‘Halo 5’ Big Team Battle Arrives In November Update With More REQ Content

Halo 5: Guardians players enjoying the multiplayer, but itching for Big Team Battle won’t have to wait long. 343 Industries announced details for the November update to the Xbox One exclusive shooter on Friday, which includes the launch of Big Team Battles along with new REQ content plus significant tweaks to playlists and settings. There is one important caveat to the maps being introduced to the classic multiplayer mode, though.

The November content update for Halo 5 will drop the week of November 15 and will add Big Team Battle with four maps to the Arena matchmaking bucket. Interestingly, these maps were not created by 343 Industries. These are Forge maps created by some of the top Forge map makers and inspired by Sidewinder / Avalanche, Standoff, Burial Mounds, Longbow, and Headlong.

“Each map maker selected a classic map on which to base their Big Team Battle map design, 343 Industries Community Manager Andy “Bravo” Dudynksy wrote on Halo Waypoint. “These guys built day and night, continually preparing and perfecting their maps for the next playtest with the multiplayer and level design teams.

“At the end of the week, we had solid canvases that offered a wide variety of BTB combat, and this meant that it was time for the maps to be handed off to the 343 team for continued iteration and development. The Forgers continued to provide feedback and direction for the map, and the team here at the studio continued to iterate on flow, polish, spawn and objective placement, look and feel, and more. For the past few months, these maps have been playtested and polished in preparation for the release of Big Team Battle, and in just over a week, the first four maps will be available in Arena matchmaking.”

The new maps are Deadlock, inspired by Standoff; Basin, inspired by Valhalla; Guillotine, inspired by Headlong; and Recurve, inspired by Longbow. The inspiration for the Big Team Battle maps are readily apparent, but the Halo 5 community has had mixed reactions to the first maps released being Forge created maps.

“I really am disappointed that the BTB maps are forge but at least we’re getting some,” goodbritinusa wrote on Reddit.

“Ditto. Inspired by Vahala is great but I’d love to see it properly remade in the beauty and detail it deserves,” angryeyebrows replied.

The main complaints are on how the Forge maps look compared to those created using 343 Industries more powerful tools. The textures and lighting are not the same quality in Forge maps, which makes the Forge maps come across rather bland compared to the 343 Industries made maps.

Meanwhile, an entire new set of REQ content is coming in the same November update that brings Big Team Battle to Halo 5. The graphic provided by 343 Industries showing a peek of what is to come includes eight new armor sets, two new Light Rifles, five new weapon skins, 16 new vehicle variants, a new visor, a new knee to the face assassination, and seven new emblems.

Since acquiring these items is completely random, it will be interesting to see how the community reacts to an ever growing list of possible REQs. Will it become too many items to collect or will the variety of items keep the Halo 5 community engaged? REQ Packs have proven to be insanely popular so far with a huge amount purchased in the first week of the game resulting in a $500,000 increase in the Halo Championship Series prize pool.

343 Industries did drop a small update to Halo 5 on Friday that updated the game’s multiplayer playlist to include Shotty Snipers for the weekend along with other changes. The Orion map has been removed from all playlists to patch some exploits and “additional improvements.”

Warzone matching was also updated as part of the Halo 5 playlist update to make finding players quicker and easier as well as to prioritize matching players with others in their region to improve connections.

Future updates planned for Halo 5 include Warzone Assault tuning, changing SWAT respawns to three second and turning off friendly fire in the game mode, plus Competitive Skill Rank (CSR) tweaks. The start of Halo 5 multiplayer seasons and seasonal rewards are also coming along with tweaks to the current ban thresholds.

Controller updates are planned as well for future Halo 5 updates starting with a bug affecting some players’ ability to turn quickly. The ability to tune vertical and horizontal sensitivities is also targeting the December update along with the ability to calibrate your own dead zones, more granularity in sensitivity, and other tweaks.

What do you think of the first round of Halo 5 updates so far? Sound off in the comments below.

[Image via Halo Waypoint]