Exclusive to Xbox One

Halo 5 release date: October 27 2015

The stakes could not be higher. Halo 5: Guardians is crucial both for the Xbox One this Christmas and for the future of the Halo franchise.

On one level, it has a big role to play in convincing potential console buyers that the Xbox One is the one to go for – and with a comparatively weak line-up of PS4 exclusives this year, there may never be a better opportunity.

However, it needs to make up for the launch issues of last year’s Master Chief Collection and win around those who still don’t trust 343 Industries with the series. That’s two weighty burdens on the Microsoft studio’s shoulders.

Luckily, having played two complete campaign missions and a fair chunk of multiplayer it looks like 343 has little to worry about. From what I’ve seen the title is classic Halo, but with a few new twists that up the scale, enhance the gameplay and give the latest entry into the iconic series a slick, modern shooter feel.

As you probably know, Halo 5’s campaign follows two protagonists, the Master Chief and Locke, as seen in last year’s Nightfall TV series. The man himself leads the first mission, Blue Team, the full version of the demo Sam enjoyed at this year’s Gamescom. It takes place on-board a ONI research station, with the Master Chief and his Spartan childhood chums, Blue Team, attempting to grab vital research before it falls into the hands of a Covenant faction.

A lot of Blue Team is classic Halo action. 30 seconds of blasting away at the covenant, over and over again. Work to flank and deal with the Elites, tackle the Jackals and mop up the grunts. Duck for cover when your shield runs down, then pop out again to deal more damage. Pause now and then for a break in the action. Rinse and repeat.

This isn’t a criticism, by the way. Expert pacing, strong level design, varied weapons and the emergent behavior of the enemy ensure that the combat never gets boring.

If Blue Team can feel a little too close to the Halo playbook, that only works to foreground what’s different this time around. Even playing solo you always have the other three members of Blue Team working with you, fighting alongside you and rushing in for a quick revive should you go down.

They’re smart enough to aid you, but not so smart that they’ll do all the fighting for you – though there are odd occasions where they’re inability to move to the next objective without your leadership makes them feel a little hollow. You can also instruct your AI team-mates with one-button commands to target specific enemies, or get them into a better tactical position.

This will take some getting used to, and that goes double for Halo 5’s other big change: An iron-sights view. Purists may continue screaming ‘heresy’, but the fact is, it does make it easier to use medium-range and long-range weapons and target enemies from a distance, and in close quarters firefights it still makes sense to shoot from the hip.

Blue Team also gets better as it continues. Beyond a potentially game-changing vision I saw two massive set-pieces. The first involved a Banshee-led assault on a reactor’s cooling systems, with some of Blue Team flying while the others tackle Covenant on the ground.

The other was a classic Halo last-ditch defense, as the Master Chief and his comrades fought to hold off wave after wave of Grunts, Elites and Hunters while a ship is prepped to get them off the base. If you love those big Halo firefights – the ones where you’re moving fast and thinking faster to handle an overwhelming threat – then you’ll love this. It’s as simple as that.

This was however just an appetizer for our first mission out with Spartan Locke. Enemy Lines finds him on Sanghelios, homeworld of the Elites, battling through canyons, arenas and ancient Covenant temples amongst stirring sun-baked scenery packed with angry Covenant troops.

Like The Master Chief, Locke is backed up by three Spartan buddies – Buck, Tanaka and Vale – with Nathan Fillion’s turn as Buck guaranteed to make him the year’s favourite in-game actor along with his performance as Destiny: The Taken King’s Cayde-6.

With the Covenant holding tricky defensive positions with wraiths and turrets, there’s an incredible sense of scale, helped by a more effective use of vertical spaces than I’ve seen in a Halo game before. With Team Osiris backing you up and more UNSC marines on the ground, you really feel like you’re at the vanguard of an attacking force, fighting an entrenched and desperate foe.

Halo 4’s Prometheans put in an appearance, too, And just when you think Halo 5 couldn’t get more epic, the Covenant bring out a vast, Canyon-filling Kraken – a multi-limbed Covenant death machine. Leaping into Phaetons to fly into and board the Kraken, it’s up to Osiris to plumb its interior and destroy it from within, battling Covenant on the way. Think of the Scarab battles from Halo 2, then just multiply the scale by a factor of 10.

It’s beautiful looking too. Not only can Halo 5 boast the most rich and detailed outdoors scenery I’ve ever seen in a Halo game, but Spartan and Covenant characters with convincing, fully-articulated battle armour.

There’s enough excitement in two missions of the single-player campaign to whet my appetite, and that’s without considering the revamped and enhanced multiplayer. Here 343 is trying to cater for two styles of play: The fast-paced, close-quarters action beloved by fans of Slayer and the e-sports community, and the large-scale, vehicles-enhanced warfare that helped make Halo such a multiplayer phenomenon.

But where previous Halos tried to handle both in the same game modes, Halo 5 takes the step of splitting them up into two: Arena and Warzone. I sampled Capture the Flag and Slayer from the Arena modes, and again they see you back in vintage Halo territory, dealing with a fantastic selection of weapons – including an absolute beauty of a bouncy plasma grenade launcher – and Halo 5’s new mechanics, flowing smoothly into shoulder barges, sprints, slides and ground-pounds.

It’s fast-moving, dynamic and hugely addictive. Meanwhile, Breakout, the stripped-back, one-life e-Sports variant I tried in last year’s Beta is still ferociously smart, deadly and tactical. The tension when you’re the last man standing on your team is palpable. If this doesn’t put Halo back on the tournament map then nothing will.

But the big news with this hands-on session was my first taste of Warzone: Halo 5’s new epic-scale battle mode. Here two teams of twelve Spartans face off across a large map, fighting to take and maintain control of three structures, at which point the enemy base becomes vulnerable to a final attack.

Taking these positions and slaying the enemy also earns you points, and by reaching the target figure you can also win the game. Successful play also helps your team to call in ‘reqs’ – weapons, vehicles, mechs and perks – which can be used to move the battle in your favour. The longer the match goes on, the bigger, better and more exciting these become.

Where Warzone takes things further, though, is in adding a Firefight/Horde mode flavour to the mix. While you’re busy fighting the other team, the map is regularly invaded by AI-controlled enemies, which may be Covenant or Promethean forces, waves of Wraiths or Banshees or even mini-Boss characters.

Handling these incursions will also earn you points. This makes Warzone so much more than another objective-based multiplayer mode. You and your team need to balance your basic objectives with the more dynamic targets that keep coming into play. Instead of squabbling over the same three control points, you need to keep moving, keep working and make sure that you get to the invaders and hit them first.

Warzone is a new experience for Halo players, but it’s also a whole lot of fun. There are curious shades of Destiny here when you’re working with your fellow Spartans to slaughter some bullet-sponge boss, but you always have to be aware that, while you’re blasting at them, the other team might be up to goodness knows what.

At times this can be annoying, as you take out a bunch of Covenant only to get splattered by some cheeky Spartan git in a speeding Ghost, but it helps keep things energetic and highly unpredictable. Warzone might end up being as undeservedly unloved as Halo: Reach’s enhanced Firefight mode, but if it takes off it could go down as one of the best things 343 has added to the series.

I hope it does. Playing Halo 5 it’s clear how much passion and thought is going into both its multiplayer and single-player campaign, and how much 343 hopes that the fans will connect. As a fan, I have high hopes for Halo 5, and in just a month’s time we’ll know if it measures up.