Last year, Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched and while fans enjoyed getting the chance to relive the series' origins, the game's multiplayer experience was less than ideal. 343 Industries took to heart the things that transpired last year and seem to have a renewed sense of focus with Halo 5: Guardians' multiplayer.

Multiplayer has always been such an important part of the Halo experience and so when it has a slip up, it becomes a big problem because of said importance. Microsoft and 343 have learned from the things that happened last year and hope to inject them into this year's title, resulting in a smooth launch.

It can always be difficult for developers to try and mimic the type of environment they'll actually see come launch, but 343 Industries is focused on redeeming themselves this year. Xbox One boss Phil Spencer recently spoke about the work that 343 is doing on Halo 5's multiplayer.

"I know that of all of our teams, no team at their core feels the need to hit a great launch from a multiplayer and connection issues more than 343. That team took the issues around the launch of Master Chief Collection, it kind of hit them in the heart, because it's Halo Nation. It's the people who love these past Halo games.

"I just know every time I've been down to 343, it's the first thing that they want to talk about is how they're doing with multiplayer and the robustness that we mentioned. No team is focused on it more than 343. The planning and process teams have gone through has been great, and I'm confident in how it will launch based on the results that we're seeing," Spencer told GameSpot.

Halo 5's experience is largely based around the campaign and multiplayer, so when one of those areas trips up, it can be difficult for the situation not to become serious. The multiplayer beta that Microsoft held during the beginning of this year surely helped 343 get some sort of idea for how servers will react to a high amount of traffic, but there really is nothing that can mimic launch traffic, except for launch itself.

343 Industries has made Halo their own and this year's iteration could be their crowning achievement with the franchise. Will Halo 5 turn out to be the vision 343 has in mind? We'll find out come Oct. 27 when Guardians launches exclusively on Xbox One.



Posted: Oct 01, 2015 5:43 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/xbox-one-boss-on-halo-5-multiplayer-no-team-is-more-focused-than-343