Better than the first

Halo Wars 2 may feel similar to the first game, but the beta on the Xbox One is much better

After the surprise Halo Wars 2 Beta announcement at Microsoft’s E3 press conference, I managed to spend some time with it on the Xbox One. While the game itself is launching on both the Xbox One and Windows 10 PC, the current beta was only for Xbox One users with a PC beta planned closer to launch.

The game feels similar to the original, despite Creative Assembly taking over development. Making an RTS on consoles is never easy, but like the original, Halo Wars 2 has a great unit selection and ability management UI that makes sure you’re no more than a couple of button presses away from doing what you want, whether it’s selecting a platoon on the opposite side of the map or dropping your commander ability.

The beta lets you play as either a Brute chieftain or UNSC commander, each with their own unique skill tree for passive upgrades and active commander abilities. My personal favourite is getting fire support from the orbiting USNC ship to completely wreck the enemy.

The base gameplay still revolves around building on predefined base locations on the map to gather two resources: energy and supplies that fund your unit creation, research and upgrades. You can also expand to other locations on the map or capture neutral buildings and dropped supplies for added boost. The game modes announced so far in addition to a full campaign are Deathmatch, Strongholds, Blitz and Domination.

One of the things that held Halo Wars back was the poor performance on the Xbox 360 as the console just couldn’t handle the game, resulting in massive fps drops and crashes. The Xbox One on the other hand seems to be handling Halo Wars 2 much better and I expect it to be even more optimised closer to launch with near flawless performance on the Xbox One S as it launches around the same time.