Halo 5: Infinity’s Armory update previewed

Halo 5's next update, Infinity's Armory, is in "final testing" and on track to release this month. But before it arrives, developer 343 Industries has given us a sneak peek at some of its contents — battlegrounds, weapons (and skins), and more.

Infinity's Armory brings three different armor sets: Atlas, Achilles, and Mark V Alpha. While you can get a glimpse of all three below, 343 Industries specifically highlighted the Achilles armor set.

"With the release of the Infinity’s Armory update, there will be two Spartan Company Mastery Commendations. The first is getting to level 3 in all of the Kill Commendations. This awards you with the Achilles Armor. The second Mastery Commendation is awarded for getting all Kill Commendations to level 5. This awards all members of the Company the Achilles Helmet."

Along with the armor sets come two new maps: Riptide and Urban. Riptide is a brand new take on Fathom, and Urban is a Warzone Assault variation taking place on Noctus.

Urban

"For [Urban] we really wanted to push the gameplay and visual changes between Noctus. The biggest change was done to the design of the central area of the map, making it much more terrain and vehicle focused than Noctus," explained multiplayer level designer Adrian Bedoya. "The added lines of sight from different areas along the street and home base area also add a new and fresh element of finding new areas for players to fight around.

Riptide

In addition to this new content, Warzone is also getting a slight tweak to its "garbage collection." Designer David Ellis explained:

:In pretty much all Halo titles there’s a feature called garbage collection. Basically, we have a list of objects we scan periodically to see if they’re not in use and delete them out of the player’s view. This is one method of ensuring we stay as close to 60fps at all times.

With 24 players, dozens of the enemy and friendly AI and a multitude of vehicles and weaponry available to the player, Warzone is one of the most ambitious and, from a performance perspective, insane features Halo has ever seen. At launch, the garbage collection setting for weapons in Warzone was set to 5 seconds. A frequent bit of feedback from within our studio walls and without is a desire to have your dropped weapons stick around a little bit longer. After extensive testing in the studio we’re happy to announce that starting with “Infinity’s Armory,” we’ve increased the weapon despawn timer across all of Warzone from 5 to 20 seconds without impacting framerate. Now you’ll have more time to track down that weapon you dropped after getting bullseyed by a steely-eyed sniper, and perhaps, you’ll get the opportunity to experiment with other tools of destruction delivered by the vanquished bodies of your enemies."

Halo 5's Infinity's Armory update doesn't yet have a release date, but is on track to launch this month.