Halo 5 post-launch support "most substantial" in Halo history

We caught up with 343 Industries' executive producer Josh Holmes to discuss Arena multiplayer, eSports, post-launch plans and more.

Speaking about Halo 5's two multiplayer variations - Arena and Warzone (24 player sandbox battles with bots), Holmes had this to say:

"Halo 5 sort of features two distinctly different multiplayer experiences and it's almost like two multiplayer games in one," says Holmes. "You have this very focused, balanced experience, which is built from the ground up for eSports. [Arena] is very much focused on this balanced competitive feel and it really pays off on the legacy of Halo's competitive play."

"The post-launch support for Halo 5: Guardians will be the most substantial that we've had in any past Halo game," says Holmes. "So we have a huge amount of content that will be there at launch, and we've announced that we'll have more than 20 multiplayer maps for example at launch, and then post-launch we'll be delivering additional maps that will be available free to all players and we've announced we'll deliver 15 or more maps before June of next year. And then we also have a brand new Requisition system that delivers unlockable rewards to players that can be used throughout the game. Cosmetic rewards than can be used in both Arena and Warzone, and then specific gameplay impacting rewards that can be used only in Warzone and that are specific to that mode and we'll continue to release new content for that system post-launch as well."

Given the problems suffered with the launch of Halo: The Master Chief Collection we had to ask Holmes how confident he is in the online infrastructure and you'll find his answer in the video.

Halo 5: Guardians launches on October 27 exclusively on Xbox One.