Halo 5: Guardians' opening cinematic doesn't feature Master Chief, but that's OK

We've known ol' John-117 was taking more or a sidelined role for Halo 5: Guardians, but it's a little surprising to see that the game's opening cinematic totally fails to show him off. The Chief is AWOL in more ways than one, it seems. All the better, then, that Spartan Locke and his Fireteam Osiris colleagues make quite such bombastic entrance in today's new CG reel.

Setting the scene, followed by a jetpack-assisted descent from their tech-bedecked dropship, the trailer then follows the Fireteam in a single-shot battle against Covenant and Forerunner goons, wiseguys and shmucks. Imagine Children of Men's most amazing scenes, but with lasers and aliens and overblown music and Nathan Fillion laying down smarmy quips as if he's forgotten he's combating genocide. It's pretty great. Look! Here it is now!

The game's out next month, which is much, much closer than I realised and now I'm all a-quiver.

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Joe Skrebels
Joe first fell in love with games when a copy of The Lion King on SNES became his stepfather in 1994. When the cartridge left his mother in 2001, he turned to his priest - a limited edition crystal Xbox - for guidance. And now he's here.