Summary
With the release of the Anvil Operation, 343 Industries, in collaboration with community Forger Artifice7285, introduced the new game mode Big Team Battle: Sentry Defense toHalo Infinite. This game mode was originally intended to rotate out ofInfinite’s multiplayer by mid-July, but 343 extended Sentry Defense’s spot in matchmaking playlists for two more weeks until July 30.
In this mode, each team must defend two Adjutant Resolution submonitors in their Eradicator Sentinel carapace. Whichever team’s Resolutions are destroyed first, loses. While Sentry Defense is a fun way to reuse a boss fromHalo Infinite’s campaign, it may suggest a return of another PVE game mode inHalo 7: Warzone.
Halo 5: Guardians’ Warzone Explained
In 2015,Halo 5: Guardians —343’s second mainline entry in theHaloseries — debuted, and with it came itsflagship new game mode, Warzone. A sort of conglomeration of the game modes Big Team Battle, Firefight, and Spartan Ops, Warzone had two teams of 12 go head-to-head to take over as many bases available in order to reach access to the opposing team’s home base core and destroy it. Along the way, players would encounter AI enemies to fight against, from lowly Promethean Crawlers to difficult-to-kill bosses such as the Warden Eternal or Grunt Goblin mechs.
Getting kills, defeating squads of AI, taking control of bases, and vanquishing bosses all increased players’ individual scores and allowed them to access more superior weapons, vehicles, and abilities in REQ stations. The more points a player or the team accumulated, the stronger the weapons and vehicles accessible. However, players could only utilize these vehicles if they unlocked them viathe randomized REQ packs. For instance, players would only be able to use the Promethean Phaeton gunship in Warzone if they had already unlocked it from REQ packs. REQ Packs can be purchased by slowly earning REQ points by playing matches or players could purchase sets of REQ packs with real currency.
The Weapons and Vehicles of Warzone
Since Warzone’s REQ packs were 343’s primary sources of income fromHalo 5in the form of microtransactions, new weapons and vehicles were continuously added to the game throughoutHalo 5’s early life. This encouraged players to keep playing the game and for them to purchase more REQ packs for the chance to gain access to these new items in Warzone. Some of these weapons and vehicles included completely new ones, such as theHunter Cannon and the UNSC Waspair vehicle. A few classics were also added, such asHalo: Combat Evolved’s magnum,Halo 2’s battle rifle,Halo: Reach’s grenade launcher, andHalo 2and3’s beam rifle.
Cosmetics, assassinations, stances, and armor were additionally only unlocked from randomized REQ packs inHalo 5: Guardians, with a few exceptions, such as the Helioskrill and Achilles armor sets.
The Potential Return of Warzone in Halo 7
WithHalo Infinite’s increased use of AI enemies ingame modes such as Firefight, Survive the Undead, and Sentry Defense, 343 could introduce an improved version of Warzone inHalo 7. Instead of having every unlockable item tied to REQ packs, only weapon and vehicle variants could be unlocked in the packs, while armor and cosmetics could be unlocked with aHalo: Reach-like credit system. This could allow 343 to profit from packs and allow players to still unlock armor on their own terms. It could also encourage 343 to develop more weapons and vehicles for the game down the line, unlike the lone bandit rifle added inInfinite.
In terms of the gameplay and AI of this potential new Warzone, it could be structured more similarly to the Conquest game mode in 2005’sStar Wars: Battlefront 2. Players could capture multiple random locations and could access new weapons and vehicles once the locations are captured. Whichever team captures all locations before time runs out, wins. The locations could be randomized each match in order to avoid the repetitivebase structure seen in all ofHalo 5’s Warzone maps. AI squads and bosses could still appear to attack players, but players could use points to spawn AI to defend their base, similar to Sentry Defense inHalo Infinite. It could also feature enemies from everyHaloentry — from the Flood to the Banished — to add replayability.
