7 Things We Want To See In Halo 5: Guardians

"Xbox One allows us to do things we've never done before." These are the words of Bonnie Ross - general manager of current Halo-making people 343 Industries - and they're blindingly obvious. Of course advanced technology will let you do more advanced stuff, but just what that stuff is is likely to be a mystery for quite a while yet. We can safely assume it means the game will have a brand new engine, and subsequently look divine, but who cares about that? Okay, fine... everyone. But Halo 5: Guardians is still going to need a whole bunch more to keep the franchise interesting. Now, we're obviously jumping the gun a little bit - Halo 5 isn't even out until next year. In fact, it seems ludicrous that the Xbox One dared to launch without a Halo title when you think about it, but at least we've got Kinect Sports Rivals to keep us going in the meantime. That meantime also includes a 99% chance of appearance at this year's E3, but before those cold, hard details start to trickle through, we present to you a list of the things that we think the game absolutely needs to have. Before that though, let's quickly tell you what it doesn't need to have: a TV miniseries leading up to it. Quite why anyone would care about this is a mystery to me - if you're a fan of Halo, you just want to play it, if you're not a fan, why on Earth would you want to watch a program about it? It's madness, is what it is. But viewer or not, Speilberg's production attachment seems to spell big things for the game itself. So, with that in mind, let's start laying our space-desires on the table and see if it doesn't live up to them come 2015. 7) More space combat The word 'epic' is bandied around a lot these days, but no level is more deserving of the accolade than Halo: Reach's "Long Night of Solace" mission, whereby you are thrust up into the heavens and left to bask in the cosmic glory of the universe for a few minutes before the lasers start flying. The gasp-generating look, the sublime feel, the ethereal music - it was a pitch perfect example of how to introduce a new mechanic into a game. It was so much more than the time-killing filler it could have been, if anything having the opposite effect. It left us wanting more. Much more. And lest we forget, Reach is a full four years old now (702 in game years). We've had another sequel since then, and that looked amazing enough. Imagine the full-scale glory of a space battle rendered with the power of the Xbox One. In 720p at 30fps. Cough. 6) A great bit of story It seems to have lost its way of late, but the Halo of old had us desperate to find out just what might happen next in every single sequel. It hasn't been without its contentions though, and certainly the abrupt and vague ending to Halo 3 was a sore point. More recently, Halo 4 tried (and succeeded to some degree) to bring something of a human element to the tale by effectively giving John 117's brain-Smurf a spot of Alzheimers. Then she dies at the end. Spoiler alert. We really need something to get out teeth into again. A reason to care other than X alien wants to kill you for X reason, so shoot him in the X first. There's plenty of lore to build on, and plenty of questions still to be answered. Even more now, in fact, since the first piece of teased artwork apparently shows a brand new - a quite obviously central - character. Hmm. 5) The suppressed machine gun from ODST The M7S Caseless Submachine Gun to be precise. But why am I being so precise? Because it was a cool-ass gun is why. Well, maybe there's a bit more to it, but it makes the point nicely. You see, ODST was a great game, but crucially, it was a different game. It challenged the norms of conventional Halo, and wasn't afraid to experiment. Did all those chances pay off? No. But the game was all the better for trying. I mean, a silent gun in a Halo game? Imagine if the new sequel actually had the stealth mechanics to back it up. On the subject of guns, I think every single person at 343 Industries should be fired on the spot if Halo 5 releases without the ability to dual wield weapons. The delicious, double-cherry goodness that sits atop Halo 2's perfection is absolutely not to be ignored - you're an 8 foot tall space marine for crying out loud. I can't think of an instance where they wouldn't be firing two guns at the same time. I mean, maybe not if they were at a wedding or something, but certainly all other times. Make it happen. 4) Tactical Play Let's take that last point and go one step further. It seems unusual to me that as said 8 foot space Chief - in a game made popular by its AI no less - can't actually issue any commands to his loyal band of accompanying soldiers. Surely a bunch of basic commands issued via the D-pad, for example, would be a sterling way to make you feel like that battle-hardened leader you're supposed to be playing as. There's precedent here, too, as Halo spread its strategic wings in spin-off title Halo Wars - a top-down RTS circa 2009. It proved to be a little on the 'lite' side for the in-depth strategy veterans, but garnered pretty much universal praise from everywhere else. It then went on to become the best-selling RTS games of all time. Who knows, then, why it has been so largely ignored since. But some kind of mashup for Halo 5 would certainly be interesting. Think more Brothers In Arms' on the fly commands rather than Call of Duty: Black Ops II's optional sandbox faffing, though. Boy was that pointless. 3) An even better Forge Assuming that's possible, of course. Forge is just about as good as it gets when it comes to map editing as a gameplay mode. If it were any more clever it would be LittleBigPlanet. Since Halo 3, players' ingenuity has been consistently displayed, with all manner of crazy map designs and custom game modes being shared around the community like goodwill at Christmas. Some of it was simply amazing. Incredible visions of blended level design and art. Some (like the T-Rex above) were just a bit shit. Ironically cool, though, because hey, it's a freakin' T-Rex. In its current state as a mini Minecraft, it's provided limitless joy - and undoubtedly added countless hours of playtime - to every game it has been in since. Imagine what would be possible with all the extra horsepower that the Xbox One permits. I wouldn't be surprised if someone managed to build a scale replica of New York City, or somewhere equally spectacular. Like Slough. Guardians would do nothing but benefit from the extensive toolset of a Forge 3.0, and we'd do nothing but be delighted. 2) No new enemies I know what you're thinking. How can you include the fact that you want to see something not be there. Well, my learned friend, I'm sure you've seen Ernst Lubitsch's 1939 masterpiece Ninotchka. Perhaps you recall the scene where the main character goes to a café and asks the waiter for coffee without cream, to which the waiter replies "sorry, we're out of cream. Can I bring you coffee without milk instead?" Not having something is part of the identity of what you do get, and if Halo were to hold back on giving us any new enemy types, the result would not be zero enemies. Instead, we would have a more focused plot, with a greater depth and chance of expansion. There's already the Flood, Covenant, Prometheans, Prophets, Forerunners, and plenty more splinter factions. Introducing a fresh threat, in terms of race, with every new game would simply lead to muddled, convoluted nonsense. More for the sake of more. I mean, look at Star Wars' introduction of the Gungan, if you can bear to again. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for new characters, but a whole new bloodline just isn't what the top of Halo 5's "to do" list should look like. 1) Custom game options Oh Halo 4, how you wished you had Call of Duty's multiplayer. You know what the absolute best thing about Halo's multiplayer before was before that? That it was nothing like Call of Duty's. And so, in a way, what we're gunning for here is regression. Regression back to the days of near endless customization options and super-great game modes like Juggernaut or Infection. Regression back to the days before it was given perks, for some inexplicable reason. Having a 'sprint' perk was verging on blasphemy. Halo 4 took way too much away from a tried and tested (and insanely popular) part of the game, and replaced it with something too little, too generic. Players would pump in hundreds of extra hours thanks to custom options so vast that it was almost possible to play a completely different match every single time you picked the pad up. Get that bit right again, and it's basically a license to print money (as if it wasn't already). It might even be enough to stop you from playing Destiny... We're all cool with keeping the jetpacks though. BECAUSE JETPACKS. What would you guys love (or hate) to see in Halo 5: Guardians. Let us know below!