Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta Is 10GB

If you were geeked about Halo 5 and have been watching every single video churned out by every big and small fan alike, from the basement dwelling man-nerd to the penthouse owning YouTuber – and every single other content producer in between – you'll be pleased to know that the size of the Halo 5 beta has been revealed. What does this mean for you? Well, now you know how much hard drive space to set aside for the premier multiplayer taste-test due to drop at the end of the month.

VG 24/7 picked up the post from a Reddit thread where a gamer posted a screenshot indicating just how big Halo 5: Guardians' multiplayer beta would be. So how big is it? Well, try 10.27 gigabyte on for size. You can check it out in the image below.

The 10GB size has caused a bit of chatter within the gaming community, some saying it's quite large while others are saying it seems extraordinarily small.

10GB for a few maps and a few Spartan models seems rather large to me. I mean, if you only have a handful of maps and a few Spartan model types – as well as a decent cache of weapons – it means that the assets are extremely large or there's a lot of uncompressed materials in there, especially considering that this is just a brief beta test.

On the other hand... one might imagine that with the world watching and with plenty of streamers, YouTubers and pundits alike all laying down criticisms and opinions of the beta, Microsoft and 343 Industries likely went the safe route and opened up a can of high-quality assets on the Halo 5 beta's production.

It would make sense to have the game looking as good as it possibly can (within reasonable means) in order to get as much positive coverage as possible. This isn't to say that everyone will praise the graphics (because they certainly don't impress me all that much) but it's mostly to prevent people from completely railing on the visuals. I mean, could you imagine if they had low-res textures and blocky geometry in order to test the game's functionality and mechanics? Yeah, lots of YouTube videos going up dissecting why the Halo 5 beta looks atrocious and all that jazz.

In this regard, gamers will get a decent looking multiplayer beta out of the Xbox One's prime-time AAA exclusive. It may not be wowing people like the brief teaser of Uncharted 4 for the PS4, but I imagine it's doing well enough for the die-hard fans of the series.

You can look to get in on the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta starting December 29th later this month, exclusively for the Xbox One. The beta will run up until January 18th, 2015. So for those of you who purchased Halo: The Master Chief Collection, you'll have plenty of time to enjoy the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta. Just be sure to keep 10GB free.