If the flurry of announcements coming out of Microsoft’s camp is anything to go by, they’ve got some good stuff to talk about at E3. They’ve already announced the Kinect-less Xbox One release a few days ago, which would have been a big and popular move to make during their conference, but they’ve now also dropped details on one of their core franchises, with the newly subtitled Halo 5: Guardians, as shown in this teaser image:
They’ll certainly revisit both topics during their showing, but getting this out in the open now means they can quickly brush past it and move on to other reveals to get Xbox One fans excited. The main reason for this is that Halo 5 won’t be seeing the light of day until the autumn of 2015, which is quite a hefty wait for those eager to see another entry in Microsoft’s biggest franchise.
With 343 Industries at the helm once more, there seems to be a keen focus on quality, as General Manager Bonnie Ross wrote in the press release that “Making a Halo game that runs at 60 frames per second, on dedicated servers, with the scope, features and scale we’ve been dreaming of for more than a decade, is non-trivial. It’s a task that we, at 343 Industries, are taking very seriously to ensure we deliver the Halo game that fans deserve, and a game that is built from the ground up for Xbox One.”
In order to achieve this goal, they’re crafting a new game engine, which will hopefully get the very best out of Microsoft’s console. However, this isn’t the only plate spinning in the Halo franchise, as Bonnie also noted that the Halo TV series is also scheduled to arrive in late 2015, and indicated that these two projects are the “destination” that was hinted at when he previously wrote that Halo’s “journey” on Xbox One would start this year.
With more details to come in Microsoft’s E3 press conference on Monday 9th June, we can surely expect a more imminent dose of Halo goodness to arrive this year. A Halo 2 remake a fairly good bet, considering that 2014 is the 10th anniversary of the game’s original release.
Source: press release
Kennykazey
As long as they keep co-op, this should be good. I think targeting 60FPS is a smart move, not only does it cater to the CoD and Titanfall crowd, but it also means splitscreen should need little more than a drop to 30FPS. Halo 4 in particular took some serious graphical cuts to do splitscreen.
I wonder if they’ll market this as a DX12 enabled title?
And Halo 2 Anniversary is basically confirmed. That could make me diskinect with some money and buy an Xbox. (All the pun intended, I regret nothing!)
Stefan L
DX12 is very much a background feature for Xbox One. Devs might talk about what it offers them during development, but it’s not a real selling point. On Windows, it could be used to push a few more gamers to upgrade to Windows 8, since a lot of people are clinging on to 7, but it’s doubtful we’ll see Halo back on PC, so probably not there either.
I’ve tried playing Halo 2 a few times on PC, but the horrific DRM has always screwed me over when I’ve tried to come back to the game after hardware changes or a reinstall… Horrid stuff.
JR.
It sounds like they’re getting all the disappointing news out of the way(Kinectless XBO, No Halo till 2015 etc) so they can focus on the positive stuff at E3. Hopefully they have some incredible new games to announce because I have friends who were holding out for Halo 5 being released THIS fall and they will probably buy a PS4 now and get an XBO in 18 months.
boeboe
Yeah came across as like a mini relaunch the last few days.
Kris Lipscombe
Halo 2 Anniversary is likely, but they do some to be suggesting that something that pushes things forwards is coming this year, rather than something that simply celebrates the past. Two Halo titles in one year doesn’t seem all that likely though.
a inferior race
Halo 5 could persuade me to get an xbone unless they cock it up like they did with 4.