343 Industries wants to keep Halo 5: Guardians owners playing the Xbox One shooter. That’s why the developer announced during a new system during a Twitch stream to reward players with REQ Packs with a Daily Win bonus in both Warzone and Arena multiplayer modes. More details about the Cartographer’s Gift update, due this week, was also revealed.
Starting this weekend, Halo 5 players will earn a free REQ Pack with their first win of the day in both Arena and Warzone. So, that is potentially two REQ Packs that can be earned every day in addition to the REQ Packs that can be purchased from the points earned while playing multiplayer.
REQ Packs were not exactly hard to come by in Halo 5 . As covered in the Halo 5 REQ Tips and Tricks article, Warzone matches can reward a couple of thousand REQ points, while Arena match typically hover around a thousand or less. REQ Packs themselves cost 1,250 points for the Bronze Pack, 5,000 for the Silver pack, and 10,000 for the Gold pack. So, it’s not particularly hard to get REQ Packs to begin with.
That said, the community appears to be enjoying the Daily Win bonus in Halo 5, as several posts have been made in the game’s Reddit group and elsewhere showing off the REQs received. The packs appear to be giving away more rare items than usual, with Reddit user jasamples showing off a Prophet’s Bane Energy Sword and Twin Jewels of Methrillian Forerunner Rifle from a single pack. Meanwhile, Smyro received a Prophet’s Bane, as well, plus the Oathsworn Shotgun.
343 Industries also covered the new controller settings that will be available for Halo 5 players. The options should give players even more finer controller over their actions in game and allow for some truly spectacular plays in highly skilled hands.
“Look Acceleration” is one of the new settings that will be available following the release of the Cartographer’s Gift update. The default setting is three, and it will determine how quickly movement controlled by the right thumbstick will accelerate when pushed to the edge.
The “Inner Dead Zone” is measured in percentages and will determine how much the thumbsticks will need to move from center before being recognized. This is to compensate for “drift” that occurs when a thumbstick doesn’t quite return to zero. Those with well-conditioned or high quality controllers can expect the percentage to be low. Those with controllers that have seen quite a bit of wear and tear will likely have to put the setting high.
Finally, the “Outer Dead Zone” is in response to the “slow turn” problem experienced by some Halo 5 players. This determines the sensitivity when pushing the right thumbstick all the way to the edge. 343 Industries found that those that pushed the thumbstick down while turning were the ones experiencing the “slow turn” glitch the most.
The suggestion from 343 Industries for both the “Inner Dead Zone” and “Outer Dead Zone” settings is for players to start each at zero and then bump the percentages up to experiment with how the controller feels with both. For example, continue to increase the “Inner Dead Zone” percentage until there is no longer any drift with the thumbsticks untouched.
The Cartographer’s Gift will release for Halo 5 sometime during the week starting December 14. Tuesday or Wednesday are the typical release dates for the Xbox One. It includes more than 25 new REQs including armors, weapons, emblems, and two hilariously brutal new assassinations called “Oh Snap” and “Nice Try.” The latter of the two is in the image below.
New maps are also coming with the Halo 5 Cartographer’s Gift update. The new Warzone map is named “Battle of Noctus,” and is the first to have a city setting. The map features roads, walking paths, and tall buildings for the two teams of 12 players to battle each other and AI-controlled enemies.
There is also the “Overgrowth” Arena map, which is a remix of “Plaza.” The map has been retooled to give an I Am Legend feel, with the map overgrown by grass and trees.
The big part of the update, though, is Forge. The map editing tool will now be available in Halo 5, and has received significant changes from Halo 4 . Full details are best caught over at Halo Waypoint .
[Image via Halo Waypoint ]