There are many gamers who look back fondly on ’15 as one of more memorable years in gaming history mainly because there were so many high profile titles that were released that year that year. So many games from ’15 became commercial successes and attracted mainstream attention following their respective releases including Batman: Arkham Knight, Dying Light, Dragonball Xenoverse, Bloodbourne and many others. One of the biggest titles that came out back in ’15 as it related to the first person genre of gaming was Halo 5: Guardians. This game was published by Microsoft Studios and developed by 343 Industries and was the direct sequel to the critically acclaimed Halo 4 title from 2012. Halo 5: Guardians was an Xbox One exclusive and focused on Master Chief’s disappearance along with numerous world colonies being under attack. Halo 5: Guardians saw the debut of a new character known as Spartan Jameson Locke who ended up becoming the main deuteragonist in the game. Jameson Locke’s mission involved finding Master Chief following his disappearance one year following the events Halo 4. While the visual design for Halo 5: Guardians was pretty good in relation to the cutscene some argue that the gameplay graphics fell below desired expectations; especially considering the fact that Halo 5: Guardians was released for the Xbox One. The graphics for Halo 5: Guardians made the game look like it was released for the Xbox 360 opposed to the Xbox One which was more than capable of running games at 1080p. While Halo 5 having a larger campaign opposed to it predecessor was considered a strong positive the actual story for the game drew polarizing opinions from fans of the series.
The close and seemingly romantic relationship between Master Chief and Cortana emphasized in Halo 4 ended up feeling like a waste considering the fact that Cortana ends up turning evil in Halo 5. The most interesting part about Cortana becoming a anti-villain was the fact that she truly believed that her intentions were good. Cortana began to believe that the Forerunners never had bad intentions and that humans were preventing artificial intelligent lifeforms from reaching their full potential. According to the storyline for Halo 5: Guardians Cortana had this horrible condition known as Rampancy which made Cortana into what she became. Even though, Cortana became an anti-villain in Halo 5: Guardians she was not even the main antagonist who is revealed to be Warden Eternal the general of an interstellar empire known as the Created. Despite, Halo 5: Guardians being purely science fiction the story was interesting and somewhat unsettling since because it placed focuses on the violent uprising of artificial intelligence something that could potentially happen on earth in real-life. While some people have greater preference for the storyline in Halo 4 the Halo 5: Guardians game generated more revenue than its predecessor within the first few days following its release. In its opening week Halo 5: Guardians managed to earn at least $500 million in revenue for Xbox Studios while becoming the best selling video game for the Xbox One. Despite, the Halo series not being quite as popular as it was during the 00’s the Guardians title was pretty solid and was a massive commercial success overall.
Gaming Hearts Collection 