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“We really focused on putting the gameplay through its paces, and testing out the new Spartan abilities that are at the centre of the gameplay for Halo 5: Guardians. We were interested to see how people reacted to the abilities, and to see how the balance of those abilities played out in the wild. There was a gammut of everything we looked at, from weapon layout on maps, to weapon tuning and how various weapons are balanced against one another, making sure players couldn’t dominate with a single weapon,” said Holmes.

DelHoyo expanded on Holmes’ statement, explaining one of his team’s big takeaways from the beta was gauging how well its new features and balancing tweaks mesh together. In terms of significant takeaways from the beta, Holmes explained player visibility in certain arenas, as well as map layout, are significant issues his team plans to address.

“We’re even looking at, ‘Okay, this area has five entry points, maybe we should remove one of those entry points to give you a little bit more of a flow to the experience, to find the threats a little bit more,’ and have some interesting choke points; because some of the matches, I mean, people were like electrons. It was really hard to predict where people are going,” said DelHoyo.

When the beta launched, many longtime fans of the series were shocked to discover the ability to run was no longer limited as it had been in past Halo titles such as Halo: Reach and Halo 4, speeding up the game’s pace significantly. To offset the effectiveness of being able to constantly sprint, 343 Industries implemented a unique system preventing player’s shields from recharging until they stopped moving. But even with this gameplay mechanic, many hardcore fans still felt the beta was too fast when compared to past Halo titles.