Halo 5 PC Port (Halo5OnPC campaign; Halo 5 Reforged in development)

Halo 5: Guardians came out on Xbox One in 2015. Microsoft brought only its level editor and custom games to Windows, as Halo 5: Forge in 2016. Both fan projects start there: Forge already contains a PC version of the game’s engine, and they adapt the Xbox One game’s content to it. Halo5OnPC published its first build on 14 September 2026, and DSOGaming covered it two days later. Windows Central wrote about Halo 5 Reforged on 15 October 2026.

This site is not affiliated with either project, Microsoft or Halo Studios.

Halo 5 Reforged: what it is

• A PC runtime built around Halo 5: Forge: the team’s own code, adapted to work with Halo 5 content from the Xbox One game that users supply themselves. The FAQ stresses that campaign and Warzone do not appear just by copying the Xbox files into Forge.
• Your own files, processed on your PC: the project policy says users must supply original Halo 5: Guardians or Halo 5: Forge files from copies they are lawfully entitled to access. Microsoft-owned game files are never bundled with a release.
• No leaked builds: nothing on the site or in its credits points to unreleased or development versions of Halo 5. It is based on the retail game and the public Forge PC build.
• Free and non-commercial: no sales, no paid early access and no donations.
• Its own online services: Reforged accounts, friends, invitations and custom games run on the project’s own servers. Compatibility with Xbox Live or Xbox players has not been announced.

The team lists project lead NicmeisteR (Nicolaas Nel) and contributors, and credits community research tools such as AusarDocs, Osiris, FiveTool and h5_dumper. It also used Halo5OnPC as a reference for a few campaign fixes.

Halo 5 Reforged: status

The project says “done” on its roadmap means working in its own development builds, not released. As of its 16 October 2026 update:

• Campaign: all 15 missions load into gameplay, and Osiris has been played start to finish on all four difficulties. Full completion checks for the other missions are still underway.
• Co-op: two-player online co-op has run on a dedicated server; four-player fireteams are still planned.
• Multiplayer: custom games with up to 31 bots work locally. Arena playlists and matchmaking are planned.
• Warzone: all eight Firefight maps pass loading and first-round checks; player-versus-player Warzone is planned.
• Forge and Spartans: the editor loads and saves maps. Armor customization, REQ packs and the REQ store work in development builds.
• PC options: experimental field-of-view, 30–500 FPS and HDR settings.
• Long-term goals: LAN play and mod support.

We couldn’t confirm any of this ourselves, because there is nothing public to test. Final system requirements, the exact game files needed and setup steps will be published with a public build, according to the FAQ.

Halo5OnPC: the campaign today

Halo5OnPC by Daniel McCluskey (Danos) is a separate hobby project. It only targets the campaign, with no multiplayer, matchmaking or Xbox services. The author says he mainly wants to speedrun Halo 5 on PC, and the README says plainly that it is not Halo 5 Reforged.

Known problems listed in the README: many crashes, checkpoint reverts not working, and the launcher not finding the game on a different drive. Only English (US) is supported. The release notes say the automated tests do not test gameplay. The author also says much of the code was “vibe coded”, meaning written largely with AI help, and that things will probably break. We didn’t play it ourselves.

What you need for Halo5OnPC

• Halo 5: Forge from the Microsoft Store, with the Halo companion app; tested with Forge 1.194.6192.2.
• Your own extracted Halo 5: Guardians game files from the Xbox One game, tested with version 1.1.31695.21.
• A Windows x64 PC with a local NTFS drive for the cache the launcher builds.

The project ships no game files and asks people not to share prepared caches. We don’t explain how to obtain or copy game data.

How it works, briefly

Download the launcher from the project’s GitHub Releases page and extract it. Open h5sololauncher.exe, select your extracted game files and a folder for the cache, and click Prepare & play; then pick a mission under Solo. Once the cache is complete, the original files are not needed to play.

Which one should I follow?

If you want to play the Halo 5 campaign on PC now and can live with crashes, Halo5OnPC is the only option. If you want multiplayer, Warzone or co-op, follow Halo 5 Reforged’s site and Discord, and ignore anything claiming to offer a Reforged download before the team announces one.

Is it official, and is it legal?

• Both are unofficial fan projects, not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft or Halo Studios.
• Both say they distribute no Microsoft game data. Halo 5 Reforged also says it does not intend to bypass DRM or ownership checks, and that a release may require signing in to Xbox to verify that you own the game.
• Windows Central reported that Ske7ch at first saw the project as potentially problematic. After more context, he understood it as a wrapper of shared components that needs players’ own copies, though he added he couldn’t know for sure. This is not a statement that Microsoft allows it.

Not working?

For Halo5OnPC:

• The launcher doesn’t find the game: this is a known bug when the game is on another drive; the README lists it.
• Missions are missing from an older cache: select your extracted files and use Options and diagnostics > Prepare cache only; updating the launcher alone doesn’t add them.
• Crashes: expected at this stage; report them on GitHub with the launcher’s Copy details output.

More Halo on PC: Halo: Combat Evolved. Other Microsoft console games on PC: the Forza Horizon PC port and Forza Motorsport 4.

Unofficial. This page is written by an independent directory. It is not made by, endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft Studios (developed by 343 Industries, now Halo Studios) or Daniel McCluskey (Halo5OnPC); Halo 5 Reforged led by Nicolaas Nel (NicmeisteR) (Halo 5 PC Port (Halo5OnPC campaign; Halo 5 Reforged in development)'s author). We do not host any files, and we never link to game files, ROMs or ISOs.