14 DAY TRIAL // The developers at 343 Industries and publisher Microsoft have surprised a lot of players by announcing the existence of Halo 5: Guardians, which is at the moment set to be launched on the Xbox One home console during the fall of 2015.
Frank O’Connor, the franchise development director working at the studio, is using the Halo Waypoint dedicated blog to give fans of the series a little more detail in the project and to explain why the company chose to reveal it just before the E3 2014 event in June.
He states, “getting the Halo 5: Guardians announce out of the way is a big weight off our shoulders. This audience has correctly stated and assumed that you can’t necessarily squish a full Halo game into anything less than a three year development schedule – and at least up to and including Halo 5: Guardians, that’s more or less true.”
O’Connor explains that the move to the Xbox One is a chance for the development team at 343 Industries to explore not just new ways of improving the look of Master Chief and the universe associated with it, but to actively think about the gaming genre it is using in new ways.
The franchise development director also says that his team is aiming high by trying to create a 60 FPS experience but wants to offer the best possible experience to its fans
The franchise development director adds, “Previous Halo titles, Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 for example, strove to push the entire ecosystem forward – dual stick FPS with big open spaces in the case of Combat Evolved, and broadband matchmaking in Halo 2 – are just a couple of examples of the series innovating or amplifying ideas.”
For Halo 5: Guardians, this means that 343 Industries will push the ecosystem built around the franchise, the first-person shooter genre and the lore of the universe.
O’Connor also makes several mentions of more surprises for the fan base, which might be linked to an upcoming announcement planned for the E3 2014 Microsoft press conference.
Fans have been speculating that more remakes for older Halo titles might be delivered, but the company might be planning to announce another new game, which could expand the series to another genre.
Microsoft has recently announced that it is dropping the Kinect motion tracking system from the Xbox One retail package and the announcement of a new Halo title might help boost sales of the next-gen device.