Halo 5 had a rocky release, while the core gameplay was generally well received, lack of content plagued its multiplayer: No Big Team Battle, no Grifball, no Regicide, no Assault or Infection, it was an anemic Halo experience. However, 343 Industries gave the game every ounce of effort they could in terms of improving and reworking it until it felt like a proper Halo experience, with a total of 9 total updates, the level of effort that went into each update matched how Dice treated Battlefield 4. Its been a year since the release of Halo 5, and 343 is celebrating it with the release of probably the most important content update the game has gotten so far. Its called Monitor”s Bounty, and it will release on thursday, December 14th.
Monitor”s Bounty has a lot of added features, firstly, there is a custom games browser now, Halo 5 is finally utilizing its custom servers to their full potential and that is one of the most requested features so fans are probably glad about this feature. Next, Observer Mode is going to be added and it allows to spectate with complete freedom over any match. Forge minigames are also going to be added, details are few but we can hope they are similar to the ones seen in Halo 3 and Halo Reach. New REQ packs are going to be added and they include quite the variety of weapons and armor, including two completely new weapons, the Grenade Launcher and the Safeguard Sentinel Beam. Lastly, now any player can gift REQ packs to other players, a neat little feature that could make for some interesting dinamics with Spartan Companies.
I fell out of Halo 5 even though I played it for months, but these updates are making me reconsider picking it up again, it does look like 343 Industries wants to make the best game possible, it does make wonder what they are going to do with Halo 6.