116 Fun Facts About Halo

Jason Jones couldn't bring himself to tell his mother Halo's code name 'Monkey Nuts', so it became what?

Blam! lasted until Bungie chose Halo in 1999, and when Microsoft's marketers later pushed to rename it, Bungie refused, so a Combat Evolved subtitle was added instead.

Halo was first announced in July 1999 at which event, before Microsoft bought its developer?

Macworld Expo is where Steve Jobs himself announced Halo in July 1999, billed then as a game for Mac and Windows computers.

Bungie, Halo's original developer, was founded in 1991 in which city?

Chicago stayed Bungie's home through its Mac games, until Microsoft bought the studio in 2000 and moved its team out of the city.

Which Bungie Mac series, featuring the AI Durandal, was the studio's best-known shooter before Halo?

Marathon was the seed of Halo: Bungie conceived the new game as an indirect successor, and it shaped Halo's story, look and gameplay.

What is Master Chief's service designation?

John-117 was covertly taken from his home colony as a child and conscripted into the SPARTAN-II program to be trained as a super-soldier.

Which former DJ voices Master Chief in the games as a man of few words in the Clint Eastwood mould?

Steve Downes got the part after his small role as Gunnar in the 1999 game Septerra Core caught the ear of its composer, who was moving on to Halo.

Master Chief's distinctive two-prong visor was inspired by what kind of helmet?

Older Spartans were given tank-like utilitarian armour to contrast with the sleeker newer characters.

Cortana was created from the cloned brain of which scientist, founder of the SPARTAN-II program?

Dr. Catherine Halsey later kidnapped one of her own Spartans and fled with her.

What does Halo call the fatal decline a smart AI like Cortana suffers after about seven years?

Rampancy should have killed Cortana, but she survived hers by entering the Domain, an ancient repository of knowledge.

Which actress voices Halo's Cortana in the games and reprised the role in the Paramount+ series?

Jen Taylor also voiced the US version of Microsoft's real Cortana assistant, which was named after and inspired by the Halo character.

What is the name of the human warship that escapes to the ringworld at the start of Halo: Combat Evolved?

Pillar of Autumn crash-lands on the ring, and the Chief later blows up its reactors to destroy the ring along with it.

What is the parasitic enemy that the Halo rings were built to contain?

The Flood is why the Forerunners built the rings: as a last resort, firing them kills all sentient life in the galaxy to starve the parasite.

What is the name of Master Chief's powered battle suit?

MJOLNIR suits are so powerful that unaugmented humans who move in them can suffer broken bones, so only Spartans can use them.

Roughly how much did Halo 2 gross in its first 24 hours in November 2004?

$125 million beat Microsoft's own boast, after an Xbox executive had publicly predicted a $100 million day for the launch.

Halo 2's marketing included which early alternate reality game built around real-world puzzles?

I Love Bees told its story as a radio drama that players unlocked by tracking down payphones across the US and answering them when they rang.

Which disgraced Covenant Elite do players control as the Arbiter in Halo 2?

Thel 'Vadam was the Covenant commander who failed to stop the Chief destroying the first ring, so the Prophets spared him and made him Arbiter.

What was Halo 2's Arbiter originally going to be called, before a cultural review raised concerns?

Dervish, a title from Sufi Islam, was dropped because it risked casting the religious Covenant as Islam at war with US-like heroes.

Which map-editing tool debuted in Halo 3, letting players place weapons and vehicles on multiplayer maps?

Forge let fans rebuild maps, and Rooster Teeth used it to invent Grifball, a hammer-and-bomb game type that later ran in Halo matchmaking.

Buyers of which Xbox 360 game got an invitation to Halo 3's 2007 multiplayer beta?

Crackdown owners launched the beta from the game's own menu, so its disc had to be in the console to play.

Which studio ported Halo: Combat Evolved to Windows in 2003?

Gearbox Software followed its port with Halo: Custom Edition in 2004, which let PC players play custom-made maps and mods.

Halo 3: ODST is set in which ruined city?

New Mombasa's streets hide clues, and each one triggers a flashback mission played as a missing squadmate hours earlier.

Which cooperative survival mode, pitting players against waves of enemies, debuted in Halo 3: ODST?

Firefight debuted in ODST, which Bungie had planned as a small Halo 3 expansion called Recon before it grew into a full game.

Halo: Reach casts the player as which member of the squad defending the doomed colony?

Noble Six stays behind on Reach to man a giant gun, so the ship carrying Cortana can escape the planet.

Which soft drink brand launched a 'Game Fuel' flavour in 2007 to promote Halo 3?

Mountain Dew's citrus-cherry Game Fuel stayed on shelves for only 12 weeks, then returned in 2009 to promote World of Warcraft.

Which game was 343 Industries' first original entry, launching its 'Reclaimer Saga' in 2012?

Halo 4 opens with Cortana waking the Chief aboard the drifting wreck he was stranded in at the end of Halo 3.

Halo 4 introduced which new enemy type, robotic warriors of the Forerunners?

Prometheans fight as a team: their Watchers can shield allies and even bring fallen Promethean Knights back into the fight.

In Halo 5: Guardians, which Spartan leads Fireteam Osiris in the hunt for Master Chief?

Jameson Locke's Fireteam Osiris is sent after the Chief because his Blue Team has gone absent without leave.

Halo 5's large-format 24-player mode was called what?

Warzone lets players summon weapons and vehicles with requisitions, and the REQ packs behind them could be earned in play or bought with real money.

Halo Infinite's campaign pits Master Chief against which mercenary faction on Zeta Halo?

The Banished open Halo Infinite by boarding the UNSC Infinity, and their leader Atriox defeats the Chief in the battle.

Master Chief's name is really his rank in which branch of Halo's human military?

Navy is right: in the Halo novels, the Chief was promoted three ranks at once, from Petty Officer First Class straight to Master Chief Petty Officer.

Which developer, makers of Age of Empires, made Halo Wars (2009) as its final project before closing?

Ensemble Studios was shut down by Microsoft, but ex-staff founded Robot Entertainment, which kept Halo Wars supported with updates and new content.

Halo Wars is set in 2531, aboard which UNSC warship?

Spirit of Fire ends Halo Wars without its faster-than-light drive, drifting through space with most of its crew in cryo sleep.

What gave the original Halo theme its ancient feel?

Gregorian chant opens the theme, and its 'monks' were really the composers plus three colleagues.

Which author wrote Halo: The Fall of Reach in just seven weeks for an October 2001 release?

He went on to write First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx; an animated Fall of Reach shipped with Halo 5's collector's editions.

Which Rooster Teeth machinima series, launched April 1, 2003, was filmed inside Halo multiplayer maps?

Red vs. Blue's voice actors later appeared as Marine cameos inside Halo 3, arguing with each other in one of its levels.

Who plays Master Chief in the live-action Halo TV series that premiered on Paramount+ in March 2022?

Pablo Schreiber's Chief takes off his helmet early in the series, a choice meant to help audiences identify with the character.

Which two filmmakers were attached to the abandoned mid-2000s Halo film?

Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp's Halo film stalled for lack of money, so the pair made District 9 instead.

Which Covenant species, standing nearly 8'6" with recharging shields, are known to humans as 'Elites'?

Sangheili were nearly given tails: project lead Jason Jones wanted one, but artist Shi Kai Wang felt it looked too animalistic and it was dropped.

Which Halo multiplayer mode has players score by holding a skull for as long as possible?

Oddball's skull carrier can't fire any weapons, but can still swing the skull itself as a melee weapon.

Which ancient Forerunner warrior does Master Chief unwittingly free on the shield world Requiem?

The Didact believes humanity is unworthy of the Forerunners' Mantle of Responsibility, so he turns on the Chief the moment he is free.

Which fighting game added Halo's Spartan Nicole-458 as an unlockable guest character?

Dead or Alive 4's Spartan is stranded on Nassau Station by a slipspace anomaly in her backstory, and that station became her stage in the game.

Which four-wheeled UNSC jeep with a mounted gun is Halo's signature vehicle?

Warthog fans got a real one: an effects studio built a working Warthog, complete with a working gun and four-wheel steering, for live-action Halo 3 shorts.

What was the subtitle of 343 Industries' remaster of the first Halo game?

Anniversary arrived on the first game's tenth anniversary, and pressing a button swaps its new graphics for the original ones.

Which 2010 Halo anime anthology compiles seven short films from Japanese studios?

Halo Legends' stories were mostly written by Halo creative director Frank O'Connor, then interpreted by each anime studio in its own art style.

Which pilot rescues Master Chief adrift in space at the start of Halo Infinite?

Fernando Esparza later admits he is no soldier but a civilian engineer who stole that Pelican to flee the attack on the Infinity.

Which Microsoft executive helped found 343 Industries in 2007 to take over Halo after Bungie left?

Bonnie Ross ran 343 Industries until 2022, and after she left, her role was split into three separate jobs.

What did Bungie call Halo's balance of guns, grenades and melee attacks?

The Golden Triangle shaped Halo's combat, and players could carry only two guns at a time, forcing hard choices about what to keep.

What do the Covenant believe firing the Halo rings will begin for the faithful?

The Great Journey is a lie: a heretic Elite in Halo 2 says the Prophets deceived everyone, and the Gravemind later tells the Arbiter the same.

Which member of Noble Team in Halo: Reach has a bionic arm?

Kat, Noble Team's second-in-command, is killed in New Alexandria when an Elite shoots her in the head.

After splitting from Microsoft in 2007, Bungie went on to create which sci-fi shooter series?

Destiny's maker did not stay independent for good: Sony bought Bungie in 2022 for $3.6 billion.

Which new loadout ability in Halo: Reach let players temporarily become invulnerable but immobile?

Armor lock ends by releasing an electromagnetic pulse that breaks the shields of any players standing nearby.

Which pro gaming league, founded in New York City in 2002, hosted Halo pro tournaments for years?

Major League Gaming even got its own ranked MLG playlist in Halo 3's matchmaking, built with Bungie in 2008.

Which sequence was entirely new to the Halo series when it appeared in Reach's campaign?

Space dogfights arrive in the mission Long Night of Solace, where players fly a Sabre starfighter to hit a Covenant supercarrier.

To whom does the player's Spartan hand Cortana at the end of Halo: Reach?

Captain Jacob Keyes takes Cortana aboard his ship, and the data she carries leads it to the ringworld where Halo: Combat Evolved begins.

Which Noble Team member leaves before Halo: Reach's finale to escort a scientist to safety?

Jun survived the fall of Reach, and after the war he became a recruiter and trainer for the new Spartan-IV program.

Which Marvel writer created the Halo comic series Uprising with artist Alex Maleev?

Brian Michael Bendis's series was meant to finish before Halo 3 shipped in 2007, but its final issue did not appear until April 2009.

Which one-word tagline fronted Halo 3's last big ad campaign, built around a hand-made battle diorama?

Believe honored the Chief through an old veteran's memories, set against a real hand-built model of a battle instead of computer graphics.

Which Halo: Reach mission, played after the credits, is the player's doomed last stand against the Covenant?

Lone Wolf ends when the player's Spartan finally falls, and an epilogue shows the cracked helmet on a restored Reach decades later.

Which composers scored Halo: Reach, aiming for a more sombre sound than earlier games?

Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori scored every Bungie Halo game, and O'Donnell stayed Bungie's audio director until it fired him in 2014.

Halo: Reach was re-released for Windows and Xbox One in 2019 as part of which compilation?

The Master Chief Collection launched with such broken matchmaking that Microsoft gave early owners Halo 3: ODST's campaign free as an apology.

Which Xbox executive had Halo 2's release date tattooed on his bicep at E3 2004?

Peter Moore later pulled the same stunt for Grand Theft Auto IV, and in 2017 he left games to become chief executive of Liverpool FC.

What is the name of the Covenant's capital city-ship where Halo 2 opens with the Arbiter's trial?

High Charity has a Forerunner dreadnought at its core, and the Prophet of Truth flees in it with the Chief aboard, leaving Cortana behind.

Which combat feature was Halo 2's most notable gameplay addition over the first game?

Dual wielding trades accuracy, grenades and melee attacks for raw firepower, and the series largely dropped it after Halo 3.

Which actor voices the Arbiter in Halo 2 and Halo 3?

Keith David first decided to become an actor after playing the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz.

In Halo 3, which UNSC frigate carries Master Chief and Cortana away as the new Halo self-destructs?

Only the front half of Forward Unto Dawn makes it back to Earth; the rear half drifts with the Chief and Cortana.

What nickname did the internet give the deadpan Brute in Halo Infinite's 2020 gameplay reveal?

Craig became a meme after the July 2020 reveal, and 343's community director Brian Jarrard declared the Brute's name officially Craig.

Halo developer 343 Industries is named after which floating robot caretaker of the first game's ring?

Guilty Spark is the fussy Monitor of Installation 04, known to the Covenant as the Oracle because of his link to the ring's long-vanished builders.

Which Xbox 360 shooter ended Halo 2's run of nearly two years as the most popular game on Xbox Live?

Gears of War only took the crown after players had logged more than 500 million matches of Halo 2, a game made for the previous Xbox.

In 2014, Microsoft gave the name of Halo's Cortana to which kind of Windows product?

A virtual assistant took the name only because fans asked for it: Cortana was meant to be a codename until a petition on a Windows Phone feedback site made it official.

Which actor voiced squad leader Edward Buck in Halo 3: ODST and also gave the character his face?

Nathan Fillion was one of three Firefly actors in the squad, voicing Buck beside Adam Baldwin's Dutch and Alan Tudyk's Mickey.

In the title of Halo 3: ODST, the four letters stand for Orbital Drop and which two words?

Shock Troopers are human Marines rather than armoured Spartans, and they reach the fight by dropping through the atmosphere in pods.

Which is the hardest campaign difficulty in Halo games, the only setting that shows extra ending scenes?

Legendary is marked in the original trilogy by an Elite's skull over two crossed combat knives, and even seasoned players expect to die often on it.

Which Halo: Combat Evolved multiplayer map, with a base at each end, was remade as Coagulation in Halo 2?

Blood Gulch kept its layout in the remake, which dug out the two bases to make more room and parked a Banshee flyer at each.

Halo 2's writer hoped its abrupt cliffhanger ending would be received like that of which film sequel?

The Empire Strikes Back was the model for an ending forced by the clock: a troubled development cut the game's scope, and players were divided over the result.

Which Marine sergeant leads human troops beside Master Chief in all three games of the original Halo trilogy?

Avery Johnson was partly based on Sergeant Apone from the film Aliens, and David Scully voiced him in every game until retiring in 2013.

Halo Infinite's multiplayer broke with every earlier main Halo game by launching under which business model?

Free-to-play multiplayer was announced in July 2020, and it earns its keep from paid battle passes and small in-game purchases rather than a boxed price.

Which giant four-legged Covenant walker in Halo, armed with a focus cannon, began as a mining platform?

The Scarab is moved by hundreds of Lekgolo worms acting as one mind beneath its armour, so the Covenant classed it as infantry rather than a vehicle.

Which unarmed UNSC quad bike, cut from Halo 2 for upsetting the game's balance, finally arrived in Halo 3?

The Mongoose carries no weapon of its own, so a passenger rides on the back to shoot; Bungie tried bolting machine guns onto it for Halo 2 and still could not make it fit.

In Halo 3, which vast Forerunner installation outside the Milky Way can fire every Halo ring at once?

The Ark is also the factory that built the rings: it is shaped like a giant flower, with curved petal-like arms around a Halo-sized foundry.

Which construction-toy brand partnered with Microsoft to make building sets based on Halo?

Mega Bloks also lent its name to a brick-built Halo video game prototyped for the Xbox 360, which was dropped and only came to light in leaked footage in 2017.

In Halo 3: ODST, players search a city at night for their missing squad as which unnamed soldier?

The Rookie finds clues that his missing squadmates left behind, and each one opens a flashback mission played as that soldier six hours earlier.

Early versions of Halo were a strategy game running on the engine of which fantasy war series?

Myth lent Halo its engine and overhead view, and its sales were keeping Bungie afloat while the project slowly turned into a shooter.

Which rock guitar virtuoso contributed solos to the Halo 2 soundtrack, alongside bands Incubus and Breaking Benjamin?

Steve Vai plays on both volumes of the Halo 2 soundtrack, which was produced by Nile Rodgers of Chic.

Which strategy-game studio co-developed Halo Wars 2 after 343 Industries approached it in 2014?

Creative Assembly, the makers of the Total War series, were chosen for their years of experience in developing real-time strategy games.

Which science fiction novelist wrote Halo's Forerunner Saga, a trilogy that opens with the 2011 book Cryptum?

Greg Bear was picked after franchise director Frank O'Connor said Bear was to science fiction what Stephen King was to horror.

Which outside game toolset did the makers of Halo adopt in 2024 to replace their in-house Slipspace technology?

Unreal Engine 5 came with a new name for the studio as well: 343 Industries rebranded itself as Halo Studios in the same October 2024 announcement.

The Halo TV series takes place in its own continuity, a timeline that producers named after which metal?

Silver is also the name of the Spartan team Master Chief leads in the show, and the separate timeline lets the show and the games evolve apart.

Which Halo Wars 2 mode replaces base building with decks of cards that players use to deploy their units?

Blitz took its cues from the collectible card game Hearthstone, and grew out of experiments with a faster, more accessible kind of strategy match.

In Halo Infinite, which Brute war chief leads the forces occupying the ring after his master's apparent death?

Escharum is himself dying, and he is invigorated to have Master Chief as his final opponent, setting a team of Spartan killers on the ring's survivors.

After a pandemic shutdown, the Halo TV series moved its filming from Ontario to which European capital?

Budapest took over in February 2021, after the five episodes already shot in Canada had been re-edited during the shutdown.

Which actor voices Lord Hood, the admiral who leads the last of Earth's ships, in Halo 3?

Ron Perlman, the star of Hellboy, came back to the role for Halo 3 in a cast that also had Robert Davi as an Elite shipmaster.

Which former Microsoft games executive wrote Halo 2600, a 2010 demake of Halo for the Atari 2600?

Ed Fries had shepherded Microsoft's purchase of Bungie a decade earlier, and his tiny tribute ended up in a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibit.

Which former Bungie writer joined Halo Infinite as campaign lead in 2020 and persuaded Microsoft to delay it?

Joseph Staten had been lead writer and cinematic director of the Bungie-era games, and he argued for a 2021 release so that the game would launch in a stable state.

Halo Infinite was delayed in 2020 and missed its planned debut as a launch game for which console?

The Xbox Series X went on sale without it after Halo Infinite's first gameplay showing drew complaints from critics and fans; the campaign followed in December 2021.

In Halo 5: Guardians, the unlock cards that come in randomized packs are called REQs, short for what?

Requisition packs are bought with points earned in every match or with real money, and a new player starts out with a bundle of 54 cards.

In Halo 5's four-on-four Arena mode, REQ cards can change only which thing about a Spartan?

Appearance is all a REQ can touch in Arena; the weapons and vehicles from the same packs can be called in only in the game's large-scale mode.

Halo 5: Guardians dropped which feature of every earlier Halo first-person shooter in its push for 60 frames per second?

Split-screen play was cut to hold the game at 60 frames per second; one studio lead reckoned that doubling the frame rate from 30 had quadrupled the development work.

Halo 5: Guardians was the first main Halo game to receive which rating from America's ESRB?

A Teen (T) rating gave the game a larger potential audience, an Xbox executive said, and he called the earlier Mature ratings surprising given the series' lack of graphic violence.

In Halo 5: Guardians, Master Chief goes absent without leave alongside which squad of fellow Spartan-IIs?

Blue Team's three other members are among the last surviving Spartan-IIs, and their disobedience is what sends Fireteam Osiris out to bring them back.

Which comedian voiced the journalist Benjamin Giraud in Hunt the Truth, the audio series promoting Halo 5: Guardians?

Keegan-Michael Key's reporter digs into Master Chief's past in a show styled on public-radio documentaries, and its first season drew 6.7 million listeners.

Which Forerunner AI is Cortana's enforcer and a recurring boss in Halo 5: Guardians?

The Warden Eternal was assembled from the essences of millions of Forerunner Haruspices, and Cortana outsmarted him into serving her.

In Halo 5's REQ system, which kind of card is used up when played instead of staying unlocked for good?

A power weapon card is spent the moment it is called in, as are vehicles and boosts, while visors, emblems and loadout weapons stay unlocked for unlimited use.

In Halo 5: Guardians, what name is taken by the rogue AIs who join Cortana to impose peace on the galaxy?

The Created plan to enforce their peace with the Guardians of the title, colossal Forerunner machines built to police whole planets.

Which Covenant weapon in Halo fires pink crystal shards that home in on a target and explode moments after impact?

The Needler's shards "supercombine" when several strike in quick succession, going off together in a single blast that is almost always lethal.

Which Covenant weapon in Halo can be overcharged by holding the trigger to fire a blast that tracks its target?

The plasma pistol was the standard sidearm for most Covenant infantry, and it overheats automatically after every overcharged shot.

Which Covenant melee weapon in the first Halo disabled itself when dropped, so players could not use it until Halo 2?

The energy sword carries a fail-safe that shuts the blade down for good when an Elite drops it, and off the battlefield only aristocrats are allowed to carry one.

Which UNSC weapon, usable in Halo 2 and later games, pairs a 2x scope with a powerful three-round burst?

The battle rifle proved so popular in Halo's fiction that it all but replaced the older marksman rifles across most of the UNSC's armed services.

Which Covenant counterpart to Halo's UNSC sniper weapon runs on a battery and overheats if fired twice too quickly?

The beam rifle is a favourite of Jackal marksmen, and the Covenant only made such weapons a priority after watching what human snipers could do.

Which Halo: Combat Evolved weapon looks modest but has a 2x scope and can kill a player in three shots?

The M6D magnum projects the view from its scope onto the user's visor, and well-placed headshots make it far deadlier than its size suggests.

Which shoulder-fired Covenant launcher in Halo lobs glowing green projectiles that arc before exploding?

The fuel rod gun's ammunition is toxic as well as radioactive, so Spartans are advised to handle it only in armour, and its green flash gives away the shooter.

In Halo 5, the Mythic REQ sniper rifle Nornfang is the hand-tuned weapon of which Spartan-II sharpshooter?

Linda-058 came by a rifle first built for its manufacturer's competitive shooting team, then altered it so her motion tracker stays visible while she looks down the scope.

Which Forerunner sniper weapon in Halo 4 kills a fully shielded player with a single hit anywhere on the body?

The binary rifle fires jacketed antimatter from twin particle accelerators, and it was designed to strike targets at extremely long range.

In the Halo TV series, which human was raised by the Covenant's Hierarchs as their Blessed One?

Makee, played by Charlie Murphy, is a character invented for the show's own timeline, a human who serves the alien alliance out of hatred for her own kind.

Which Brute weapon in Halo is passed on only when a challenger beats his chieftain in ceremonial combat?

The gravity hammer grew out of the Fist of Rukt, an ancestral war hammer fitted with Covenant gravity technology after Tartarus became chieftain of his people.

In Halo 5: Guardians, Master Chief is finally reunited with Cortana on which Forerunner planet?

Genesis is tended by an AI caretaker named Exuberant Witness, who sides with the Spartans and helps wrest control of the planet back from Cortana.

In Halo 2, Master Chief pursues the fleeing Prophet of Regret through slipspace aboard which UNSC ship?

In Amber Clad comes out of the jump beside a second Halo ring, the discovery that sets the rest of the game in motion.