343 Industries Studio Head Takes It To ‘Halo 5: Guardains’ Fans Over Framerate Claims

One of the major changes of Halo 5: Guardians is not just the inclusion of additional Spartans, namely Spartan Locke and Fireteam Osiris, but also the decision by 343 Industries to move Halo 5 to 60 frames-per-second. While many fans of the shooter genre have praised the move, a lot of die-hard, hardcore Halo fans have been a bit contentious over the decision to bring Halo into the realm of the faster-paced shooters. Many felt that this move would make the game feel more like Call of Duty, something that it does not do, in fact. Bringing Halo 5: Guardians to 60fps actually helps the experience, as the Inquisitr has detailed previously.

However, after a while the argument remains, which has many fans upset: What had to be given up in order to achieve 60fps? One of the more glaring omissions from the game is the lack of a split-screen co-op mode, with many pointing out that the power of the console just isn’t enough to push out splitscreen 60 fps. This was seen in full effect during the Star Wars: Battlefront beta, where the single player game ran at 60fps, while splitscreen locked the gameplay at 30fps.

So what’s Halo 5: Guardians studio head Josh Holmes to do when continually confronted by fans who continue to lambaste the studio for moving to 60fps? Take it directly to those fans, of course.

In the forums on Halo Waypoint, Josh Holmes responded to a fan’s (user Cursed Lemon) statement that “60 fps does not help the gameplay” with a rather interesting response, one which many have accused the Halo 5: Guardians studio head of mocking the fans.

Further down the forum, more fans were making the same claims, stating that the bump in framerate doesn’t affect the gameplay, but rather a personal visual comfort choice. Holmes responded again, pointing out that 60fps does directly translate to gameplay, despite some claims otherwise.

“Framerate directly impacts the moment to moment connection between player input and what is drawn to screen. It’s logically incoherent for you to complain on the one hand about any extra frame of animation drawn between actions in the game and then turn around and state that framerate has no meaningful impact on gameplay beyond visual comfort. That is factually incorrect.

Whether you perceive this as mocking or not is up to your personal view. However, what Josh is saying isn’t inherently wrong here, though the point many fans make is that the 30fps mark is more their gaming preference. To debate the personal preferences of someone regarding 30 or 60fps is pointless because everyone will have a different opinion, but to state that one doesn’t directly impact what you see on screen and more importantly your interaction with the game is factually untrue.

However, as stated above, the reason why a lot of fans are upset over the framerate bump isn’t inherently because of the extra frames, but what has been stripped from the game to achieve this. Halo 5: Guardians is still suffering the PR sting of having to remove split-screen from the game, a feature that can be argued helped to launch Halo in the franchise that it is today. Many complain that the trade-off between framerate and resolution on console is a detriment, with PC users continuing to point out that you don’t need to trade off the two if the hardware is powerful enough.

How do you feel the responses from the Halo 5: Guardians developer? Do you feel the way he responded is mocking or rather pointing out the truth of the argument? Should Halo 5: Guardians have been bumped to 60fps, or do you think it was fine at 30? Sound off on your thoughts below.

[Images via Microsoft, Forums Screengrab]