between you and the game to feel seamless and instantaneous. From the beginning, we set ourselves the goal of delivering consistent 60fps gameplay across all modes of play. Delivering on this goal meant re-engineering the gameplay systems at the core of our engine. It required sustained commitment from the entire team as we continually optimized the experience, and the difference it makes to the play experience is immediate and obvious.

60fps gameplay is supported by a new progressive resolution system that allows us to dynamically scale the resolution at which we render the game (up to 1080p) based on the needs of the scene. This enables us to deploy resources where they have most impact across a diverse series of experiences throughout the game while delivering the most visually stunning Halo game ever.

AusGamers recently had a chance to catch a demo for Halo 5: Guardians and gleam some information from 343 Industries' Josh Holmes who emphatically told us the game will be "galactic in scale".

Here's a snippet from our feature:

Guardians is a game set to genuinely shake-up the Halo platform. It’s a game that takes away the nomadic nature of the ‘I’ll do whatever I want, whenever I want because I’m Master Chief’ Chief, and throws in companions for you to not only work alongside, but to also build new, strong and emotional relationships with. It’s the “number one pillar” for the single-player campaign, as described by 343’s Josh Holmes -- a co-op-focused campaign but with a weird twist where the drop-in, drop-out angle doesn’t remove your co-operative avatar, and of any member of the team that leaves, AI simply takes over.

“Throughout the entire play experience, you are with your fireteam,” Holmes confirms when we ask if you’ll enjoy any solo moments with either Chief or Locke. “All the time, you’re always with four Spartans, and that’s our commitment to supporting co-op.”

It’s arguably the boldest move in the series, especially when it was confirmed that there’s only ever one person playing as Master Chief at all times (so if you join a buddy, you don’t inhabit Chief, you inhabit an available sidekick). Well, that and adding another protagonist by way of Spartan Locke who you’ll be sharing the agency narrative with. Whether you like it or not.

“Everyone will have the option when they’re playing to play as the primary player, or in a solo campaign,” he adds when asked about who gets to play Chief. “But we think that the ability to go in and play as other characters when joining your friends gives the campaign [some] nice replay value. There are subtle differences to the narrative that you’ll experience from those other perspectives, and so we think that’s a nice incentive as well.

Click here for our Halo 5: Guardians interview feature.

The Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta going on right now has introduced a new game type, as well as two new maps and another weapon, 343 Industries revealed.

The new game is Breakout, a round-based team deathmatch in which each participant has only one life per round, and teams must win five rounds to take the match. Breakout is available on two maps, Crossfire and Trench.

The two new maps in the beta, Regret and Eden, have been added to the Slayer playlist. They are variations on two maps introduced in the beta's first week, Regret and Eden.

The new weapon is the Hydra MLRS, which 343 called "brand-new to the Halo universe." It's available in Slayer matches on Regret.

AusGamers caught up with 343 Industries' Josh Holmes and Tim Longo to talk about the series' heritage and the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta for Xbox One.

The most important part of the interview from an Aussie perspective was their acknowledgement of our geographically-challenged position in the world and our need for dedicated servers to remain competitive and plain having fun.

"It’s something that we’re aware of and we’re looking at and we’re working with the Xbox Live team to try and improve the server support that we have in the region," Holmes told us. "We know it’s been an issue historically. And hopefully as we get through the beta we’ll be able to gather more data from that experience and use that to improve things. I know it’s a goal for the platform as well.

"There’s a lot of specific development and services that we’ve done on our end to support the experience but that is then also hosted in Azure so that gives us the ability to scale and powers Xbox Live."

Hopefully given that Azure is now here in Australia, it will mean a seamless and smooth multiplayer run in the game (and others) moving forward.

Click here for the full interview.

AusGamers was invited out to an intimate hands-on preview session for Halo 5: Guardians' forthcoming multiplayer beta content recently.

Chief (see what we did there?!) among the new highlights, is the updated abilities of the Spartans alongside new modes and a brand-new visual look coalescing into a tantalising new console MP entry, with even more yet to be revealed.

Click here for our full hands-on experience with Halo 5: Guardians' multiplayer beta content.

Microsoft has offered up a new gameplay trailer detailing what we can expect in Halo 5: Guardian's multiplayer mode, and notably also a date on when we'll be able to don the iconic Halo outfit.

The beta will take place from December 29th through January 18th, with three game modes in place, along with seven maps and eleven weapons. All players will have the same number of unlocks, ensuring an even playing field. 343 also hints that beta participants may be able to unlock content for the final version of Halo 5 when it arrives in 2015.

Beta access will be granted to those who purchase the upcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection, due for release on November 11th for Xbox One.

Microsoft has decided to run ahead of their E3 2014 conference and announce one of their bigger titles for the Xbox One - Halo 5: Guardians, due for release in 2015 developer 343 Industries announced.

"Halo 5: Guardians is a bigger effort than Halo 4," 343 general manager Bonnie Ross wrote on the Xbox Wire today. "That applies to the content and scope of the game, as well as the technology in what's now a brand new and more powerful engine. Certainly there are some core elements carried over from prior games, but we've invested a huge effort in retooling our tech to take full advantage of the Xbox One's hardware and ecosystem to create worlds and experiences worthy of next-gen."

Ross said Halo 5 will "incorporate the things we learned from Halo 4 about technology, aesthetics, performance and scale — and perhaps more importantly, understanding and embracing a community of gamers who love what lies at the heart of this game, and the limitless potential of the Halo universe."

This isn't the first we've heard of a new Halo in the series, with 343 Industries teasing the new title at E3 2013 last year during Microsoft's conference. "In 2014, Halo combat will truly evolve and your journey with Halo on Xbox One begins," Ross said during last year's announcement, indicating that Microsoft has plans for Halo projects on Xbox One that preface Halo 5: Guardians.