New Halo Wars 2 Gameplay Footage Arrives, As Dev Teases "Completely New" Mode

Today during a PAX West panel, 343 Industries showed off some new Halo Wars 2 footage and teased a new mode for the RTS.

Specifically, the team demonstrated the first mission of the game's single-player campaign. The UNSC crew has been in cryosleep for 28 years and are finally awoken in an unfamiliar place. In the Halo timeline, Halo Wars 2 takes place shortly after the events of Halo 5: Guardians. You can watch the gameplay video below, as posted on YouTube by DualShockers.

The new gameplay footage wasn't the only thing 343 had in store for its PAX West showing. Studio head Dan Ayoub teased a mode that will offer a "completely new way to play" an RTS game.

"One of the modes, which I can only tease for the time being, is actually a completely new way to play a RTS," he said, according to DualShockers. "It really takes standard RTS gameplay and turns it on its head. And that's a mode that can be played in a shorter time frame as well, like five, six, seven minutes."

Following a delay, Halo Wars 2 comes out on February 21, 2017. You won't have to wait that long to play, however, as there will be a second beta that features a new mode. It's not known yet if the new mode is the one Ayoub teased today, but we'll report back with more details as they become available.

Halo Wars 2 is an Xbox Play Anywhere title, meaning you can buy it digitally on Xbox One and get the Windows 10 PC version free or vice versa.