Xbox’s Halo 5: Guardians Launch Event Borders On Insanity
It would be impossible to imagine the Xbox brand today if Halo: Combat Evolved never launched on the original Xbox back in the day. The series is so iconic, so important to Microsoft and Microsoft Studios that they’re planning on having a day with the launch of Halo 5: Guardians. Well, at least a quarter of a day. As announced on the Xbox Wire and through Major Nelson, Xbox and Youtube are pairing up to celebrate the important Xbox One exclusive’s release with “Halo 5: Live.” Kicking off on October 26 at 6 PM EDT, Microsoft will be hosting a Youtube exclusive 6-hour live stream broadcast.
Halo 5: Live has quite a few things in store, including gameplay reveals, celebrity appearances, live interviews with members of the 343 Industries dev team and more. Viewers can also expect to watch the world premiere of “Halo: The Fall of Reach,” an animated series exploring the origin of the SPARTAN program. Nathan Fillion will take part in a Halo 5: Guardians roundtable, alongside the game’s writers.
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While that seems modest, the celebrations held around the world are downright silly, if not insane. Halo 5: Live events in New York (flagship Microsoft Store launch location), London (multiplayer tournament) and New Zealand (multiplayer, cosplay) seem rational, but Xbox is going ham elsewhere. “A lucky fan in Australia will play ‘Halo 5: Guardians’ from a helicopter flying over Sydney, as gameplay is broadcasted via a screen suspended from a second helicopter.” A 10,000+-hours-playing Halo superfan in Japan will have Master Chief and Agent Lock figurines travel to the edge of space for a Gamertag selfie.
A Taiwanese cosplayer will work with a jewelry designer in Australia to design a Master Chief helmet for charity bidding, one that is embedded with more than 30,000 Swarovski crystals. Hong Kong is hosting their own Breakout map to put “Halo fans into real 4v4 combat,” whatever the hell “real combat” means. All of these events points to one thing; Microsoft really wants to make their Halo 5: Live event portray the height of decadence. Nothing else could explaining launching toys to space or having fans play games in one helicopter while looking at another parallel helicopter.
It all culminates with the midnight launch of Xbox One-exclusive Halo 5: Guardians on October 27th.
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