History VideoGame / Halo5Guardians

''Halo 5: Guardians'' is a direct sequel to ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'', and the fifth mainline game in the ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' franchise. It is developed Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries and released on UsefulNotes/XboxOne on October 27th 2015.

Set one year after the events of ''Halo 4'', Master Chief John-117 has been reeling from the death of his former AI partner Cortana, who sacrified herself to save Chief in his defeat of the Didact. While on a routine mission with his SPARTAN-II teammates titled Blue Team, he and they go AWOL following strange signals coming from deep space and admist attacks on human colonies.

In response, the UNSC assigns SPARTAN-IV Jameson Locke (a former Office of Naval Intelligence agent introduced in ''Film/HaloNightfall'') and his squad named Fireteam Osiris to track down the Chief. But as Osiris chases down Blue Team, things soon get complicated, and the discoveries that are made could potentially changer the greater galaxy forever.

On the gameplay side, Armor Abilities have been removed, being replaced by a uniform set of ''Spartan Abilities''. Instead of customizing your combat with one particular item like a JetPack, SprintShoes or [[DopplegangerSpin Hologram projector]], you have a small scale booster pack that gives a selection of new combat movements like vaulting over a wall, sliding into cover, stabilizing mid-air firing and slamming to the ground. Additionally, teamwork plays a much larger role than in previous campaigns, since Locke and John are accompanied by their respective teams, SPARTAN-II Blue Team and SPARTAN-IV Fireteam Osiris. The player Spartan can call commands to their NPC teammates, letting them charge or hold position, target specific enemies, and switch their current weapons.

With regards to multiplayer, the game has been split into two basic modes, Arena and Warzone. Arena contains the gametypes from previous ''Halo'' games (and adds a few new ones of its own), and was designed to reflect classic Creator/{{Bungie}}-era gameplay. In fact, the loadout customization and ordinance drops introduced in ''Halo 4'' have been completely removed in Arena; all players now spawn with the same loadout, and the focus is on controlling weapons already present on the map.

The game involved an open beta in December-January 2014/15 for 3 weeks, one of the longest and earliest betas ever done before launch. In addition, a 2015 ad campaign titled ''ARG/HuntTheTruth'' ran from late March to near the end of October, and includes a series of live action videos and voice clips. It can be found [[http://huntthetruth.tumblr.com/ here]]. This is also the first non-spin-off ''Halo'' game to receive a T for teen rating instead of a M for mature from the ESRB.

* AbelAndCain: One series of audio logs details the relationship between two Elite brothers fighting on opposite sides of the war between the Arbiter's forces and the Covenant. The logs end with [[spoiler:them achieving a MutualKill]].

''[[Music/{{Muse}} No one's gonna]] [[Music/KnightsofCydonia take me alive...]]''

Set one year after the events of ''Halo 4'', Master Chief John-117 has been reeling from the death of his former AI partner Cortana, who sacrified herself to save Chief in his defeat of the Didact. While on a routine mission with his SPARTAN-II teammates titled Blue Team, he and they go AWOL following strange signals coming from deep space and attacks on human colonies.

''Halo 5: Guardians'' is a direct sequel to ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'', released October 27th 2015. Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries introduced the game as a "bigger effort" than ''Halo 4'', and the first ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' game to be exclusive to the UsefulNotes/XboxOne. Following the events of ''Halo 4'', Master Chief John-117 has gone AWOL following strange signals coming from deep space and attacks on human colonies. In response, SPARTAN-IV Jameson Locke (a former Office of Naval Intelligence agent introduced in ''Film/HaloNightfall'') is assigned to track down the Master Chief.

''Halo 5: Guardians'' enjoyed the biggest launch of the ''Halo'' franchise's history, with a whopping $400M in US dollars in sales.

!Spoilers for ''all'' ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' games preceding this one will be left unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!

* ContinuityLockout: The previous games never really explored the full history of the Spartan SuperSoldier program, leaving it to expanded media like ''Literature/HaloTheFallOfReach'', and they treated Master Chief as the LastOfHisKind (outside of some easily missed dialogue in ''VideoGame/Halo4''). The expanded works did reveal that some other Spartan-[=IIs=] survived, but Blue Team and their long relationship with Master Chief is treated as established information to the player when this is actually the first time the games have directly featured them.

The game involved an open beta in December-January 2014/15 for 3 weeks, one of the longest and earliest betas ever done before launch. In addition, a 2015 ad campaign titled ''ARG/HuntTheTruth'' ran from late March to near the end of October, and includes a series of live action videos and voice clips. It can be found [[http://huntthetruth.tumblr.com/ here]]. This is also the first non-spin-off ''Halo'' game to receive a T for teen rating instead of a [[MatureRating M for mature]] from the ESRB.

* ShutUpHannibal: Fireteam Osiris basically no-sells all of [[spoiler:Cortana]]'s attempts to verbally break them, with Locke straight up telling the rest of the team to ignore her.

* BookEnds: ''"Took you long enough."'' First said by Halsey to Locke after Osiris successfully saves her at the end of the first mission, then [[spoiler:said to the Master Chief himself after both Blue Team and Osiris return to Sanghelios to plan their next move after escaping Genesis. Given the fact that the last time Halsey saw the Chief was back in 2552, this line has a fair amount of emotional weigh.]]

* OldSoldier: Downplayed. Buck is by far the most seasoned soldier on Fireteam Osiris (in fact, he's over twice Vale's age), having served in the UNSC for almost 30 years of his life and fighting through almost the entire Covenant War. In gameplay he is every bit as powerful as his younger teammates, but some cutscenes show him struggling to keep up a bit.
* TheOner: The opening cinematic has Locke's team assaulting a Covenant army, with all four Spartans given time to shine, and the camera doesn't cut once.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: While the background lore had already long established Jackals to be impious HiredGuns, this is the first time their mercenary ways are directly referenced in-game. The Jackals themselves even occasionally yell "For Profit!" as a battle cry!

-->'''Dimkee Hotay:''' So, um, how come do you figure stuff looks different sometimes? Like guns, or the Arbiter? Like do you remember being more purpler? I do! Eh, maybe it's just my eyes getting smart, but I swear sometimes it's like a whole spaceship is different and nobody says anything. I mean was the Gravemind [[DarkerAndEdgier always so much scary]]? I dunno, [[{{Narm}} he was like a big puppet, big flabby thing]]. [[OnlySaneMan Eh, maybe it's just me that notices stuff.]]

* ControllableHelplessness: Cutscenes along this fashion are much less prevalent then the last game, but the penultimate level still uses the "crawl along the ground with button prompts to touch this button" segment, just like ''4''[='s=] finale.

* DefrostingIceQueen[=/=]OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Halsey's tearful begging of Locke to bring John home is a stark contrast to her usual cold personality.

--> '''Warden Eternal''': [[IAmYourOpponent I am the Warden Eternal]], [[BadassBookworm Keeper of the Domain and her secrets.]]

* FilkSong: "[[https://youtu.be/Ppsa_DIkJes Friends to Foes]]", courtesy of Music/MiracleOfSound.

* HesBack: ''Halo 5'' sees the return of Arbiter Thel 'Vadam, as well as [[VideoGame/Halo3ODST Edward]] [[Creator/NathanFillion Buck]] (who's now a Spartan-IV in Locke's squad).

* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Toward the end, in a comprehensive KickTheDog, [[spoiler:Cortana]] gives TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to each member of Fireteam Osiris. Unfortunately, the only thing [[VideoGame/Halo3ODST Eddie Buck]] got out of it is that [[Funny/Halo5Guardians she called him old]].

-->HYPER ATTACK!
-->NEEDLE CANNON!
-->ROBO PUNCH!
-->MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION!
-->YOU'RE DEAD, AND I WILL LIVE FOREVER!

-->'''[[spoiler:031 Exuberant Witness]]:''' [[spoiler:You took my installation! I will take something of yours! ''(the Cryptum detaches from the Guardian and begins to descend)'']]\\
'''[[spoiler:Cortana]]:''' [[spoiler:''(as her Guardian disappears into slipspace)'' [[VillainousBreakdown JOHN]]!]]

** And Halsey's {{Troll}}ing of an Unggoy makes him think he has a chance with ''her''. [[CriticalResearchFailure Well, when her eggs spew out of her body when she's ready to be fertilized, anyway.]]

* OldSoldier: Downplayed. Buck is by far the most seasoned soldier on Fireteam Osiris (in fact, he's over twice Vale's age), having served in the UNSC for almost 30 years of his life and fighting through almost the entire Covenant War. In gameplay he is every bit as powerful as his younger teammates, but some cutscenes show him struggling to keep up a bit.

** PlayedForLaughs. As listed under ArtEvolution, there's one Unggoy on the side of the Swords of Sanghelios who notices the franchise's various changes in art style, including updated renders. Nobody else does.

* PinballProtagonist: If all of Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris just took the day off and did nothing, the ending would play out in pretty much the exact same way; nothing they did ended up affecting anything major story-wise, and the Spartans themselves are basically no different from what they started off as. The only major thing actually achieved - [[spoiler:rescuing Halsey and killing 'Mdama]] - occurs in the ''first level''.

-->'''Locke''': [[spoiler:Cortana]] is ''our'' problem now.
-->'''Master Chief''': ...Like ''hell'' she is.

** The removal of Armor Abilities brings the franchise back to a more skill-based gameplay system that made ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' and ''[[VideoGame/{{Halo 3}} 3]]'' so competitive. The integration of Spartan Abilities still offers a new experience, but you no longer have to concern yourself with which class will help you win the current match.

* RobotWar[=/=]TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: [[spoiler:The crux of the main plot involves an alliance of rogue [=AIs=] led by Cortana gathering an army of Forerunner robots and using them to take over the galaxy and imposing their rule upon the organic races. This only comes about because they believe that Cortana, not John-117, is the Reclaimer.]]

* SerialEscalation: The original trilogy focused on switching between human vehicles and weapons and Covenant vehicles and weapons, keeping a balance between familiar concepts and more exotic alien designs. Halo 4 introduced a new subset of Forerunner weapons, being differentiated in both design aesthetics and HardLight projectiles. Halo 5 ramps everything up by introducing Forerunner vehicles, and then including multiple variations of every available weapon for use in multiplayer.

* VillainousBreakDown: [[spoiler:Cortana has one when Exuberant Witness is able to free Chief and prevent her from taking him with her.]]
* VillainousCrush: [[spoiler:Cortana seems to have one on Chief. Emphasizing how she wants him to be there when she takes over the galaxy and being visibly broken up after he says her plans are evil. Taking Chief prisoner rather than killing him when he continues to defy her, and having a VillainousBreakdown when he is taken from her.]]

* WhamLine: Introduced in the E3 2015 Trailer:
--> '''Lasky''': At 0631 this morning, Master Chief was declared Absent With-Out Leave.
** During the mission "Genesis":

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: When you realize [[spoiler:Warden Eternal]] is in love with Cortana, then it becomes clear that the reason he is so eager to kill Master Chief is that [[spoiler:Cortana is in love with Chief and not him]]. All of his dialog aimed at [[spoiler:the Chief]] now sounds like a jealous boyfriend, because that's what he ''is''. And he keeps getting slapped on the nose like a bad puppy by Cortana. Anyone else, he'd have been enraged. With her, he's ''anguished''.
* WorldOfBadass: The game focuses in on this aspect of the Halo universe. From Blue Team to Fireteam Osiris, from the Swords of Sanghelios to [[spoiler:the various AI both pro- and anti-organics]], the entire game gives spotlight to some of the most badass people in the games as a whole and puts them all together.

* AmmoUsingMeleeWeapon: The Energy Sword and Gravity Hammer, which have limited charges but cannot be reloaded, aswell as their multiplayer variants.

** Buck's HUD is orange in color, as a nod to ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST''.

** [[spoiler:031 Exuberant Witness stealing back the Cryptum from [[AGodAmI Cortana]] with ''millions'' of Constructors smacks of this.]]

* FallingDamage: This returns, but in a far more [[Downplayed]] form. In the campaign, you only take a small amount of damage even from larger drops, while in multiplayer it's absent entirely.

* UngratefulTownsfolk: The whole colony on Meridian. The settlers offer no help or respect to Team Osiris, despite having just been saved by them ''literally'' a few minutes earlier. Instead, the colonists blatantly show their distrust of the UNSC and accuse Osiris of having some sinister ulterior motive. Governor Sloan himself is just barely cooperative, keeping the squad at arms reach, even though they saved his entire colony. [[spoiler:Of course, Sloan's attitude can be explained by the fact that he's actually working for Cortana.]]

* VillainousCrush: [[spoiler:Cortana shows shades of this towards Chief. Putting a lot of emphasis on wanting him there to see her become ruler of the galaxy. Being visibly broken up over him saying her plans are evil. Then trying to imprison and take him with her rather then killing him for resisting her like she plans to do with everyone else.]]

* GoodVsGood: Master Chief, being TheHero of the franchise, certainly garners the benefit of the doubt for anything he might have done. Agent Locke, although an ONI agent, is also proven to be level headed and is just doing his job with the intention of protecting humanity. The TagLine of the game is "Hunt for the Truth"; they both have the same goals but are in conflict with each other. Cutscenes make it clear that many people in-universe--particularly the Arbiter, Captain Lasky, and Buck--seem to want to just trust the Master Chief.