343 Industries' Halo 5: Guardians is easily one of the most anticipated and well-received titles of the year. Unfortunately, when the game launched to much fanfare on Tuesday, not all gamers were happily able to go on Master Chief's newest adventure due to a slew of technical problems that botched up the launch for some.
A number of Xbox One gamers eager to get their hands on the game have voiced their disappointment over the various issues they have encountered at launch. The most common problem appears to be the extremely slow download times for the game, with some gamers complaining that it takes them several hours to complete their downloads.
7 and a a half hours later and halo 5 hasn't finish game installation download... Nvm the online updates
— Azonypse TC (@Azonypse) October 27, 2015
Compared to the launch of Halo 4, which was riddled by bugs and server issues, the problem seems to be relatively stale. In fact, it's not even surprising, considering Halo 5 is a whopping 54.88 GB download, including a 9 GB day one patch.
According to Piers Harding-Rolls, analyst at IHS, until publishers can upgrade to more advanced servers that can accommodate all the heavy traffic, launch day game downloads will always have issues.
"If you go for a digital version, you've got to download the whole game, and if it's a very popular one, you're likely to be dealing with a slow network as well," he says. "From the consumer point of view, it's not great to have to wait many hours to get access to content."
Other gamers report seeing an error message saying they are too early to play, even though they have tried to log in several hours past 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, Halo 5's official launch time.
Of course my xbox is telling me I'm too early and can't play halo 5. Currently 12:22 EST and still cant play @XboxSupport — Myles Gilbert (@Mctrollington97) October 27, 2015
When it's almost 30 minutes post launch but Xbox says you're too early to play halo 5 #Halo5Live pic.twitter.com/B5mWEnLzNN
— ㅤㅤĿieutenant Ðan (@DannyLuhNoThots) October 27, 2015
Microsoft has acknowledged the issue of slow downloads, saying that "there were isolated reports of slower speeds last evening shortly after the worldwide launch." Those who are still experiencing issues downloading the game are advised to do a hard reset on their Xbox One or cancel the download and do it all over again over a wired connection.
However, no solution has yet been made for gamers who are still seeing the "too early to play" messages when they try to log in. One possible cause of the problem, as pointed out by Microsoft on the official Halo Waypoint forums, is the presence of an incorrect stub file that players who preordered the game before Sept. 21 and do not have Instant On enabled on their Xbox One may be experiencing.
Those who are still seeing the error message are encouraged to check My Games & Apps to see whether they downloaded the right file. If their download says it is 40 GB, they do not have the right version and should download the game again.
