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343 Industries outlines how user feedback has helped Halo 5 development

343 Industries has posted a detailed blog on how fan feedback from the Halo 5: Guardians beta has impacted development of the game. From weapon tweaking to movement speed, just about every aspect of Halo 5 has been altered based on user feedback from the beta and the Halo Community Feedback Program, a collection of over dedicated 19,000 Halo players polled for their opinions on the game.

While ‘beta’ has become synonymous with ‘demo’ in recent times, the Halo 5 beta was much closer to the true definition, getting the game in players hands early to help balance the all important multiplayer game. As a result 343 is making a large number of changes to the game and a lot more features will become optional. The highlights of these changes include:

  • Increased base speed and reduced sprint speed, and a toggle to disable sprint in custom games
  • Adjustment of scope for the sniper rifle and DMR
  • Reducing the bonuses for automatic weapons when in zoomed ‘smart-link’ mode
  • Opt-in for death-cam and Spartan multiplayer chatter
  • Improved skill matching and team balancing, though 343 reinforced their stance that only team results should contribute to a players skill rating, not individual efforts
  • General improvements to matchmaking

Josh Holmes, executive producer for Halo 5, described the beta as “an amazing gift for us” in terms of feedback. It sounds like Halo 5 will be a better game for the experience, and hopefully it will be a lesson to other developers that a beta can be used as more than just a stress test for server loads. You can check out our impressions of the beta here.


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About the author

Stuart Gollan

From Amiga to Xbox One, Doom to Destiny, Megazone to Stevivor, I've been gaming through it all and have the (mental) scars to prove it. I love local multiplayer, collecting ridiculous Dreamcast peripherals, and Rocket League.