YMMV / Halo 5: Guardians

• Base-Breaking Character: Barring Buck, Fireteam Osiris has gotten this:
  • Locke didn't have the best reputation with fans after Halo: Nightfall, which was regarded at best as So Okay, It's Average, but gained more detractors after killing Jul 'Mdama in a cutscene. Many are noting parallels with Locke and Sarah Palmer, in being a character 343 are shilling and attempting to make the viewer like without offering much in the way of reasons to like them beyond being badasses. That said, some are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and note that future games and novels could flesh him out more. His ability to go toe-to-toe with the Chief himself didn't completely endear him to some either. Like Tanaka below though, some fans feel that he has a gradual arc over the game that gives him much more characterisation than meets the eye.
  • Vale has this as well. Her backstory has her teaching herself the Sangheili language at age eleven within six months, even proving some AI wrong, and quickly becoming a top-notch Spartan despite her youth and inexperience and the fact that she spent most of her previous military career in a non-combat role... and aside from all that, she comes off as a Flat Character in the game itself. Like with Locke above, some are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and wait for future novels and games to flesh her out more; it also helps that the work she debuted in (and her characterization in it), Halo: Hunters in the Dark, was generally a lot better received than Nightfall.
  • Tanaka can come across as even more generic than Vale, with not even her role as The Smart Guy being enough to set her apart from the others. She comes off as something of a pessimist, having had a hard life in the Outer Colonies, but for the most part she serves mostly to give exposition while the team is on Meridian. It didn't help that the work she appeared in beforehand, Halo: Escalation, had elicited mixed responses at best (and that her characterization even there was almost entirely relegated to only two short issues). However, some fans feel that she has a very subtle character arc of coming out of her shell around Osiris.
• Best Level Ever: The levels set on Sanghelios, from "Swords of Sanghelios" to "Battle of Sunaion", are collectively considered the best levels in Halo 5's campaign. Not only were the levels considered a Breather after the first fights against the Warden Eternal, but fans were exhilarated to see the Sangheili homeworld and Arbiter Thel 'Vadam himself.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In "Battle of Sunaion", you can find at one point a large group of Grunts gathered around a hologram of a Guardian and very harmoniously singing one of the themes from the game's score (specifically, the chant from "Covenant Prayer"). And yes, you're free to go around/destroy the shield protecting them and violently break up their worship session. The odd thing about it is that they're completely ignoring a brutal war going on potentially a few feet away from them.
• Broken Base: Has its own page.
• Contested Sequel: A lot of the gameplay changes were welcomed by the fanbase, as they placed emphasis on being a Super-Soldier in Powered Armor while still maintaining Competitive Balance. Multiplayer was very popular for that reason, as regular updates with maps and gametypes gave more play value over a long period of time. The main campaign, on the other hand, was very divisive as the four player co-op stunted the One-Man Army feel and gave loads of characters that didn't contribute much to the story, to say nothing of Cortana becoming the Big Bad of the franchise.
• Continuity Lockout: The previous games never really explored the full history of the Spartan Super-Soldier program, leaving it to expanded media like Halo: The Fall of Reach, and they treated Master Chief as the Last of His Kind (outside of some easily missed dialogue in Halo 4). The expanded works did reveal that some other Spartan-IIs survived, but Blue Team and their long relationship with Master Chief is treated as established information to the player when this is actually the first time the games have directly featured them.
• Creator's Pet: Fans are accusing Locke and Osiris as a whole, barring Buck, of this post-release - alongside having more missions than Blue Team, Locke's killing of Jul 'Mdama is seen by some as a forced attempt by 343 to make the viewer feel that he's worthy of being Chief's equal.
• Critical Dissonance: Critics generally liked it, earning it a healthy 84% on Metacritic, while the fanbase was broken to bits.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Monitor 031 Exuberant Witness is well liked by the player base for her perky, happy attitude as she helps you through the levels. Being the first monitor who's not corrupted and/or trying to kill the player might help, although her welcoming gift of a Scorpion tank certainly also gave players a good impression.
  • Arbiter Thel 'Vadam's return was unanimously acclaimed by Halo gamers when his first appearance was basically him as his usual One-Man Army.
  • Buck emerges from 5 with his reputation as intact as it was in ODST - many are calling him and his banter the best thing about the Osiris missions.
  • The Goblin has won a lot of fans for its sheer Narm Charm; it's a Grunt-shaped mecha piloted by a trash-talking Grunt who's clearly yelling through a loudspeaker. It also got plenty of brownie points for being a legitimately interesting enemy that's not just a mere palette swap like all the other Warzone-exclusive bosses.
  • Longtime fans were also very happy to see Fred, Kelly, and Linda finally make the transition from the expanded universe into the games proper.
• Game-Breaker: In Warzone, "The Answer" and the "Whiplash" are widely considered to be this; the former is a SAW variant that fires explosive rounds capable of quickly shredding apart even tanks, and the latter is a Railgun with a fast charge time, two shots per magazine, and proximity airburst rounds (meaning that even a near miss will usually result in the target dying from the resulting explosion). To top it off, "The Answer" is "only" a Rare REQ (not Ultra Rare or Legendary), with many considering its requirement of six energy levels to use to still be way too low, while the "Whiplash" is an Uncommon that only requires four energy levels (though 343i later slightly nerfed the latter by reducing the total amount of ammo it could carry).
• Good Bad Bugs: Forge mode has a much-loved glitch where you can create weapons that have the appearance of one gun with projectile properties of another, with the specific ammo capacity/rate of fire depending on the combination (created using weapon platforms: you select a weapon, then its REQ variant and then change to another base weapon without touching its REQ variant again). This means you can create a SAW that rapid-fires triple rockets, or a turret with 500 ammo capacity spilling out plasma caster grenades two at a time. Best of all, 343i has said that they have no intention of patching it out, since it only affects custom games.
• He's Just Hiding: Jul 'Mdama's fans are throwing around theories post-launch that suggest that Jul used a body double to survive Osiris's attack.
• He Really Can Act: Many fans were amazed at Ike Amadi's performance as Locke, more specifically his near tone-perfect impersonation of Mike Colter- unless you knew going in, you'd be hard pressed to tell it's not Colter himself.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: After the events of Halo 5, it seems a little more troubling to have Cortana on your Windows 10 system as a Siri-like advisor. Yikes... Until it was deprecated in 2021, and ultimately buried in 2023 due to lack of interest on both Microsoft and user's part.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • The "Hero Falls" trailer teased the Master Chief's death, but it only took one week for "The Hunt Begins" to admit he didn't die for real.
  • The pre-release footage of the second level confirmed what many fans suspected ever since Halo 4, that Cortana's not dead after all.
• Memetic Badass: Dimkee Hotay, the Motor Mouth Grunt encountered at Arbiter's camp. Based on his dialogue, he survived the Human-Covenant war, the events of Halo: Nightfall, coming face-to-face with the Gravemind twice, serving the Didact, and then Jul 'Mdama's Covenant, and at one point, the Master Chief himself. Fans call him the most seasoned veteran in the entire franchise.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Vale has quickly earned the Fan Nickname "Thunder Thighs" due to some extreme Hartman Hips.
  • Back when Locke was voiced by Mike Colter, there was a meme where people said that Chief wouldn't be able to injure Locke because he's bulletproof.
  • "For some bricks, they flew pretty good."^note Derived from Sgt. Johnson's quote "For a brick (Chief), he flew pretty good", the meme refers to the opening cinematics of both Fireteam Osiris and Blue Team; both cinematics involve their teams 'flying' towards their target.
  • SHINOBI.
  • Friendzone Eternal.^note The Warden Eternal's behavior, consisting mostly of trying to kill Blue Team in defense of Cortana despite her protests that she doesn't need his protection, is often jokingly compared to a selfish "nice guy" trying to drive romantic rivals away from his crush.
  • "We're not out of this yet. We can still destroy the enemy core."^note If a team is losing a Warzone game and several hundred points behind, Palmer will announce on the radio that the game can be still be won by capturing all three bases and then destroying the enemy home base core. Problem is, a lead that high usually means the enemy team is significantly more skilled and are not going to suddenly let all three bases get caught. Thus, Palmer saying this has been highly mocked, especially if she says it when the enemy team has all three bases and is attacking your team's core.
  • Halo is the Halo killer.^note After the significantly underwhelming reception the game got and the franchise laying dormant outside of side material for the rest of the console generation, people have made jokes about how the series didn't die, but committed suicide, using the "X killer" marketing term that was present during its glory days. Even after the Master Chief Collection came out on PC to overwhelming praise and Infinite was confirmed to exist, it hasn't died.
• Narm:
  • In the E3 2013 reveal trailer, Chief is shown wearing a ragged cloak over his armor. Given how much the fantasy style garment clashed with Chief's 26th century Powered Armor, not to mentioned how unnecessary it would be given resilient the armor is, it seems to have been added by 343 simply to create a sense of mystery in the trailer.
  • Some of the cutscenes and exposition come off as a bit clunky, such as the end of the second campaign mission where Halsey and Lasky are discussing the imminent dangers of a Back from the Dead Cortana and Roland has to pull a What the Hell, Hero? on them for prepping for the worst. What should be an Armor-Piercing Question ends up being the last thing said with no accompanying music or audio as the scene fades to black, as if the script literally ran out the ink after such an important moment, and it's never brought up again.
  • The fistfight between Chief and Locke was supposed to be seen as an epic struggle between two Spartans. Instead, it was widely panned by fans for both its poor choreography making it look like Chief and Locke are both drunk, and the disbelief that Locke wouldn't be absolutely Curb-Stomped trying to fight the Master Chief one-on-one, making the fight seem like a forced attempt to shill Locke.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: Guardians' story has proven divisive among the fanbase, but its changes to gameplay (particularly those in the multiplayer) have been well-received, with many calling it a return to form to before 343 took over the series.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Palmer's portrayal in 5 has been a lot better received than her previous appearances, thanks to her acting much more like how a CO in charge of one of the UNSC's largest Super-Soldier contingents should be. It also helps that she seems to have completely buried the hatchet with Halsey for the sake of the mission.
  • The Arbiter's return has received a near-universal approval from fans for representing Character Rerailment for the Elites after 4, not to mention him being a pure badass all the way. It helps that his original Base-Breaking Character status had already faded away years before Halo 5 (or even 4) was ever announced, since the general fanbase had already long come to the consensus that his arc in Halo 2 was actually one of the highlights of the original trilogy.
  • The Suppressor was regarded poorly in Halo 4 due to its terrible range and poor individual projectile damage despite its incredible firing speed. In Guardians, the speed is lowered initially, but increases as the trigger is held down, the projectiles are stronger, and it homes, making it much more useful.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The twin live action trailers, which give two possible outcomes; either Master Chief does something to betray humanity and is executed by Locke who has decided that he must be the one to save the galaxy or Locke commits extremist actions that nearly doom humanity and is killed by Master Chief who must face the threat alone. Note that in both scenarios, Chief and Locke are on what appears to be a devastated human colony and the UNSC Infinity is falling from the sky on fire. It's unfortunate that they didn't really factor into the campaign.
  • And now, the opening cinematic.
  • The Arbiter's return, where he takes out several would-be-assassins in his first scene. And not merely in a cutscene, but in gameplay. Then he joins your side again in Suniaon!
  • A small moment, but during Locke and John's fight, Locke manages to crack John's faceplate.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While opinions regarding the campaign are divided at best, multiplayer-wise, Halo 5: Guardians has been received very well (barring the microtransactions), especially compared to the So Okay, It's Average Halo 4, with many critics and fans calling it the best multiplayer Halo since Halo 3 or Reach.
• That One Boss:
  • The Warden Eternal's bodies, who are even trickier to get rid of than Hunters. Even on Normal difficulty, his various attacks (a rapid-fire eye beam, a powerful explosive orb that can penetrate light cover, and a dashing sword-swing with surprising range) will one-shot you, while he takes quite a bit of damage to bring down. On Legendary, he becomes a full-on Damage-Sponge Boss, able to survive an entire power weapon's magazine being emptied into him and keep coming for more, in addition to his aforementioned one-hit-kill attacks and horde of flunkies (who divide your attention, require more ammo usage to kill, and will be helping their boss kill you). And toward the end of the game, Osiris' last encounter with him is against two Wardens at once, while Blue Team fights three.
  • The Grunt Goblin is armed with a host of devastating weapons, including a super needler attack that can track any players in sight and destroy heavy vehicles, a grenade launcher that has surprising range and accuracy, and a high jump attack that lets it cross great distances to take out faraway players. In addition to these, it's immune to EMPs and has very high health compared to most bosses. Because of this, it's not uncommon to see the Goblins being ignored in Warzone or becoming an insurmountable game-ender in Warzone Firefight.
  • Promethean-controlled Mantis bosses are rather difficult, especially the Malevian Armsmen. 4 Mantises, with regeneration that kicks in within the amount of time it takes one to reload, damage-buffed weaponry that can shred a Scorpion in seconds, and being located in hard-to-reach areas; all while the players have to wait 25 seconds to spawn.
• That One Level: "The Breaking" is considered by some players to be one of the worst levels in the campaign. Some complaints are the repetitive gameplay, the absence of Covenant enemies, and the long stretches of dialogue, but the most frustrating part of the level is the boss fight against three Warden Eternals at the end.
• That One Sidequest: As per usual, some of the Skulls can be infuriating to obtain.
  • The Iron Skull, found on "Glassed", is the only Skull exclusive to Legendary, and necessitates you to shoot a Phaeton chasing a human ship out of the sky not long after getting the Scorpion, which is severely difficult to do with the main gun giving the speed at which the Phaeton moves and the lead you'll need on the Phaeton to even hit it, though it is easier with the turret and mercifully, the Phaeton isn't shooting at you.
  • The Mythic Skull, found on "Swords of Sanghelios", which as expected of a planet where so much clambering can be employed, is an utter nightmare to get, as you have to climb up a diagonal pillar with little room for error, then hit the controls just right to sprint of the very narrow top to give you enough distance to get enough air to clamber onto the platform holding the Skull.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • To be expected. The use of a standard booster pack in gameplay along with changes like Smart Scope and removing Armor Abilities has been met with some pushback. Unusually for the franchise though, many have said the new Spartan Abilities actually bring the series back to the competitive gameplay that was defined by Halo 2. You could say that after experiencing changes in Reach and 4, the Halo community has become a little more open to experimenting with and evolving the franchise's core gameplay (even if they still felt Halo took a little too long figure out the right changes).
  • The Controls of the Halo 5 Beta caused some annoyance with players, as Crouching while jumping activated a Ground Pound instead of crouching in the air like in prior titles. This has been since remapped.
  • The Rocket Launcher's new design has had mixed reception, as the double-barreled launcher was replaced with something more modern-looking, making it look like a futuristic SMAW. However, 343i later reintroduced the original double-barreled SPNKR design as a "rare" power weapon for Warzone; in fact, they even released three additional SPNKR variants, each with their own unique gameplay features like firing laser-guided airburst rockets, buffing their wielder's stats, having four rockets per magazine, etc.
  • The revelation that playable Elites (a long time fan demand for both diversity and machinima) will not be included so the team can focus on newer aspects (which are often Broken Base to begin with) was met with a lot of push back by the fan community; with many demanding they be included as future DLC within hours of the announcement by 343i.
  • Once again, the lack of campaign theater.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Jul 'Mdama, an Elite antagonist built up throughout Halo 4's Spartan Ops, the Kilo-Five books, and Halo: Escalation as a dead-serious tactician who's almost always one step ahead, gets stabbed in the neck by Locke and killed with pretty much no fanfare at the end of the first mission of the game.
  • The ad campaign boasted that players would be able to play as the legendary Blue Team in the co-op campaign, except the Master Chief and Blue Team only get a few missions, with the majority of the game focusing on Locke and Fireteam Osiris.
  • The ad campaign and HUNT the TRUTH both imply that ONI would be one of the primary villains and that John would rebel against them, forcing Locke to hunt him down. Instead the role goes to Cortana, which some have accused of undermining her sacrifice in Halo 4.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The conflict with Chief and Locke is trumped up to a huge degree in the trailers, and seems to be the entire thrust of the game, with the big motivator seeming being Chief going rogue in his quest to find Cortana again marking him as an enemy to the UNSC. Instead, Locke and Chief very briefly tussle in a cut scene and make up without a word later, with that part of the game taking backseat to Cortana. Nothing about the conflict matches how seriously it was hyped and built up, especially when you consider the lack of involvement both of their teams have in the potential conflict.
  • Cortana's rampancy was a primary plot thread in Halo 4, and a huge part of that game's driving narrative. Rather than expand on this interesting idea, Cortana is cured like nothing ever happened. Of course, in 5, Cortana merely exchanged one kind of crazy for another, and it's up in the air whether she was actually cured anyway.
  • Arbiter's civil war against what remained of the Covenant is a storyline that's just begging to be its own campaign, especially nowadays after people started to view Arbiter's Halo 2 character arc in a better light. However, what we get of it in Halo 5 is just two missions on the Elite homeworld of Sanghelios where the civil war is basically going on in the background while Locke's Fireteam Osiris searches for the Guardian that will allow them to catch up to Master Chief. And like what was mentioned in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character, Jul 'Mdama being taken out in the game's first mission left a lot to be desired since it means that his Covenant faction never got to face off against the Arbiter and his Swords of Sanghelios faction.
• Unexpected Character: Master Chief is reunited with his original Spartan-II Blue Team members Kelly, Fred and Linda; while all of them had some presence in the expanded universe, the previous games treated Chief like The Last of His Kind (even though he hasn't been so since the first game).
• Viewer Gender Confusion: After the initial release for the cover art of Halo 5: Guardians speculation ignited as to the identity of the mysterious Spartan and her lithe frame...until the developers stressed that Locke was indeed male.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • The Halo community reacted very positively to the released opening cutscene in August 2015, mending a lot of the above Broken Base.
  • Fans had been clamoring for inclusion of fellow Spartan-IIs in Halo since the release of the original tie-in books. Their absence from Halo 4 in favor of focusing on the new Spartan-IVs was a community sore point. The appearance of Kelly, Linda, and Fred was met with much enthusiasm, especially considering that they're playable in co-op.
  • On the multiplayer side of things, this trope is in full effect, as the changes from Halo 4 have brought back the competitive community (which mostly dissolved with the release of Reach and the inclusion of Armor Abilities).
  • 343i's announcement that they were finally re-adding "Firefight" to the franchise got players very excited.
  • Players were generally happy to see the reintroduction of classic Bungie-era weapons like the plasma rifle, the Halo: Combat Evolved pistol, the Halo 2 battle rifle, and the original trilogy Beam Rifle.
  • On launch, Halo 5 was received with some polarizing reviews, with the brunt of it being directed at the shallow amount of content expected from a Halo game. 343's promise to support the game after launch not only held to be true, the amount of updates including many new maps as well as many new gametypes and additional features has earned back far more goodwill than Halo 4 ever did throughout its shelf life. Of course, YMMV on whether it saves the game as a whole, especially in regards to the divisive campaign.