Josh Holmes tweeted out earlier that the Spartan at the top of the Halo 5 Guardians graphic is NOT Chief, Palmer, or Cortana and is a NEW characters.

Here is his tweet:

Frank O’Conner states that the graphic is NOT the final for the box art.

Here is his post via NeoGaf:

So there are two things we can check off the list regarding the newly released graphic. I’m actually VERY happy that they are willing to halt some rumors and/or speculation. It means they are listening as well as do not want Halo to be misdirected into something it’s not.

-Sal

Frank posted minutes ago as of this writing that the spartan seen on top of the Halo 5 Guardians box art is NOT a girl.

Well, damn… There goes some of my hopeful theories. LOL. Still okay with this.

Thanks to HaloArchive for tweeting the link to this.

-Sal

So this piece of concept art was just revealed for Halo 5 Guardians:

I take a look at it and start to disassemble the parts.

From left to right:

• The Architecture does not at all fit the profile of Forerunner. Neither does it look like human.  Is this a Covenant world we have not seen yet? Might it be Precursor in nature?
• What do those red flags represent? Curious how they are in several places in the artwork. Seems a bit overkill. I suspect there is more meaning to them than ornamentation.
• Flying Squid? If you saw an early trailer for Halo 4, there were flying creatures on Requiem. Those were taken out. Could these be those creatures??
• (at bottom) Who’s this?  Likely just a placeholder for scale/scope of artwork. But you never know.
• Two Suns. Now where in the galaxy might this be? If I recall, there was a system with two suns in it, in the Halo Legends cartoon. Hmm.
• Statue? This sure looks like a statue of something. It’s not that random to me. So if it is a statue, who or what is it?

Lots of things to ponder while we await yet more Halo 5 Guardians news.

-Sal

Here is the article in Frank’s words on Halo Waypoint: 

As you’re probably aware, my boss and studio head for 343, Bonnie Ross, officially announced the next installment in the Halo saga: Halo 5: Guardians, coming in fall 2015 for Xbox One. I will be up front and admit that I don’t have much moredetail to add, but here at Waypoint, our conversations tend to be a little more insider, a little more familiar. And this is no exception.

Last year at E3, Bonnie famously said, “Your journey begins in 2014…” Wait — hang on — you thought: “What journey is she talking about and why is Chief wearing a poncho?” Okay, some might call it a cloak, but the fact remains – you knew something more nuanced was afoot. So it’s quite likely that Bonnie’s 2015 release announcement today surprised no one in the Halo community. In fact, I suspect most of you who read the Halo Bulletin regularly anticipate there’s even more to come.

Well you might be right, but we’ll have significantly more to say about that at E3 and beyond. Suffice it to say, another shoe has yet to drop.

But getting the Halo 5: Guardians announce out of the way is a big weight off our shoulders. This audience has correctly stated and assumed that you can’t necessarily squish a full Halo game into anything less than a three year development schedule – and at least up to and including Halo 5: Guardians, that’s more or less true.

But we’re not just making a new game in that three year span, we’re also making a new engine. During the development of Halo 4, we pushed the Xbox 360 and the engine to its limits, and we were happy with the way we were able to make the Halo universe look. The Xbox 360 still has a few tricks up its sleeve, even now. We are moving to a whole new platform with the Xbox One – a new architecture, new graphics hardware and bluntly some new ways to think about gaming, period.

Bonnie also called out 60fps and dedicated servers last year – attractive, desirable, and possibly expected upgrades to the Halo experience. After all, we won’t be the first 60fps shooter out there. That said, these must-haves are not necessarily easy to achieve.

Previous Halo titles, Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 for example, strove to push the entire ecosystem forward – dual stick FPS with big open spaces in the case of Combat Evolved, and broadband matchmaking in Halo 2 – are just a couple of examples of the series innovating or amplifying ideas. So in building Halo 5: Guardians, we want to push the ecosystem as well as the universe. And we’ll have some surprises in store for new and loyal players of the series.

So that’s it for now, but E3 is just around the corner. So if you bide your time and hold your breath, you won’t have to wait too long to hear about the next steps on this Great Journey.

Frank O’Connor
Franchise Development Director
343 Industries

Source Link

HFFL: Well, Frank(ly), I don’t think I can hold my breath THAT long. But suffice to say, we Halo fans are EXTREMELY happy regarding the announcement today. THANKS!

-Sal

Just released by HaloWaypoint is the FIRST piece of concept art to be revealed.

AWESOME!

Note the squid-like creature floating/flying in the air in the distance!

What is the meaning of the red flags? Is that a statue in the near background (center)?

-Sal

Looking at the image of the new Spartan for Halo 5 Guardians, one has to wonder who it is. From the trailer last year, Master Chief was shown in his usual armor. So is this a different spartan then? If not Chief, then who?

My top three guesses at this point are:
• Palmer – 343 really tried to push hard on her being an integral part of Halo
• Thorne – the only other spartan whom 343 wanted to make an impact. Through the Escalation comics, we’ve seen he is Majestic’s Fireteam Leader.
• Cortana – Yes, I know…But come on… Some of us really want her BACK in Halo. Wouldn’t be amazing if she indeed DID find a way to be repaired? Now she’s become a full blown spartan as well. Think about that blue glowing visor a moment…

Any of them would be a gray pick, in my opinion. We’ll have to wait and see, but the speculation is FUN!

-Sal

Okay, so a quick photoshop to invert the bottom half…

We see the major difference in armor. If the one in the center is the new Master Chief armor, well…WHOAH. VERY different. Also, note that “callout” I made at left. It’s the ONI symbol.

Here’s a thought…what if this IS NOT Master Chief, but another Spartan? Possibly Thorne or Palmer? I know one thing, that armor “feels” like Forerunner enhanced armor. The bright blue glow coming from the visor… That seems pretty tell-tale.

Zooming in on the helmet I see some sort of emblem. It could be ONI. But it looks different. The way the “jaw” of the helmet is designed and for that matter the rest of the helmet, it looks like it can transform, much in the way the Didact’s helmet did. What I mean is that it looks capable of being stowed and then when needed it wraps around the users head.

This is all VERY exciting!

-Sal