Halo 5: Guardians launches exclusively for Xbox One on October 27, 2015, Microsoft announced.
The release date revelation comes along with two live-action commercials that set up what looks to be one of the game’s central conflicts, between iconic series protagonist the Master Chief and UNSC Spartan Locke, star of Halo: Nightfall, a live-action, spin-off web miniseries that aired in December, 2014. The parallel ads square the two gravelly-voiced bad-asses off against one another, raising questions about whether the Master Chief will be portrayed as a hero or a traitor.
Which of these manly men truly has humanity’s best interests at heart? We will have to wait until October to find out.
This line of questioning, challenging the accepted narrative that the Master Chief is mankind’s savior, is a direct extension of the in-universe, Serial-style, Hunt the Truth podcast that launched recently. In it, fictional war journalist Benjamin Giraud (played by none other than Key and Peele‘s Keegan-Michael Key) digs into the Master Chief’s life story, uncovering more questions than answers. The first episode, which examines the Master Chief’s childhood, is available now.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, Halo 5 is in fact the sixth main installment in Microsoft’s flagship, first-person shooting franchise. When aliens attack the colony worlds, the Master Chief mysteriously goes missing, and possibly rogue. Spartan Jameson Locke must team up with the Master Chief’s old ally, ex-Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam, to hunt down the Master Chief and deal with a mysterious new threat to Galactic safety.
This is the second entry in the series from 343 Industries, which assumed the mantle with Halo 4 after series-creator Bungie ended its contract with Microsoft and left to develop Destiny. The game underwent a limited, multiplayer beta test in December/January.
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