[Updated] Halo 5, Halo Wars 2 Reportedly Down for Over 36 Hours

Players are reporting that both Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2 are currently unplayable; 343 Industries is investigating the issue.


Published: February 24, 2022 1:57 PM /

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Halo 5 Halo Wars 2 Reportedly Down cover

Update (February 24, 2022 - 2:16 PM ET) - The Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2 outage has apparently been resolved by 343 Industries according to a tweet from Halo Support.

"An outage affecting Halo Wars 2 and Halo 5 has been resolved," read the tweet from Halo Support. "If you're currently in-game and receiving error messages, please try restarting your game. If you experience any other issues, please file a ticket at [Halo Support]."

Our original story continues below.


Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2 have both been down in excess of 36 hours according to player reports and with no apparent explanation from 343 Industries until very recently.

343 Industries has been working hard on its newest release Halo Infinite, most recently by removing an unbalanced map, attempting to fix BTB, and detailing its plans to combat desync and lag. However, Halo Infinite is not the only game that still has people playing it -- Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2 still have their fans. Unfortunately, it looks like they might have had trouble actually playing either game over the last day or so.

Halo 5 Halo Wars 2 Reportedly Down slice

What's Happening With Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2?

Earlier today, a submission to the Halo subreddit raised the issue of an apparent outage for both Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2. This submission categorized the lack of a response from 343 Industries as "complete radio silence," seeing as there was apparently no announcement about the problem.

The "radio silence" categorization was rebutted in a comment from Halo Senior Community Manager John "Unyshek" Junyszek in that same Reddit submission. On a separate front, 343 Industries' Community Support & Engagement Coordinator Tyler "Postums" Davis had a somewhat impolite reply to a tweet complaining about the lack of an outage notice. The tone of both of these replies led to a wave of complaints; discussion of both instances was subsequently locked by the subreddit's moderators.


Update (February 24, 2022 - 3:18 PM ET) - Tyler Davis has apologized for his initial reply on Twitter, explaining that he had been suffering from increased anxiety due to the escalation of conflict in Ukraine.

"I got offline at [4 PM] yesterday after being online for about 10 hours," Davis said in a reply. "I didn't see notifications as I wasn't checking and instead was focusing on my life outside of Halo for [work-life] balance. I popped online to post one tweet and then had a night filled with anxiety over war."

"I could have worded my response differently as it didn't have anything to do with it - sometimes I speak my personal truth when it doesn't matter to the topic at hand," he continued. "My apologies for those it upset about sharing my personal emotions as I wasn't aware of the outage."


As for the source of the actual problem, the Halo API project investigated the issue and claims that 343 Industries dropping support for some aspects of older games yesterday had a "direct impact" on the Halo 5 and Halo 2 outages.

Halo 5: Guardians is the previous core release for the Halo franchise, first launched for Xbox all the way back in 2015. It was followed by 2017's Halo Wars 2, a real-time strategy game that serves as a sequel to 2009's Halo Wars. While Halo Wars 2 is playable on PC, Halo 5 has yet to get an official PC release.

Whatever the reason may be for the outages, Halo Support has acknowledged the problem and is currently investigating these issues. In the meantime, you can get Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2 via the Xbox website.

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More Info About This Game
Learn more about Halo Wars 2
Game Page Halo Wars 2
Developer
343 Industries
Publisher
Microsoft Studios
Platforms
Xbox One, PC
Release Date
February 21, 2017 (Calendar)
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