Smart Scoping in Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta

A cool new feature that 343 Industries has added to Halo 5: Guardians is the Smart Scope, which is the evolution of using scopes on weapons in the Halo universe.  Traditionally, when a player zooms in their weapon, they either get a reticule and scope outlines, ammo count, distance markings, etc for weapons that support the zoom feature, or just a zoom in on the HUD.  The weapon would not be visible and the smart link that has been in the game and the lore since Halo: CE was just displaying what the scope saw directly on your HUD.

Old Style Smart Linked Zoom

Now with Halo 5: Guardians, that scope is more an integrated addition to your HUD instead of just completely taking it over.  You will see the term aim down sights or ADS thrown around when comparing this new feature to other first-person shooter games and there are similarities between the two, but the functionality remains the same for Smart Scope as the classic Halo zoom from previous Halo titles.  You do not loose any mobility when you Smart Scope, similarly to past Halo titles and every weapon will have some Smart Scope capability.  The weapons that do not have a normal zoomed scope will look and feel like ADS, but the speed at which you go in and out of scope is unchanged from past games.  Those weapons with scopes attached like the Sniper Rifle will feel very familiar to the way zooming worked before, even though it looks very different.  Making a comeback regarding scoping for Halo 5: Guardians is descoping, which means whenever you take fire from an enemy and you’re scoped in, you will get kicked out of scope.

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The style Smart Scopes takes compared to traditional zooming for Halo, while visually very different from past Halo games does not change the functionality firing a weapon scoped in versus firing from the hip.  Players still have their traditional weapon reticules and accuracy with firing from the hip.  When playing Halo 5, Smart Scope didn’t take me out of my element from what I was used to zooming in normally.  I was able to engage in battles starting scoped in and finishing fights similarly how I do right now on any other Halo game.  In a way, I kept more awareness of what was going on around me because I was using Smart Scope compared to traditional zoom where certain HUD elements would be cut out and dimmed areas of scopes my obfuscate something I may miss.

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