Halo 5 Getting "Classic Helmet" DLC In February, New Playlist Today

Microsoft's ongoing support for Halo 5 has been impressive, and that continues with more DLC coming in February and a new playlist this weekend, among other things.

In developer 343's latest weekly blog post, the studio revealed the "Classic Helmet" Req pack, which is slated to come out on February 9. That date could slip due to the fluid nature of game development, 343 cautioned, but February 9 is the date that 343 has in mind right now. The Req pack comes with all of the helmets in the image below, though pricing was not announced.

Also in the blog post, 343 announced that a new playlist, "Warlords," is coming to Halo 5's Warzone mode today, January 27, starting at around 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET.

This playlist, which will only be available this weekend, lets you play Warzone with a 12-person roster, instead of six. 343 stirred up some controversy when it reduced the fireteam size to six last month.

"This is being viewed as a test internally because frankly it may not be a great experience, especially if the popluation of pre-made 12-man Fireteams is low, resulting in longer-than-desired wait times for matchmaking," 343 said. "Still, we're looking forward to rolling this out and seeing how larger teams respond and what the experience is like!"

You can only enter matchmaking if you have a 12-person team, so you may want to consider joining the "Halo" Club on Xbox One and make use of the Looking for Group feature to make a team. Additionally, 343 said everyone who plays Warlords this weekend will see an XP boost for their account.

Finally, 343 said the response to the change to six-person fireteams for Warzone has had a "positive effect" on the game. There are no plans to boost the number back to 12, except for this weekend's Warlords test playlist.

"The change to 6-person fireteams has had a positive effect on Warzone results for a large majority of matches played and our current plan is to keep it in place and monitor as we do with every list we run," 343 said. "There is a very obvious problem with the limit of 6 though and that relates to the passionate fans in large clubs and companies who truly enjoy the coordinated tactics and team efforts that unfold when 12 Spartans blitz a goal together. Many of us here in the studio love and miss this as well. Hence Warlords. We don't want to set back the improvements made with 6-person teams, nor do we want to lose the 12-person spectacle either."

The full 343 blog post contains a lot more details and specifics about all the latest Halo news--read it here.