Game: Halo 5: Guardians
Platform: Xbox One
Difficulty: Legendary
Mode: Campaign
Date Reviewed: 10/4/2026
In this short review we’re looking at the Halo 5: Guardians campaign. This is a gameplay only review, as I won’t be covering the story or cinematics whatsoever. I care about gameplay first, and that’s how my game reviews are conducted. I played on legendary difficulty, this review’s perspective is influenced by this fact.
5 things I liked
Challenging yet forgiving:
Because of the squad mechanics, playing on higher difficulties becomes more manageable than ever. Some levels were pretty challenging and I still found myself enjoying the experience. If you’re staying back, your squad will likely heal you. You can flag them over to heal you as well.
Feels like Halo:
Besides the advanced movement and aim down sights mechanic evolving to more of a modern shooter style, it still feels like Halo in gameplay. The covenant is a pleasure to battle, vehicle missions were decent. Warthogs are still fun to drive.
Graphics:
Graphics typically have little weight on how I review games unless it affects gameplay. The graphics here are pretty good for their time. They won’t blow you away, but I have nothing to complain about.
Movement:
I remember before this game came out, it was around the time call of duty shifted to jet packs/movement. The movement isn’t really that substantial in Halo 5. I liked that the jetpack could be used to dodge projectiles. The hate at the time was overblown. It doesn’t drastically change the experience of the game. Honestly at the very worst it’s a gimmick. I think it provides useful dodges when surrounded by snipers or slower projectile enemies such as hunters.
Squad mechanics:
I like that you can tell your squad to pick up weapons or use vehicles, and target enemies. It’s cool in concept. Better commands would provide an improved experience, but I like where they were going with it. Having your squad jump in ghosts or turrets, picking up rocket launchers can be useful.
5 things I didn’t like
Squad Member AI:
Now the ideas behind the squad mechanics are cool, but the AI is awful. They would move often without even trying to fire at enemies, stand still and do nothing, and the usual PlayStation 2 era NPC vibes. It really made the squad feel unfinished, tacked on at the end of game development.
Forerunner enemies:
Annoying to fight. The knights being one of the worst offenders. The “dogs” suck, extremely accurate and use homing projectiles, if you don’t have a good range weapon it isn’t fun on legendary. They can also hit from very far distances. I had a much more enjoyable experience fighting the covenant. The warden bosses were a good challenge on legendary, but felt unfair at times. Perfect aiming, instant kills, often on maps with little to no cover.
The weapon sandbox:
Forerunner drops suck.
Most forerunner weapons are terrible in this game. The scattershot, pistol, and suppressor. The light rifle is okay but very slow compared to the battle rifle or carbine.
Guns simply don’t feel like they have much oomf. It’s expected the enemies take more damage on legendary but even so, so many of the guns just feel awful. A lot of the time you’re stuck with close range weapons, but you really want precision in this game for the majority of enemies.
I felt that I was using the same few weapons the entire game. The needler has surprising range, making it useful against elites and promethean soldiers. The carbine, battle rifle, and light rifle are the main weapons I used through the majority of the campaign. They are the most useful unless there were rocket launchers or bigger guns in the level.
Grenades felt surprisingly weak in this game. I’m not sure what it was. Unless I had a plasma grenade, I simply spammed them when I had them.
Sound design:
Much like Halo 4, Halo 5 continues with this more realistic approach to sound design, ditching classic sounds. It makes the game feel less like Halo overall. The new sounds aren’t bad sounds by any means, I would just prefer it to sound similar to the old games. If we look at Star Wars, I think one of the main reasons it still feels like Star Wars is the sounds. Halo should take a lesson…
Weapon zoom flinch:
When zooming in, getting hit causes you to unzoom. This make the game much less fun because you’re constantly scoped in due to most enemies having weak spots or having such long ranges
Score: 7.5/10
Overall this entry was below average compared to the rest of the Halo franchise. I think it’s slightly better than Halo 4. I probably won’t play this again by myself. If you like Halo, it’s a decent campaign, providing an average yet enjoyable gaming experience.