Microsoft announces Halo 5 launch date

Microsoft has announced that Halo 5: Guardians, the latest title in the long-running super-soldier sci-fi franchise, will launch exclusively on the Xbox One on the 27th of October.

Halo began as a follow-up to Bungie's first-person shooter Marathon, and was announced back in 1999 as a joint Windows and Macintosh release. Microsoft, however, had different ideas: in June 2000 the company announced it had acquired Bungie lock, stock and barrel, and that Halo would be exclusively available on the company's new Xbox console. The deal would prove lucrative for Microsoft, driving sales of the console and resulting in the launch of one of gaming's most successful franchises. In 2007, however, Bungie would split from Microsoft and become a private company once again and in 2010 it signed a ten-year deal with Activision Blizzard for its future IP.

Under the company's deal with Microsoft, Bungie had to relinquish rights to the Halo franchise it had created - although, as its console release Destiny would demonstrate, it retains the ability to create lofty sci-fi first-person shooters with armour-clad protagonists - with Microsoft Studios subsidiary 343 Industries taking over. Halo 4, 343 Industries' first full release in the franchise, was critically well-received and suggested that the series was in safe hands - a hope that will be tested with the release of Halo 5, its first proper next-generation Halo title.

In a trailer released late last night to North American audiences, Microsoft has confirmed that Halo 5: Guardians will launch on the Xbox one on the 27th of October. Sadly, the company has not revealed any gameplay footage; instead, the trailer takes the form of live-action footage set in the Halo universe and teasing various plot point for the new game.

Halo 5 will launch as an Xbox One exclusive, and if that hasn't put you off the trailer can be viewed in full below.