Grifball is live in Halo 5: Guardians

343 Industries announced earlier in February that a beloved community created game mode called \”Grifball\” was making a return in Halo 5: Guardians. This has sparked a lot of excitement across the board with Halo fans all over. If there is one thing that can be observed about the Halo community, it\’s that as much as they love new content and additions to the universe, they really love when 343 make callbacks to earlier games in the series. (blood gulch remapping, bringing in Forge, etc)

Well the wait is over.  Grifball is live and it plays just like we remember.  The actual mechanics of the game are practically the same as the original Grifball.  You spawn with an Energy Sword and Gravity Hammer.  It\’s a classic Red Team v. Blue Team scenario on a field that resembles a hockey rink.  You run towards the ball to try and score into the other teams base, all the while avoiding a barrage of attacks from overpowered weapons.  Your Spartan Abilities are active in this mode, and you don\’t get grenades because… no.

It is a great break from the Warzone and other game modes.  It\’s a reminder of where the Halo community has come from, and how well the developers really listen to the people who play their games and can contribute to the universe as a whole.  There is a small hiccup right now where the Gravity Hammer you have that creates massive shock damage to teammates and kills them.  If you team kill enough in Grifball you\’re momentarily banned from playing.  It\’s being very quickly addressed by 343 as we speak, and hopefully resolved within the next week or so. That being said, I played a few times this morning and while I did team kill, I never got removed from a match.

If you have a few minutes to spare, want to mindlessly swing hammers into enemies\’ general direction, or just want to take a trip down memory lane with a few friends, Grifball has got what you need.

Ok, time to get back to hitting people with hammers while my roommates cat stares at me.