Halo 5: Guardians

 Xbox One
Metascore
84

Generally favorable reviews - based on 101 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 89 out of 101
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 101
  3. Negative: 0 out of 101
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  1. Ars Technica
    Dec 9, 2015
    Currently, there's still a lot of Halo 5 to love—and just about as much to raise our eyebrows at—but the multiplayer is the winner here. Even Warzone's card-collecting gimmick hasn't stopped us from loving the series' biggest battles yet, while our experiences in Arena have ranged from solid, standard Spartan blasting to some of the most eye-bulging fun we've had dueling on Xbox Live in years.
  2. The A.V. Club
    Dec 8, 2015
    Guardians feels like a huge missed opportunity to evolve Halo beyond simple combat.

Awards & Rankings

17
#17 Best Xbox One Game of 2015
1
#1 Most Discussed Xbox One Game of 2015
1
#1 Most Shared Xbox One Game of 2015

User Reviews

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User Score
6.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 3713 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,945 out of 3713
  2. Mixed: 747 out of 3713
  3. Negative: 1,021 out of 3713
  1. ll-ll-ll
    Oct 27, 2015
    10
    So Fun, Smooth & Tight. Halo 5 is a masterpiece in design and execution. Moving and gunning mechanics are top-notch, Warzone is superSo Fun, Smooth & Tight. Halo 5 is a masterpiece in design and execution. Moving and gunning mechanics are top-notch, Warzone is super addictive & the campaign is riveting. Even the UI is slick…you can really tell that 343i put a ton of love into this one. I’m already looking forward to all of the post-launch support coming our way. This is hands down the best FPS I have ever played.… Full Review »
  2. Falleax
    Oct 27, 2015
    7
    General game play:
    -Movement feels decently fast and fluid.
    -Almost every gun is viable and worth using in a variety of encounters, yet lack    General game play:
    -Movement feels decently fast and fluid.
    -Almost every gun is viable and worth using in a variety of encounters, yet lack the "oomph" that makes firing a gun fun.
    -Vehicles are durable and easy to control, with the exception of the Scorpion tank, which has awkward turning.
    -The HUD is very clean and informative, but some of the HUD's sound elements are annoying. Too many bleeps and bloops for dealing and receiving damage.

    Performance:
    -You will need to download a 9 GP patch on day one.
    -The game runs at a consistent 60 frames per second for the most part. Unfortunately it sacrifices resolution, texture quality and animation to achieve this.
    -The textures themselves are pretty bad, texture popping is everywhere and things in the distance are blurry.
    -Load times are surprisingly fast.

    Audio:
    -Halo 5's music has no identity. Most songs are either poorly made remixes of older Halo music, or just wander aimlessly until they end.
    -Voice acting is poor. This is not the fault of the voice actors, they clearly have talent, but whoever directed them did a poor job to capture my attention.
    -Grunt voices are annoyingly high pitched and try too hard to copy the humor of the grunts from the original trilogy. Jackals sound like cartoon birds.
    -General sound effects are pretty good.

    Campaign:
    -Halo 5's story is a confusing mess. It relies far too heavily on the assumption that the player is familiar with the expanded universe from the novels.
    If you haven't read any of the books, you wont have a clue who half the characters are. It just meanders along until it ends abruptly, almost as if a final level was cut.
    -The characters in the story are boring and lifeless, they never have anything clever or memorable to say and provide little reason to care about them.
    -Level design is mediocre. Most environments consist of hallways that lead into large open hallways with platforms to climb on.
    -There is a very good amount of enemy variety. The Forerunner enemies are especially improved since Halo 4, as are their weapons.
    -Enemy AI is nothing particularly impressive, yet some mechanics are very welcome. For example, a Hunter will now go berserk when their bond brother dies, becoming much more aggressive and powerful.
    -The 3 AI teammates are incredibly stupid and basically worthless.
    -You only play as Master Chief for 3 levels out of 15.

    Mutliplayer:
    -Most maps are too small and have poor map flow.
    -Spawning needs some work, especially for FFA. Too often have I spawned right next to an enemy player, or even in the middle of a gunfight and gotten killed.
    -Warzone is very fun. The maps for this gametype are very large and have a variety of paths to choose from to reach the objective.
    Fighting NPCs along with enemy players is a refreshing experience and very tense. Teamwork is especially important in this mode, though almost nobody every uses a mic to communicate with their teammates.
    -The matchmaking lobby is awful. When you join a lobby, nobody's name is visible, only their emblem. It's impossible to mute players in the lobby as well, so if someone is eating their mic, you have to wait for the game to start to mute them.
    -Matchmaking is pretty fast and runs on dedicated servers, so game ruining lag is rare.
    -Forge will not be in the game until December.

    Overall, Halo 5 is an alright game by itself, but a poor addition to the Halo series.
    It lacks the love and care that was put into the original trilogy and suffers from 343 Industries' attempts to make their version of Halo unique to the original Halo.    … Full Review »
  3. cdd
    Oct 27, 2015
    2
    Halo 5 has lost everything that was halo, playing with your friends in one room and yelling at the guy next to you for assassinating you orHalo 5 has lost everything that was halo, playing with your friends in one room and yelling at the guy next to you for assassinating you or screen peeking. and 2 people jumping on the guy with the tank so the other guy can kill the tank in game. its fun to play for one single person but because you cannot play splitscreen, in my opinion 343 industries you have ruined the HALO experience. Just go back and look at your favorite halo games, halo 2 and halo 3, halo 2 had one of the best stories ever and this story doesnt match up, not even close. halo 3 has forge and crazy splitscreen local playability. i remember the first map me and my brother made and played together, he was always building these intricate race courses and i would test them for him. but it never got boring. there was always something different. and you could always call a friend to come over and have a game night and play some halo together, not anymore. HALO 5 is no longer HALO it is now RANDOM SPACE-AGE SHOOTER 5. I will not be buying this after playing it at a friends house expecting to play halo, was extremely dissapointed.… Full Review »
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