'Halo 5: Guardians' will be free-to-play from Jan. 11 to Jan. 14 for Xbox Live Gold members

"Halo 5: Guardians" will be free to play this weekend, and will be sold at a discounted price.YouTube/Xbox

Xbox Live Gold members can plan their weekend on a Halo marathon, as the program lets subscribers play "Halo 5: Guardians" for free this weekend.

Unlike most free titles in Games with Gold, "Halo 5: Guardians" will be free-to-play for a very limited time only. The window starts from Jan. 11, 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time (PT) and will end on Jan. 14, 10:59 p.m PT.

Interested players can download the game though Xbox One's dashboard. They can play the game in full, be it single-player campaign or even in co-op mode. Full multiplayer features will work for Xbox Live Gold subscribers during the free-to-play weekend

Along with the free-to-play window, players who are interested in owning the game will get a special deal on the abovementioned time. "Halo 5: Guardians" will be marked down to $15.99 until the end of the free-to-play weekend.

In addition, Xbox Game Pass subscribers can also play the game for free. It is included in the hundreds of titles offered by the company for $10 a month.

One important thing that should be noted is that "Halo 5: Guardians" is a massive game, and in turn demands large amounts of download time. The game was first released in 2015, and Microsoft has added so many expansions, fixes, and patches to the game that its size now sits close to 100 GB.

The free-to-play weekend was announced by Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb on his blog.

As mentioned, the standard version of the game will cost $15.99, but those who want the Digital Deluxe Edition will need to spend $29.99. With the Deluxe Edition, players get the Warzone REQ bundle and full episodes of the "Halo: The Fall of Reach" animated series.

"Halo 5: Guardians" is the fifth installment in the main series of Microsoft's Halo franchise. It was released for the Xbox One on October 2015