Grifball, Fiesta and Assault coming to Halo 5 this month

Halo 5 has a treat in store for ball mode fans.

February updates to Halo 5: Guardians will deliver multiple new game modes, 343 Industries has revealed.

Good old Grifball is among them, and 343 Industries called in Jeffrey “Nokyard” Fischer to design the first court and help design Halo 5's take on the classic game.

Fiesta is coming back, too, and so is a mode called Assault, which is an upgraded version of the classic Neutral Bomb Assault mode. Although the core ruleset is familiar (get the ball to the opponents goal to blow it up), the new mode has a key differentiator - the ball spawns in a different place each round, on a fixed pattern. This adds an element of territory control to the game.

For those who aren't fans of ball games, multiplayer designer Max Grossman said 343 Industries has taken feedback on board in tweaking the new modes. To make carrying the ball more fun, players have an insta-kill melee, access to an extra thrust, and can sneak into enemy bases thanks to a spotting mechanism similar to that seen in Capture the Flag. The developer made a ton of tweaks to compensate for the more powerful ball carriers.

Learn more about how the new modes have been tuned as well as upcoming and recent updates on Halo Waypoint.