Anvil's Legacy update for Halo 5: Guardians adds two new maps and more

By John Callaham
last updated

343 Industries and Microsoft have released Anvil's Legacy, the ninth free content update for the Xbox One sci-fi shooter Halo 5: Guardians. It adds two new multiplayer maps to the game along with more content.

One of the new maps is the Arena-based Mercy, a remake of a previous Halo 4 map:

This medium-sized symmetrical map excels in Slayer and Strongholds game modes, and features a fresh and beautiful new Sangheilli art style. The Halo 2 Beam Rifle also makes its Arena debut and is placed near the 'Open Ramp' side of the map. With Mercy's long sight lines and funneled pathways, controlling this weapon is key to victory.

The other new map is the Warzone Assault-based Temple:

Temple's high ground gives defenders the advantage at the beginning of this map, providing some powerful ground-pound launch locations. That advantage is quickly reversed as the ruins of a once great structure in the middle of the map provide many paths for attackers to infiltrate and take the objective. The outbuildings in front of the home base level the playing field, offering large amounts of cover for both attackers and defenders.

There are also a couple of new weapons variants in the update along with new character and weapons skins, It also includes the same Content Browser that's available in the just released Halo 5: Forge map editor and game for Windows 10.

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John Callaham
John Callaham
3 Comments
  • "The Halo 2 Beam Rifle also makes its Arena debut" I don't get the nostalgia for these older weapons like the Halo 2 Beam Rifle and Halo 2 Battle Rifle. The Halo 5 versions of both are much better, and I'd prefer the Halo 2 versions stay out of Arena. Keep them confined to Warzone REQs. Excited about the new Arena map, though.
  • I like the old BR as a hip-fire weapon, but its restrictive reticle definitely makes it inferior for mid-range combat (it seems to have a bit better zoom for long-range, though the lack of peripherals isn't made up for by that fact). I wouldn't mind if they made some of the REQs from the game into map-spawned things in Arena, though not all (The Answer would be a nightmare). It would be nice to randomize weapons on maps in matchmaking, just to make it less stale. The maps are horrendous, having some varied experiences on them would distrct from that a little.
  • I liked Haven in Halo 4, though it felt tiny in that game. Here, where everything's much faster and easier to reach, I fear it will be an atrocity. If you can sprint and mantle to everything in a flash (something that ruins a lot of small-to-imd maps in Arena already), it's going to be just another congested mess of spawn killing. I like the looks of it, though.