343 Industries continues to add new experiences to old favorites in Halo: The Master Chief Collection. One week into a sixth season that already included a brand-new map for Halo 3, the developer added Escalation Slayer, a variation on the classic FPS deathmatch variant where players get a new weapon every time they score a kill. Typically called Gun Game, the mode comes from the early days of Counter-Strike and now appears almost every year in games like Call of Duty and Battlefield. Escalation Slayer is now live in matchmaking for Halo: Reach, Halo 2: Anniversary, and Halo 4, with each game featuring slight tweaks on the formula to keep things interesting.
No matter the Halo game, Escalation Slayer starts players off with some sort of automatic weapon before stepping up to precision weapons, snipers, explosive arms, specialty weapons, and finally a melee implement to end things off. Guns like Halo's iconic Needler or Halo: Reach's Focus Rifle generally show up towards the end of the curve since they're harder to use than the run-of-the-mill Battle Rifle. Spartans can also score stick players with Plasma Grenades or Assassinate them to downgrade the weapon one notch, which could keep the opposing team from winning in the right situation. Halo's Escalation Slayer supports the traditional FFA gameplay and a 4v4 option where only one player needs to climb the ladder to claim victory.
While Escalation Slayer remains pretty consistent in all three of the supported Halo games, there are a few differences to keep in mind before hopping into matchmaking. Halo: Reach will sometimes bring up Elite Escalation, which includes playable Elites instead of Spartans and limits the action to Covenant weapons. Halo 2: Anniversary starts things off with several combinations of dual-wield weapons before players can reach the Assault Rifle. Finally, some Halo 4 team games are round-based, with each round centering on either Human, Covenant, or Forerunner weaponry.
Is Escalation Slayer A Permanent Addition to Halo: MCC?
As exciting as this new addition to Halo: The Master Chief Collection's multiplayer is, Escalation Slayer is a limited-time offering that won't last forever. 343 Industries rotates in new experiences from time to time, usually once every few weeks. Halo's Escalation Slayer is currently in that limited time slot and will eventually be unavailable at the push of a button. It's likely that the game mode will appear in the more general Action Sack playlist when it's not the featured mode of the moment, and 343 will likely rotate it back in on a regular cycle alongside other timed Halo multiplayer mode offerings like Fiesta and Griffball.
It's not every day that the developers of Halo: The Master Chief Collection introduce a brand-new way to play Xbox's signature first-person shooter. Halo's Escalation Slayer borrows from other greats in the genre, further standardizing Gun Game as a staple inclusion alongside Capture the Flag and Capture Point modes. It's a welcome addition to the ever-growing number of options Halo fans have whenever they load up the collection. Time will tell if Escalation Slayer makes enough of a splash to warrant inclusion in Halo Infinite's multiplayer modes, or if it will simply remain as a curious novelty of this rather fruitful period in franchise history.