Halo 5 footage lands on the Elite homeworld for the first time

Elites have been a staple of the Halo series, ever since their first "WORT WORT WORT" in Halo: Combat Evolved. Now, Halo 5: Guardians gameplay is giving us a good look at where they come from: the harsh, baked planet of Sanghelios.

Development studio 343 Industries issued a post alongside the video earlier today, specifically calling out the campaign's increased size and scope. We see this in the footage, with combat taking place in a large, open area with multiple paths and lots of verticality.

A feature called "progressive resolution" dynamically scales the resolution of the content (both up to and down from 1080p) in order to keep framerate smooth. "Without this system, we would need to either reduce the scale of our most intense combat encounters or lower the quality of content across the game in order to stay at 60fps at all times," writes campaign environment art lead Justin Dinges.

This statement echoes franchise director Frank O'Connor's earlier statements on Halo 5 dropping splitscreen. "Yes, it's a bummer but 60fps had to take precedence. It's not just aesthetics- the entire simulation is built on that framerate," he wrote on NeoGAF back in June.

Forget the Covenant - the galaxy's biggest threat is apparently not running at 60 frames per second.

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Sam Prell

Sam is a former News Editor here at GamesRadar. His expert words have appeared on many of the web's well-known gaming sites, including Joystiq, Penny Arcade, Destructoid, and G4 Media, among others. Sam has a serious soft spot for MOBAs, MMOs, and emo music. Forever a farm boy, forever a '90s kid.