Crossfire is home to one of Halo 5: Guardians’ new arena game mode: Breakout.  This map was inspired by Lead Multiplayer Designer, Kevin Franklin based off the idea of a paintball arena and offers gameplay that takes out the randomness of grenade bounces inherent in more natural environments and structures that are more defined to ease the confusion of callouts and use of cover.  The map has a very holodeck and Tron like feel to it with a grid floor with glowing effects for footsteps, grenade bounces, rag-dolls, etc. offering rigid structures and an arena-like layout.

If you remember the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta trailer, you may remember the catapulted launch of the red Spartans.  That entrance is exactly what you’ll get with Breakout as you and your opponents are catapulted into the arena and come off sprinting into the heat of battle.  We don’t know if other Breakout maps will have a similar entrance, but it adds an interesting aspect to the start of each round of play.

For Crossfire, there are five distinct callouts you’ll need to know.  First is the House, which is a covered structure that has two Plasma grenades and tends to be where a lot of battles will converge because of the cover it provides for the rest of the map.  It has entrances from both sides of the map and can be clambered up to from the trench.  The second callout is the Stage, which opposes the House and holds six fragmentation grenades, but is very open to fire and grenade spamming.  If your team has good control of the map, the Stage can be used as a great scouting position.  The third callout would be Trench, which, as the name suggests is the trench that bisects the map from Stage to House.  If possible, stay out of trench or risk getting hit by grenades and elevated fire if you’re at a disadvantage.  There were a lot of random nades that got thrown in Trench and stage at the start of rounds that instantly took out players, so tread carefully.  The fourth callout is tower, which there’s one per side that has a Battle Rifle at the top.  Whoever has the best aim in your team should grab this weapon and stay elevated when possible, spotting players and tagging enemies cross map.  The final callout is courtyard, which is the area in front of spawn on either side of the trench.  The courtyards will have the most activity as people try to reposition themselves and find lines of sight across the map as scouts call out enemy positions.

This is the first map we’ve seen that’s been made exclusively for the arena shooter experience 343 Industries is looking to create for Halo 5: Guardians.  It has a different feel mostly because of the gametype it supports, but was definitely the favorite for the group I played with and had my blood pumping the most with lots of clutch moments.

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