‘Halo 5: Guardians’ Update Comes With Custom Games Browser
“Halo 5: Guardians” players, rejoice! Developer 343 Industries just announced the next free expansion for the first-person shooter, and it is designed to bring massive changes to Forge, Canon Fodder, Warzone and the Arena Matchmaking Playlists. The DLC is called “Monitor’s Bounty,” and it is the ninth free expansion for the game that was launched in October 2015.
Announcing the good news on Halo’s official website, 343 wrote that Monitor’s Bounty is its “very special present” to fans this time of the year. The developer noted that the DLC brings user experience-enhancing additions, such as new weapons, character skins, armor and more novel ways to build a custom game and play.
Included in this expansion is the biggest update for Forge, which was launched for PC early this year. Forge may have disappointed a lot of PC fans when it was released, since it primarily served as a means for players to create map content for the Xbox One community instead of providing the former with a means of enjoying the multiplayer aspect of the game. With the new update, PC players will finally get full access to the Forge and Arena modes. The custom game browser will also allow them to find matches or create their own.
Speaking of the custom browser, UX design lead Vincent Hui said, "We know getting a full fireteam together to run customs isn’t always easy, and while ‘Looking for Group’ is great for appointment gaming, sometimes you just want to jump in and discover something new. The new Custom Games Browser enables you to search for in-progress games from the main menu."
“This Custom Games Browser is something the team has wanted to add for a long time for the community, but we needed the Content Browser and the search engine that powers it up and running first,” Hui added before thanking fans for being patient with the release of the new update.
An Observer mode has been added as well, enabling players to access robust tools they can use in custom games. This shows the status and weapon details of the players during a match. This feature was first introduced during the 2016 Halo World Championship, and Hui believes that players will find this useful since it shows them how many of their characters have Power Weapons and Power-Ups.
In addition, DSOGaming learned from a Reddit leak that the upcoming update will launch with PC-specific fixes and improvements. The leak also mentioned tweaks for crash instances and enhancement on the response time of the mouse.
Alongside the release of this free expansion is the launch of Voices of War Req pack. This paid content includes three new multiplayer announcers, namely: Yabda the Merciless, Edward Buck and 031 Exuberant Witness, as per GameSpot.
More details about the ninth free expansion are arriving this Wednesday, Dec. 7 — a day prior its official release on Xbox One and PC this Thursday, Dec. 8.
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