‘Halo 5: Guardians Beta’ Sneak Peek Debuts Spectator Mode; New Tweaks Released For ‘Halo: Master Chief Collection’

Halo fans are looking forward to the beta run of "Halo 5: Guardians," and with good reason, too. The spectator mode is gaining some attention, with a possible eSports angle being weaved in by fans for the game. Developer 343 Industries is also no stranger to the thought of eSports, as IGN reports that it will be integrating some eSports features into the awaited title.

"When you think about Halo, it's such a tailor-made experience for eSports, especially with that competitive edge, getting back to the level playing field and everything. So we put a lot of focus on surrounding features," said Josh Holmes of 343 Industries in an exclusive with IGN.

Spectator mode, which will be available in the beta on Dec. 29, lets players watch their friends' matches live. It even gives players the option of going between first-person and third-person, in case they want to do a Twitch stream coverage. Even the developer is giving full support to these endeavors, allowing the players to aggregate these videos in the Halo Channel app on the Xbox One console. The controls are still not optimised and given a depth of options for players, but at most, participants of the beta will get to explore these.

343 Industries has been very vigilant about keeping bugs away from the "Halo: Master Chief Collection" as fans wait for the "Halo 5: Guardians." After so many updates, there is now one long patch that the developer has announced over at Halowaypoint. It's meant to fix a number of issues as well as those found in specific areas of the game. "As the team continues to work on additional improvements to matchmaking and other areas, we are deploying a variety of server-side updates to matchmaking player counts, as well as bringing back SWAT as the featured playlist," said 343 Industries via the official website.

The list of changes and fixes is longer than the other previous updates. SWAT will now feature a number of game types ranging from "Halo 2: Anniversary," "Halo 2 Classic: and "Halo 4." "Halo 3" will even be included in the game type rotation in a future update. Most of the additions for future updates will depend on voting data and player requests from feedback, which is an encouragement for fans to keep watch on the game.

Other updates include the increased number of player count to 4v4 (6 minimum, 8 maximum) for Team Slayer, Halo 2 Classic, Halo 3, Halo Championship Series and SWAT playlists. There's also the updated max party size for Big Team Battle, which will go on as the team resolves issues for parties involving eight members. After this, the party size will be reverted back to eight.

The developer has also teased that it will have the next content update out as early as next week. Details on what's coming, however, has not yet been announced.

"Halo 5: Guardians" Beta (Credit: YouTube/HaloFollower)

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