• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

New Halo 5 Coverage! (expect spoilers)

Some of the reactions to the Blue Team ... LOL, you just can't win.

Osiris Intro: WHAT THE HELL! What is this, the Avengers? Where's the cool, collected professionals we've grown up with in the Spartan IIs? DAMMIT 343!

Blue Intro: YO. That was whack. Why was there no loud explosions, where was the super-charged athleticism? DAMMIT 343!

I love the dynamic they're setting up between Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris. No matter how much experience Osiris has as soldiers beforehand, they will never be able to stand up to the overall combat potential and lifetime of war-waging that the Spartan IIs have.

But that intro was so good. The music man, THE MUSIC. Kazuma is the man.
 
Some of the reactions to the Blue Team ... LOL, you just can't win.

Osiris Intro: WHAT THE HELL! What is this, the Avengers? Where's the cool, collected professionals we've grown up with in the Spartan IIs? DAMMIT 343!

Blue Intro: YO. That was whack. Why was there no loud explosions, where was the super-charged athleticism? DAMMIT 343!

I love the dynamic they're setting up between Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris. No matter how much experience Osiris has as soldiers beforehand, they will never be able to stand up to the overall combat potential and lifetime of war-waging that the Spartan IIs have.

But that intro was so good. The music man, THE MUSIC. Kazuma is the man.

You echo all of my thoughts perfectly. Especially in mentioning the music. <3
 
Edit: Yep gonna agree with this

It seems really dumb that Fred would call Master Chief "Chief" instead of John. Also, holy shit that Pelican re-design is still profoundly bad.

In all honestly I'm a little disappointed in the Blue Team intro, because given what we saw in the Osiris intro I expected a lot more.

Felt kind of wrong to hear Fred call MC "Chief" instead of John in the cinematic. I can understand someone outside of Blue Team calling him Chief but it just stuck out to me then. Especially when the others call each other by name in the same dialogue.

You would think that they would just call each other by name considering how long they have known each other (and to help imply to players who aren't so into the lore that they have a closer relationship than others have with Chief).
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
Cross posting from the community thread...

Wowowowow!

Trying to capture some thoughts:
+ visually looks good, especially cutscenes, which are outstanding
+ levels are big, open, and vertical. Looks like great playspaces
+ ai squadmates reviving each other is neat
+ revival itself seems like a great mechanic, especially for co-op.
+ watching ai squadmates pull off cool moves, such as Kelly shoulder charging enemies.
+ the shoulder charge launching rag dolled grunts.
+ the halo hunter batting away grenades!!!
+ the hunters new weapon fx and sound make them seem terrifying.
+ the redesigned railgun is great.
+ that lighting on the locke level looks great
+ loads of ambient life
+ the kraken, holy shit!
+ love all the destruction, dust, and flying debris it creates as it stomps through the level. Unsure if this bady is more halo 2 scarab then halo 3 though I hope for the later...
+ music sounds nice and halo-y, and ramps up nicely with the action.
+ sound fx in general sound punchy and appropriate.
+ pp emp is very short now!
+ the newly designed ghost is growing on me. It's a bit over designed, but I like all the electrical effects and especially how the "wings" move and adjust over the topography.

- ai is looking a little dumb, particularly the elites. This looks to be more halo 4 than reach ai. Could be a result of most of the press playing on easy/normal, but im going to lean towards it just being toned down a bit (in addition to other improvements, such as the new behaviors).
- banshee battle on blue team level looks cramped, like the poor arena style banshee battles in halo 4. This may end up fine as the level design looks built around foot combat as well.
- shadow draw in distance is really short and can be very distracting to watch massive shadows, such as from a covie dropship, flicker in and out.
- majority of press is sooo bad, lol. Also why have someone not into halo, that's never played halo, write up your preview? And why have him write about the lack of a coherent story (as presented)? Ugh. Rant over.


I'll probably add more as I get through the rest this morning, home with my sick daughter, but so far it's all been very overwhelmingly positive - just like my beta experience. Can't wait. We back.
 
Cross posting from the community thread...

Wowowowow!

Trying to capture some thoughts:
+ visually looks good, especially cutscenes, which are outstanding
+ levels are big, open, and vertical. Looks like great playspaces
+ ai squadmates reviving each other is neat
+ revival itself seems like a great mechanic, especially for co-op.
+ watching ai squadmates pull off cool moves, such as Kelly shoulder charging enemies.
+ the shoulder charge launching rag dolled grunts.
+ the halo hunter batting away grenades!!!
+ the hunters new weapon fx and sound make them seem terrifying.
+ the redesigned railgun is great.
+ that lighting on the locke level looks great
+ loads of ambient life
+ the kraken, holy shit!
+ love all the destruction, dust, and flying debris it creates as it stomps through the level. Unsure if this bady is more halo 2 scarab then halo 3 though I hope for the later...
+ music sounds nice and halo-y, and ramps up nicely with the action.
+ sound fx in general sound punchy and appropriate.
+ pp emp is very short now!
+ the newly designed ghost is growing on me. It's a bit over designed, but I like all the electrical effects and especially how the "wings" move and adjust over the topography.

- ai is looking a little dumb, particularly the elites. This looks to be more halo 4 than reach ai. Could be a result of most of the press playing on easy/normal, but im going to lean towards it just being toned down a bit (in addition to other improvements, such as the new behaviors).
- banshee battle on blue team level looks cramped, like the poor arena style banshee battles in halo 4. This may end up fine as the level design looks built around foot combat as well.
- shadow draw in distance is really short and can be very distracting to watch massive shadows, such as from a covie dropship, flicker in and out.
- majority of press is sooo bad, lol. Also why have someone not into halo, that's never played halo, write up your preview? And why have him write about the lack of a coherent story (as presented)? Ugh. Rant over.


I'll probably add more as I get through the rest this morning, home with my sick daughter, but so far it's all been very overwhelmingly positive - just like my beta experience. Can't wait. We back.

Thats disappointing. Only reason i still go back to Halo CE is cause of the great AI.
 
Cross posting from the community thread...

Wowowowow!

Trying to capture some thoughts:
+ visually looks good, especially cutscenes, which are outstanding
+ levels are big, open, and vertical. Looks like great playspaces
+ ai squadmates reviving each other is neat
+ revival itself seems like a great mechanic, especially for co-op.
+ watching ai squadmates pull off cool moves, such as Kelly shoulder charging enemies.
+ the shoulder charge launching rag dolled grunts.
+ the halo hunter batting away grenades!!!
+ the hunters new weapon fx and sound make them seem terrifying.
+ the redesigned railgun is great.
+ that lighting on the locke level looks great
+ loads of ambient life
+ the kraken, holy shit!
+ love all the destruction, dust, and flying debris it creates as it stomps through the level. Unsure if this bady is more halo 2 scarab then halo 3 though I hope for the later...
+ music sounds nice and halo-y, and ramps up nicely with the action.
+ sound fx in general sound punchy and appropriate.
+ pp emp is very short now!
+ the newly designed ghost is growing on me. It's a bit over designed, but I like all the electrical effects and especially how the "wings" move and adjust over the topography.

- ai is looking a little dumb, particularly the elites. This looks to be more halo 4 than reach ai. Could be a result of most of the press playing on easy/normal, but im going to lean towards it just being toned down a bit (in addition to other improvements, such as the new behaviors).
- banshee battle on blue team level looks cramped, like the poor arena style banshee battles in halo 4. This may end up fine as the level design looks built around foot combat as well.
- shadow draw in distance is really short and can be very distracting to watch massive shadows, such as from a covie dropship, flicker in and out.
- majority of press is sooo bad, lol. Also why have someone not into halo, that's never played halo, write up your preview? And why have him write about the lack of a coherent story (as presented)? Ugh. Rant over.


I'll probably add more as I get through the rest this morning, home with my sick daughter, but so far it's all been very overwhelmingly positive - just like my beta experience. Can't wait. We back.

What i saw in some videos, the A.I. did not remind me of Halo 4. Well...not Heroic that is. If the final version is like Halo 4's A.I. then that's good enough for me. I loved it in Halo 4.

As for ambient life, i only checked one or two videos, but could you name some examples? :)
 
I just want to know more about the story. What the fuck is going on?

343's holding the story VERY close to the chest. Notice that a lot of the previews talk about how they were expressly forbidden to reveal any story spoilers and with 34 days left to go, barring any serious leaks, we'll get a pretty meaty story that's relatively fresh and unspoiled.

Anyone know what the mission layout is? I know Blue Team is mission 2, but what about Enemy Lines (Swords of Sanghelios)? And any idea about how many missions?
 

Mr White

Member
Halo 4 didn't have great AI, enemies waited for you to finish them off and stood still.

Can't say yet about Halo 5 but they haven't got close to the last Bungie game, Reach. Team mates aside :D

Yeah, I have same fears. Will wait for impressions from halo fans before buying this
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
What i saw in some videos, the A.I. did not remind me of Halo 4. Well...not Heroic that is. If the final version is like Halo 4's A.I. then that's good enough for me. I loved it in Halo 4.

As for ambient life, i only checked one or two videos, but could you name some examples? :)

Yeah, halo 4s ai isn't bad at all, but it was more basic, dumber, and easy than reach, which preceded it. If halo 5s ai combat awareness is the same as 4s, I'll be a bit disappointed but I suppose it'll be good enough especially in light of new behaviors that have been added (jet packing mobility to take advantage of level design, swatting away grenades, etc).

As far as abient life goes, you should see quite a bit of it on the enemy lines videos, especially in the between fight sections. Lots of flying insect like things. Beetles scurrying about, that sort of stuff. Makes the environment feel more alive (pardon the pun)
 

LordOfChaos

Member
One thing I'm noticing is that everything looks a lot more...Physical, doesn't it? I'm not sure how to describe it. I guess the combination of 60fps, the new abilities that make you feel like a tank, the better object based lighting, and I think what looks like tweaked impact animations, it all makes it seem more viscerally physical.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
343's holding the story VERY close to the chest. Notice that a lot of the previews talk about how they were expressly forbidden to reveal any story spoilers and with 34 days left to go, barring any serious leaks, we'll get a pretty meaty story that's relatively fresh and unspoiled.

Anyone know what the mission layout is? I know Blue Team is mission 2, but what about Enemy Lines (Swords of Sanghelios)? And any idea about how many missions?

It's been mentioned that enemy lines is stage 10, but I'm not sure if that's correct. It's also been said that that level is about "half way" and about "two thirds" of the way through the game. We know the game is the biggest and longest yet, according to the devs, and that's good enough for me.
 
Did we ever find out for certain why locke is hunting MC? I've listened to hunt the truth for thr most part and the only thing I can think of is how they made Mc look like a terrorist when he captured that sangelious general
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Did we ever find out for certain why locke is hunting MC? I've listened to hunt the truth for thr most part and the only thing I can think of is how they made Mc look like a terrorist when he captured that sangelious general

MC is AWOL. Plus galactic shit is happening.
 

Random17

Member
343's holding the story VERY close to the chest. Notice that a lot of the previews talk about how they were expressly forbidden to reveal any story spoilers and with 34 days left to go, barring any serious leaks, we'll get a pretty meaty story that's relatively fresh and unspoiled.

Anyone know what the mission layout is? I know Blue Team is mission 2, but what about Enemy Lines (Swords of Sanghelios)? And any idea about how many missions?

Indeed; none of the Blue Team videos explained why they were blowing up the ship. (Unless I missed something).

It's unusual to see such secrecy for an early mission. We only know what happens in mission 1, and that's it. Once again, this reminds me of Halo 2.

We had a reasonable idea of what would happen in Halo 3/Reach and even Halo 4, but the endgame in Halo 5 is completely unknown and I've been doing my best to keep up with the EU.

During the marketing campaigns we knew that:
Halo 3 was going to be about the Ark and the conclusion of the trilogy. The twist was the new Halo ring.
Halo Reach would be about sacrifice and defending the planet, ultimately futile in the end.
Halo 4 was going to be about the Didact, Librarian, Master Chief and Cortana. The twist or new information was the Composer, but even that was mentioned in the Forerunner trilogy.


Halo 5 is about Osiris, Blue team + Cortana, the Covenant and the Guardians. We know nothing else despite having seen four campaign missions. There are loose threads like Jul M'dama, Halsey and her Constructor as well as the Arbiter, but it still isn't clear what the midgame is, let alone the end game. Escalation has a lot of ground to cover...
 

shoreu

Member
Did we ever find out for certain why locke is hunting MC? I've listened to hunt the truth for thr most part and the only thing I can think of is how they made Mc look like a terrorist when he captured that sangelious general

Yeah he's AWOL most likely to stop the
"reclimation" that Cortana warned him about.

Indeed; none of the Blue Team videos explained why they were blowing up the ship. (Unless I missed something).

It's unusual to see such secrecy for an early mission. We only know what happens in mission 1, and that's it. Once again, this reminds me of Halo 2.

We had a reasonable idea of what would happen in Halo 3/Reach and even Halo 4, but the endgame in Halo 5 is completely unknown and I've been doing my best to keep up with the EU.

During the marketing campaigns we knew that:
Halo 3 was going to be about the Ark and the conclusion of the trilogy. The twist was the new Halo ring.
Halo Reach would be about sacrifice and defending the planet, ultimately futile in the end.
Halo 4 was going to be about the Didact, Librarian, Master Chief and Cortana. The twist or new information was the Composer, but even that was mentioned in the Forerunner trilogy.


Halo 5 is about Osiris, Blue team + Cortana, the Covenant and the Guardians. We know nothing else despite having seen four campaign missions. There are loose threads like Jul M'dama, Halsey and her Constructor as well as the Arbiter, but it still isn't clear what the midgame is, let alone the end game. Escalation has a lot of ground to cover...

See what I said above that's what Chief is trying to stop we don't yet know what it is nor how we can stop it but we'll try.

I'm sure there's a small briefing before we start that mission they may not include it to avoid spoilers.
 
Yeah, halo 4s ai isn't bad at all, but it was more basic, dumber, and easy than reach, which preceded it. If halo 5s ai combat awareness is the same as 4s, I'll be a bit disappointed but I suppose it'll be good enough especially in light of new behaviors that have been added (jet packing mobility to take advantage of level design, swatting away grenades, etc).

As far as abient life goes, you should see quite a bit of it on the enemy lines videos, especially in the between fight sections. Lots of flying insect like things. Beetles scurrying about, that sort of stuff. Makes the environment feel more alive (pardon the pun)

Now that's great. I like little things like that. I saw that in TESO the other day too...little bugs walking around on the ground like centipedes and animals like frogs, really neat stuff. It just brings that little bit of extra detail. As for A.I., yeah it certainly shouldn't be less challenging than Halo 4, things are going downhill for that if that's going to happen. But i doubt that;s going to be the case. Shame it never reached Reach's quality A.I. again though. Pun intended, haha.

I am very curious about the rest of the locations and it's clear the developer doesn't want to spoil that. The levels the press got to play seem to be the ones we've already seen footage of before and in screenshots. But i like that. Hopefully there will be something similar to 4's jungle level, man i love how that looks.
 

Rocketz

Member
Not watching any of the missions as I want it to be a surprise but I love the intro. It's a great contrast from Orisis. We're just over a month away!
 

spootime

Member
Okay. Having to find the skulls again is really fucking cool. I'm hoping there's tons of easter eggs hidden in the game (like halo 2/3)
 

Akai__

Member
343's holding the story VERY close to the chest. Notice that a lot of the previews talk about how they were expressly forbidden to reveal any story spoilers and with 34 days left to go, barring any serious leaks, we'll get a pretty meaty story that's relatively fresh and unspoiled.

Anyone know what the mission layout is? I know Blue Team is mission 2, but what about Enemy Lines (Swords of Sanghelios)? And any idea about how many missions?

Story leaks usually happen after the game goes gold. In Halo 4's case, people stole copies from the place they were printed (iirc) and made the game available for download. The people who downloaded it and played it on their modded/flashed Xbox 360 then proceeded to tweet spoilers. HaloGAF was a pretty big target during that time, as we (including myself) were tweeted spoilers non-stop.

Don't want to sound negative, but if you really care about spoilers, you should always watch out.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
During the marketing campaigns we knew that:
Halo 3 was going to be about the Ark and the conclusion of the trilogy. The twist was the new Halo ring.
Halo Reach would be about sacrifice and defending the planet, ultimately futile in the end.
Halo 4 was going to be about the Didact, Librarian, Master Chief and Cortana. The twist or new information was the Composer, but even that was mentioned in the Forerunner trilogy.

Halo 5 is about Osiris, Blue team + Cortana, the Covenant and the Guardians. We know nothing else despite having seen four campaign missions. There are loose threads like Jul M'dama, Halsey and her Constructor as well as the Arbiter, but it still isn't clear what the midgame is, let alone the end game. Escalation has a lot of ground to cover...

The twist is Kelly was the chosen one the whole time
 
No idea, but that number of missions is irrelevant. Halo 2 had more than 1, and yet CE is both larger and longer

It's been mentioned that enemy lines is stage 10, but I'm not sure if that's correct. It's also been said that that level is about "half way" and about "two thirds" of the way through the game. We know the game is the biggest and longest yet, according to the devs, and that's good enough for me.

Good points. I should've said that I'm not concerned about the length of the game, just interested in piecing together the timeline. From what I can tell:

Halo 5 Intro
Mission 1 - Kamchatta(sp?) - snowy level
Mission 2 - Blue Team - Argent Truth space ship level
???
Mission ? - Swords of Sanghelios
Mission 10 - Enemy Lines

Seems like SoS and EL take place in Sanghelios. The question is, when does the Battle of Tsunaion from E3 take place?
 
So i watched some more videos, namely the ones where it is known normal mode is used. Anyone here ever played Halo 4 on normal? If so, would you say this here is pretty much the same, the A.I. that is? For all the Halo campaigns i went with Heroic on my own, i liked that challenge and i'd love to see a Halo 5 video where they play on Heroic.

At the end of the day what Stinkles said about the A.I. still being worked on, i'll stick with that.
 
Good points. I should've said that I'm not concerned about the length of the game, just interested in piecing together the timeline. From what I can tell:

Halo 5 Intro
Mission 1 - Kamchatta(sp?) - snowy level
Mission 2 - Blue Team - Argent Truth space ship level
???
Mission ? - Swords of Sanghelios
Mission 10 - Enemy Lines

Seems like SoS and EL take place in Sanghelios. The question is, when does the Battle of Tsunaion from E3 take place?

Between the first Sangelios mission and Enemy Lines, I reckon. You see it in the distance on Swords of Sanghelios. That makes me feel like it's soon after.

But what the hell do I know, could be anywhere! :D
 
So i watched some more videos, namely the ones where it is known normal mode is used. Anyone here ever played Halo 4 on normal? If so, would you say this here is pretty much the same, the A.I. that is? For all the Halo campaigns i went with Heroic on my own, i liked that challenge and i'd love to see a Halo 5 video where they play on Heroic.

At the end of the day what Stinkles said about the A.I. still being worked on, i'll stick with that.

From what I've seen, everything looks about 'Normal'.

Of course, there is no difficulty below Heroic. That's a minimum.
 
The covenant AI seems dumbed down, and the overall lack of blood is really throwing me off (it was a hit/kill feedback thing for me, plus I liked the colors). Otherwise, this is looking pretty damn nice.

Fingers crossed the game lives up to its potential. Also, fingers crossed for more enemy variety.. where are my Brute packs?
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
At the end of the day what Stinkles said about the A.I. still being worked on, i'll stick with that.

There's no chance any significant work is being done on the AI at this stage. Minor tweaks? Sure, maybe.

Game should be be nearing Gold at this point, if not within the next week or two. Should be entirely bug squishing and polishing, not messing with the AI. That would be too down to the wire for a big studio.

Then again, nothing surprises me any more.

Still no Forge information.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
The kraken really does look way more like the scripted halo 2 scarab rather than the dynamic scarab battles of halo 3. Hopefully this is because the kraken is a set piece, cinematic battle, and scripting is the best way to pull that off and isn't representatitive of other massively epic battles that hopefully halo 5 contains. In other words, despite the kraken clearly being geared more for cinematic purposes, I hope we see fully dynamic ai driven large scale scarab or scarab like battles in halo 5.
 

Bsigg12

Member
There's no chance any significant work is being done on the AI at this stage. Minor tweaks? Sure, maybe.

Game should be be nearing Gold at this point, if not within the next week or two. Should be entirely bug squishing and polishing, not messing with the AI. That would be too down to the wire for a big studio.

Then again, nothing surprises me any more.

Still no Forge information.

The build that was played at these events (which was held on September 16th) was a few months old according to the Polygon article. The AI changing between what werre seeing here and at launch is definitely possible.
 

Random17

Member
I don't think we'll see major changes in AI because it appears as if the AI gets stuck on certain obstacles; while their pathfinding through the level is fine, there's so much more room in each engagement that the AI tends to end up in a spot where their movement glitches, or they aren't looking in the right direction.

That's really hard to fix AFAIK, I've seen it in many other games, and AFAIK it is generally the result of ingame objects or weirdly shaped terrain/walls. Best example is Linda getting stuck in that loop thingy. Happens to both Elite and Spartan AI. I don't think you can fix it without changing each of the problem zones in the levels.


Another thing I noticed is that they aren't really taking cover anymore. I'm not sure why that is the case, because the Elites in Halo 4 did retreat upon taking damage. It might just be because the verticality + 4 Spartans are screwing with their normal AI routines. There was one point where they were behind boxes, but their heads were sticking out due to the height advantage the player had.
 
Out of all the guns, the shotgun sounds the weakest. How ironic.

I generally love the sound design, but a few of 343's weapon sound effects have been iffy since Halo 4. I'm warming up to the new BR sound though, it's a huge improvement over 4. But yea, the shotgun sounds weak. Halo 3 shotgun is still GOAT.
 

Vico

Member
I'm not watching anything, but reading Ennemy Lines is halfway into the campaign AND the tenth level makes me happy. I know that doesn't necessarily mean it's longer in the end, but it does feel like it.
 

OldRoutes

Member
There's no chance any significant work is being done on the AI at this stage. Minor tweaks? Sure, maybe.

Game should be be nearing Gold at this point, if not within the next week or two. Should be entirely bug squishing and polishing, not messing with the AI. That would be too down to the wire for a big studio.

I'm sure the demo the press played was not representative of the current state of the game.
 
There's no chance any significant work is being done on the AI at this stage. Minor tweaks? Sure, maybe.

Game should be be nearing Gold at this point, if not within the next week or two. Should be entirely bug squishing and polishing, not messing with the AI. That would be too down to the wire for a big studio.

Then again, nothing surprises me any more.

Still no Forge information.
Frankie said AI tuning is done in the last tuning phase of development which is about right now and the build the press played is months old. But yeah call me slightly worried about the AI.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
I'm not watching anything, but reading Ennemy Lines is halfway into the campaign AND the tenth level makes me happy. I know that doesn't necessarily means it's longer in the end, but it does feel like it.
Just to keep expectations in check, a different article claimed it was about 2/3s through the game.
 
Top Bottom