Even though Halo: The Master Chief Collection is getting a consistent next-gen update, Halo 5: Guardians won’t receive any special treatment when Xbox Series X and S release later this year.
The news was confirmed in a Halo Waypoint post, where 343 Industries didn’t provide specific reasons behind the move.
“After we announced the enhancements that MCC would be getting on the Xbox Series X|S, we did see questions rolling in about how Halo 5 would play on the new consoles,” said the developer in a blog post.
“While Halo 5 is not getting the same optimizations for Xbox Series X and Series S as MCC, owners of the next-gen hardware are still going to see the benefits of faster load times and consistently higher resolution gameplay.”
This means Halo 5 performance-wise will remain the same, even though it will take advantage of the additional power of the next-gen hardware.
Halo 5: Guardians features a dynamic resolution due to Xbox One limitations, but now that those limitations are gone, it will play at a higher resolution for more time.
Also, the SSD and Xbox Velocity Architecture mean that loading screens will be much faster compared to the current-gen platform. While this is good news, it’s disappointing to learn that improvements such as 120fps throughout the campaign and multiplayer will be limited to older Halo games alone.
Halo Infinite, the natively next-gen experience from the franchise, is set to release next year, with a free multiplayer boasting a 120fps frame rate.