Halo Full Story - EVERYTHING You Need To Know Before You Play Halo Infinite

[Music] halo is and always has been about its excellent combat first and foremost and the series multiplayer offerings are often the most crucial part of the experience but unlike so many other multiplayer centric shooters halo has always also put a great deal of emphasis on the story microsoft's legendary series has told a very elaborate tale across several installments over the last two decades sometimes to its detriment and though the upcoming halo infinite is being designed to be able to stand on its own two feet and be accessible to newcomers you are of course still going to get the most out of it if you have prior knowledge about the series's narrative events so far we're going to take a look at the entire story of halo from start to finish in chronological order and here we're going to talk about halo reach before we begin please consider subscribing and enabling all the notifications by clicking that bell icon with that out of the way let's get started the vast majority of the halo series takes place in the mid to late 26th century with halo reach set in the year 2552 by this time humanity has expanded its reach beyond the limits of the solar system and established colonies all across the galaxy though at the same time insurrectionists and rebels in humanity have been causing more than a little trouble for the united nations space command which essentially serves as the ruling governing body for the entire human race to fight against the threat of these insurrectionists the unsc pioneered the spartan program which has enabled the creation of biologically and mechanically enhanced super soldiers human secessionists are far from the biggest problem facing humanity though for about two decades by the time halo reach kicks off the human race has been locked in a furious war with the covenant a collective of technologically advanced aliens who have been on a genocidal mission to completely wipe out humanity for reasons that as of yet aren't completely clear by 2552 humanity has suffered major losses and the covenant have destroyed almost all of their major colonies and are edging closer to earth the planet reach is all that stands between them and total victory and as the unsc's strongest military and scientific outpost it has to be defended at all costs in halo reach which is set just before the events of combat evolved the series first game players step into the shoes of a spartan who goes by the call sign noble six the newest addition to the spartan group of elite super soldiers stationed on reach known as noble team in addition to six noble team is composed of their leader carter their second in command cat their heavy weapons specialist george close combat specialist emile and sharpshooter june as halo reach begins noble 6 arrives on the planet and is introduced to the rest of the noble team and the squad is quickly sent off on an urgent mission one of the planet's biggest communications hubs has gone dark and it falls to noble team to investigate why that has happened they go in expecting to find secessionists but they quickly discover that things are far more dire when they run into ground forces of the covenant who are the ones attacking the communications hub noble team takes out the covenant forces and secures the relay and when information regarding the incident is relayed to command they're quickly put on alert regarding a possible covenant invasion a couple of days later noble team is deployed on another sensitive mission this time to sword base an installation of the office of naval intelligence or oni sword base is being attacked by a covenant corvette and owing to the sensitive nature of the base and the work that is carried out there noble team is tasked with driving off the covenant forces the group of spartans is successful in fending off the covenant attack following which they are debriefed by one dr catherine halsey the scientist who masterminded the spartan program who tells them that the reason the covenant attacked the communications hub was to steal some important information i could send you to the brig for interfering with my work maybe you'd like to join her i'm sorry we're currently under emergency planetary directive winter contingency i'm sure you're familiar with the punishment for civilian interference with the spartan deployment are you threatening me commander just making a reading suggestion ma'am a couple of weeks passed but things have been quickly escalating in this time and soon noble team is tasked with heading to a part of reach where there's been a lot of covenant activity the mission is headed by emil and six who discover a massive covenant invasion force a large unsc assault force is a mass following this discovery who mount an attack to push back the covenant that landing zone has been tagged by unsc command as a priority one target that charge link is loud and clear copy that after a ground attack is initiated the next day it's discovered that the invasion force is being spearheaded by a covenant super carrier and noble team's second in command quickly comes up with a plan to destroy the ship though unsc stockpiles on reach have run out of traditional nukes cat devises a plan to use a slip space drive as a makeshift bomb to destroy the super carrier the responsibility for enacting this plan falls to a two-person squad of george and six who commandeer a covenant saber and fly it up to the super carrier while carrying the bomb during the attack however the bomb's detonator is damaged and george realizes that the only way to set it off now is to detonate the bomb manually george throws six out of the ship and stays behind sacrificing himself to destroy the bomb and in turn destroying the super carrier listen reach has been good to me time has come to return deny me this [Music] tell him to make it count it turns out however that his sacrifice was for nothing because merely moments later a massive covenant fleet arrives on the scene launching a full-scale invasion of the planet of reach six meanwhile lands on the outskirts of the city of new alexandria where he fights alongside the local military to aid the city's civilians against evading covenant forces attacks soon afterward six reunites with noble team following which they are contacted by command with a brief message to immediately return to sword base and help destroy sensitive information stored within in order to prevent it from falling into covenant hands with a new mission noble team moves through new alexandria and fights against overwhelming covenant forces and during one particular attack cat is killed by a single shot to the head [Music] come on come on get in noble team eventually makes its way back to sword base a couple of days later where they come to learn some crucial information dr halsey leads the group of spartans into an underground ice cavern beneath the base and shows them a massive artifact buried in the ice this ancient artifact she explains was created by an ancient race of aliens known as the forerunners who ruled the galaxy a hundred thousand years ago and the data that the unsc has been able to extract from the artifact may very well be the key to winning the war against the covenant and now it falls to noble team to protect the data from this artifact with its life and ensure that it safely gets off planet the protecting and overseeing of this data has been the responsibility of its custodian the artificial intelligence cortana and noble team is tasked with taking cortana and handing it off to the unsc ship pillar of autumn which is heading on a special mission soon take it lieutenant she has made her choice do you have it yes say the words please i have it dr halsey hands cortana off to six and things are quickly set in motion carter orders june to escort dr halsey off the base and as the group departs it sets off explosive charges set on the forerunner artifact destroying it and any evidence of its existence and in turn any information it may have contained with cortana now being the sole remnant of that data carter emil and sixx make their way to the place where the pillar of autumn is docked but on their way they're attacked by covenant and carter is critically wounded eventually their way forward is blocked by overwhelming enemy forces but carter sacrifices himself by ramming his ship into a covenant scarab to buy emil and six the time they need to push onward solid cop hit him on boss you're on your own the remaining pair eventually arrives at the pillar of autumn and six hands off cortana to captain jacob keys as they're preparing to leave however they are attacked by more covenant forces who are preparing to destroy the pillar of autumn as captain keys with cortana in his possession evacuates emile and six stay behind to hold off the advancing covenant forces the pillar of autumn manages to flee successfully but the planet of reach is overwhelmed and destroyed while six and emil are killed by covenant forces halo reaches ending leads directly into the beginning of halo combat evolved with the pillar of autumn arriving out of slip space and arriving in a mysterious ring world discovered by the data extracted from the forerunner artifact on reach in a final scene set 30 years after the events of the game we see a cracked helmet of the long dead noble six lying on a grassy field on reach with the planet having been terraformed again and beginning to recover from the deadly covenant invasion and humans beginning to colonize it once more we recently kicked off our recap of the halo series in chronological order beginning with the story of halo reach unlike microsoft however we haven't forgotten about halo wars which really should have come first but you know better late than never right as the first game in the series chronology halo war sets up some important things for future games and here we're going to talk about its events from beginning to end halo wars is set in the year 2531 about two decades before the fall of reach and the subsequent events of halo combat evolved the first game in the series at this time humanity has been under attack from the covenant for about six years with the fanatical collective of alien races hell-bent on destroying the human race and completely wiping it out the game's story focuses on the crew of the unsc ship spirit of fire which is led by captain james cutter with other major characters in the ship's crew being the no-nonsense marine john forge and the ship's ai serena as halo wars begins the unsc spirit of fire is sent to the human colony of harvest which has been almost completely destroyed by covenant forces qatar soon discovers that there's been a lot of covenant activity around the northern pole of the planet where they seem to have excavated something of great value to them the spirit of fire crew takes on the covenant forces defeating them in battle and managing to prevent them from destroying whatever it is that they've uncovered so that it doesn't fall into human hands after their victory they discover that what the covenant had excavated is actually a facility built by the ancient alien civilization known as the forerunners soon after a civilian researcher by the name of professor ellen anders arrives on the scene and deduces that the facility houses an interstellar map pointing to various locations gathering data from the facility andrus is able to figure out that the covenant are next headed to arcadia another human colony the covenants soon launch a counter-attack on the facility and after repelling their forces the spirit of fire crew depart from harvest in pursuit of the covenant with arcadia being their next destination arcadia much like harvest and many other human planets and colonies at the time is under heavy attack from the enemy and when the spirit of fire arrives it finds itself facing heavy resistance the ship's crew joins forces with a local group of spartan soldiers known as the red team and assists them in fighting off the covenant and helping evacuate the people of perth city they eventually set up a defensive perimeter around the city and when spartan team omega eventually arrives and provides them with added support they're able to drive back the attacking covenant forces now with a little bit of breathing room the group is able to figure out what to do next a particular site on the planet full of undiscovered 4runner ruins seems to be the area seeing the most covenant activity to the point where they have even enacted a massive energy shield to allow them to conduct whatever activities they're engaged in without too much resistance from human forces that of course is where the unsc needs to turn its attention as well in order to destroy the energy shield the unsc employs experimental plasma equipment to break through it while the grueling battle then ensues against a partially complete scarab the unsc manages to destroy the scarab and punch through covenant defenses and anders and forge begin inspecting the area their work however is cut short because not long afterward one ripa morami arrives on the scene more of me is a warlord belonging to the sengeli race known to humans as elites and currently moromi holds the position of arbiter who's supposed to be one of the covenant's most powerful and influential military leaders red team arrives on the scene but a little too late the arbiter injures forge and takes anders captive and then immediately the covenant forces pull back they flee from the planet and enter slip space using their faster than light drive and the spirit of fire is forced to give pursuit when they emerge out of slip space they find themselves in a distant unknown location close in proximity to a mysterious planet that no one seems to know anything about this planet as it turns out is an ancient forerunner installation known as etren harborage veteran harborridge was a shield world which were meant to be the only known places where one could find safety from the destruction caused by the activation of the halo array there's a lot more to that of course but we'll get to that in a later episode for now let's keep our attention on the covenant forces here the spirit of fire and what goes down between those two opposing forces things on the shield world quickly take a turn for the worse to no one's surprise the covenant and the humans it turns out aren't the only ones here and both forces are attacked by a large swarm of an undiscovered parasitic alien species known as the flood we'll be talking a lot more about the flood in later episodes so we'll go into greater detail into what they're all about later on but for now all you need to know is this they're bad news the spirit of fire barely surviving against the flood onslaught manages to discover the source of a signal which seems to be a large body of water when they arrive there the body of water literally splits open revealing the shield world to be a hollow artificial installation with its own interiors and even a miniature sun from the insides of the shield world scores of automated forerunner defense drones known as sentinels emerge and immediately begin attacking the flood while the sentinels and the shield world's own defense systems deal with the flood the spirit of fire enters the installation's interiors takes on and defeats attacking covenant forces and sets up a base of operations so what's going on with the arbiter and anders though for starters why did he even need her to begin with well anders as it turns out is a reclaimer and what the heck is a reclaimer reclaimer is an ancient term coined by the forerunners proclaimers you see are the only people who can activate forerunner activations like halo rings and shield worlds and other things and only for runners and humans it seems can be reclaimers again we'll be talking about more of this later on so keep that in mind back to the present though what the arbiter needs anders for is to activate the shield world so that he can then take control of a fleet of highly advanced forerunner warships housed within and then use them to completely obliterate humans in their war against the covenant luckily enough anders manages to escape and eventually reunites with the spirit of fire crew where they devised their final plan for how to deal with the arbiter and his forces they removed the spirit of fire's ftl drive intending to detonate it so that the chain reaction will then destroy the shield world's miniature sun and in turn the shield world itself which of course will keep the forerunner fleet from falling into covenant hands the spirit of fire crew launches its final attack against the covenant who put up formidable resistance the arbiter's group of elite soldiers is killed by the spartans of red team while the arbiter himself is killed by forge who uses one of his own energy swords against him during the fight however the ftl drive is damaged as such forge chooses to stay behind and detonate the device manually knowing full well what it will mean for him son i have a feeling before this is over we'll need every last spartan in the fight i can do this report back to the ship good luck sir it's been an honor [Music] the unsc forces fall back to the spirit of fire flee from the shield world and manage to get far enough away from it while forge detonates the reactor destroying the installation completely of course with the spirit of fire in completely uncharted territory and far away from human space without their ftl drive they have no way of getting back home quickly which means the journey is now going to take years decades even the crew enters cryonic storage a few years later the unsc declared the spirit of fire quote lost with all hands in a post-credits scene the ship's ai serena wakes up cutter telling him that something has happened setting up events for halo wars 2. it will be a while before we get to halo wars 2 though because the next game we'll be talking about is halo combat evolved so stay tuned [Music] as we count down the days to halo infinite's launch in recent weeks we've taken it upon ourselves to recap the entire series story so far and until now we've discussed the events portrayed in halo wars and halo reach of course there's still a long way to go and as we continue our halo recap here we're going to be talking about the game that started it all so settle in and get ready for the full story of halo combat evolved from start to finish combat evolved story picks up pretty much exactly where halo reach ended the colony of reach has been overrun and destroyed by the covenant but thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of the unsc forces on the planet and of course the spartans of noble team it wasn't a total loss the pillar of autumn managed to escape with the ai known as cortana aboard carrying crucial military data and vital information about how to potentially defeat the covenant also aboard the ship is the spark known as master chief soon after its flight from reach the pillar of autumn comes out of slip space and finds itself in proximity of something strange as halo comedy evolved begins the ship being pursued by covenant forces finds itself close to a massive ring-shaped world of unknown origin with nowhere left to run and the covenant hot on their tail under orders from the pillar of autumn's captain jacob keys the ship makes for the ring world at the same time as the ship is being boarded by the covenant keys also summons master chief and tasks him with taking cortana and fleeing so that the covenant cannot get their hands on the ai and get access to sensitive information like the earth's location for starters with cortana safely in his possession master chief fights his way through covenant forces in the pillar of autumn and hops aboard an escape shuttle the pillar of autumn crash lands on the ring world at a fair distance away master chief emerges on the ring world from his escape shuttle as well immediately the chief and cortana set out to find more surviving marines and crew from the ship eventually meeting up with staff sergeant avery johnson they discover that captain keys has been captured by the covenant and is being held aboard the covenant cruiser known as truth and reconciliation after fighting past more covenant forces and using a gravity lift to get aboard the cruiser on the truth and reconciliation master chief and the unsc marines alongside him are met with heavy resistance eventually however they managed to find and rescue keys once they've reached safety keys tells master chief and cortana that the ring world that they're on is known as halo it's of great significance to the covenant for reasons that are yet known but more importantly halo is also some sort of weapon that of course means the control of halo cannot be allowed to fall into the covenant's hands as such keys orders master chief and cortana to find and secure halo's control room before the enemy can get to it while keys himself heads out alongside johnson to find halo's weapons cachet the first step in master chief's search for the control room is halo's map room called the silent cartographer where after dispatching covenant resistance he discovers the control room's location once the chief and cortana do make it to halo's control room some of the pieces of the puzzle start falling into place but more questions emerge as well master chief plugs cortana into the ring world system where she learns for starters what halo even is as it turns out halo was constructed by the forerunners an ancient alien race that existed in the galaxy a hundred thousand years ago more importantly however cortana also finds out that there's something else locked away in the ring world's weapons cache that even the covenant are terrified of realizing that whatever is locked in there needs to stay locked in cortana urgently dispatches master chief to stop keys and johnson from accessing the cash as the chief heads back out he encounters a new enemy the thing even the covenant are afraid of and can't seem to handle very well the flood a parasitic alien race that attaches itself to cinching hosts feeds on them and turns them into more flood husks the flood has started spreading with surprising speed and sweeps through human and covenant alike in devastating fashion with the release of the flood however halo's own defenses begin kicking in as well hold still hold still let them have it sergeant we're surrounded one crucial character that master chief meets around this time is 343 guilty spark an ancient ai constructed by the forerunners that serves as a caretaker of the halo installation even now or the monitor as the forerunners once dubbed it among 343 guilty sparks responsibilities of course is ensuring that the flood stays locked up and restrained and isn't allowed to spread and especially not to get off the ring world and find itself free in the galaxy the ai recruits master chief's help in putting a stop to the flood's advance and how exactly can that be done well under guilty spark's direction master chief heads to a location known as the library a place that nearly all halo fans have some not very fond memories of where he has to recover an object known as the activation index this index guilty spark explains is the key with which master chief can head back to the control room and activate halo's defenses in order to defeat the flood at the library master chief encounters heavy resistance overwhelming hordes and swarms of the flood assault him relentlessly as he makes his way through winding corridors and hallways and rooms all of which look mind-numbingly similar while guilty spark provides support by activating sentinels automated drones built by the forerunners to combat the flood eventually master chief finally manages to find and recover the index following which 343 guilty spark takes him back to the control room with some urgency just as the chief is about to insert the index and activate halo though cortana stops him and here the full truth of the ring world is revealed while the chief was retrieving the index from the library in the control room system cortana learned about halo's true significance for starters it's not the only one of its kind the forerunners built several halo installations and many are still out there seven as revealed in later games with the one that they're on right now being installation 4. the halo rings are indeed weapons and one of their most crucial purposes was to destroy the flood once activated the rings will send out a pulse that will destroy all sentient life in the galaxy the flood of course can only survive and grow when they have sentient hosts to feed on in the absence of that they would die that it turns out was the only countermeasure the forerunners could find against the flood 343 guilty spark as the monitor of installation 4 intends to activate the halo ring but upon learning the true nature of the installation from cortana master chief realizing how dangerous the ring world is instead decides to destroy it cortana tells him that if he can get to where the pillar of autumn crash landed and detonate its fusion reactor the resulting explosion would destabilize and destroy the entire halo ring killing all the covenant and flood on it as well to do so they will require keys whose neural implant is needed to destroy the ship master chief heads back to the truth and reconciliation to find the captain but arrives too late keys as it turns out is dead killed and assimilated by the flood with no time to grieve however the chief and cortana retrieve the captain's neural implant from his remains and head to the pillar of autumn's crash site when they get to the ship they're forced to fight their way through sentinels sent by 343 guilty spark but are ultimately successful in detonating the ship's reactor they narrowly escape its massive explosion and race ahead through chaotic destruction and explosions as the halo installation begins to crumble around them after luckily managing to find a ship they lift off and escape just in time as the ring world is destroyed behind them killing most of the covenant flood and unsc forces that were still on it realizing that the destruction of installation 4 is just the beginning of humanity's war against the covenant master chief and cortana fly away from the halo ring's remains and that's it for halo combat evolved next time we'll be tackling halo 2 one of the series most ambitious and large scale stories so make sure to keep an eye out for that just dust and echoes we're all that's left we did what we had to do for earth an entire covenant armada obliterated and the flood we had no choice as we count down the days to halo infinite's launch our full recap of the halo series continues last time we talked about combat evolved and the master chief in cortana's first mission together which ended with the destruction of the halo ring installation 4 that the game was set on here we'll be talking about halo 2 and it's a much more ambitious and large scale story right off the bat halo 2 does the thing that you'd expect a sequel to a massive new game would do it expands its scope vastly with the ambition of telling a much grander story than the laser sharp focus of halo combat evolves narrative the way halo 2 chooses to do that is by focusing quite a bit on the covenant themselves shown as one-dimensional villains in the first game in halo 2 they take on a more layered and complex role as the story dives deep into their social order their goals and motivations the conflicts and politics between the many races that make up the collective and more halo 2 kicks off with a scene set on high charity a massive covenant flagship that also serves as the alien empire's mobile capital city the covenant sangelli or elite as humans call them soldier who is placed in charge of installation force protection is on trial aboard high charity who tries arguing that the presence of the flood on the ring complicated things in a manner he couldn't have foreseen however the covenant high council composed of three hierarchs who collectively lead all of the covenant known as truth mercy and regret deem him guilty of failing to protect the ring the elite is stripped of his rank publicly branded and humiliated and handed off for torture to tartarus a eurohane or brute chieftain and one of the covenant's highest-ranking military officials this elite of course goes on to step into a much more central role not long afterward essentially sharing the spotlight with master chief as one of the game's two primary protagonists for now though let's turn our attention back to the chief himself who alongside cortana has just finished a speedy journey to earth as the two rushed to the planet to warn them of an impending covenant invasion aboard an orbital defense platform aboard cairo master chief and sergeant avery johnson received medals and commendation for the heroics on installation 4 while commander miranda keys also receives a medal on behalf of her father captain jacob keyes who of course did not survive the events of halo combat evolved the ceremony however is cut short when cortana informs them that a fleet of covenant ships has arrived and launched its attack on earth covenant soldiers aboard the orbital defense platform and master chief alongside other soldiers mounts a defense driving them back other orbital defense stations don't fare as well though and the covenant successfully breach earth's defenses as a fleet led by regret lands in the city of new mombasa at the same time a covenant bomb is discovered aboard the cairo orbital defense platform after literally throwing the bomb out of the airlock through empty space and back of the covenant to deal a massive blow to their fleet master chief and cortana find their way back with miranda keys and avery johnson together they head for new mumbasa to fight against the regrets covenant forces and protect the city immediately upon landing they are met by significant covenant resistance the master chief is successful in mounting a successful assault with his help unsc defenses drive the covenant back and ultimately even destroy a scarab terrorizing the entire city the covenants suffer a heavy defeat clearly having underestimated earth's defenses and regret flees from the scene his ship makes a hasty slip space jump which causes widespread destruction completely devastating the city of new mumbasa though that is a thread we'll follow in greater detail when we talk about halo 3 odst for now what's important is that regret flees from earth through slip space and the chief cortana miranda and johnson follow here however halo 2 turns his attention back to the disgraced elite soldier it kicked things off with only as it turns out he promptly gets a chance at redemption or well perceived redemption in any case unlike regret the covenant hierarchs truth and mercy are still aboard high charity and they offer the disgraced elite a chance he will be spared execution and given a chance at redemption if he takes on the mantle of the arbiter the arbiter is the highest rank that can be given to an elite but is given in times of great crisis the arbiter is expected to enforce the will of the high council and more often than not whoever occupies that title generally dies with it the elite knows that of course but accepts the title anyway becoming the arbiter which is what we'll be calling him going forward his first mission as arbiter takes him to the planet of threshold tracking a band of rebellious covenant forces disillusioned by the high council following the destruction of installation 4. the arbiter and the covenant soldiers with him successfully crushed the rebel group but when the arbiter comes face to face with their leader he receives some unexpected information the rebel leader tells the arbiter that truth mercy and regret have been lying about the great journey which is the name given to an event of great importance in the covenant faith and is achieved by activating the halo rings during this conversation none other than 343 guilty spark also appears who as it turns out survived the destruction of his installation and found his way to this planet where he's been in the rebel covenant group's company in fact it is because of what guilty spark told them about the true nature of the halo array that they grew disillusioned with the high council before the arbiter can learn more though the rebel leader tries to attack him resulting in his own death the brute chieftain tartarus arrives at this point extracting the arbiter and 343 guilty spark and takes them back to high charity things with master chief 2 begin to get even more interesting around this point in pursuit of regret unsc frigate in amber clad exits slip space and finds itself in close proximity to yet another halo ring installation 5. this time however armed with the knowledge of everything that happened on installation 4 they quickly jumped to action knowing that regret plans to activate the halo ring for the sake of the so-called great journey and knowing how cataclysmic that could be miranda keys sends master chief and cortana along with a bunch of odsts down to the ring to find and kill regret meanwhile keys herself and johnson head down to installation 5's library to find the activation index hoping to get to it before the covenant can find it and use it to activate the ring master chief fights his way through covenant defenses and reaches regret's location around the same time however responding to regret's distress call high charity arrives at installation 5 with a covenant fleet in tow master chief kills regret but high charity begins bombing the area in an attempt to eliminate him the chief narrowly escapes jumping into the lake but is rendered unconscious by the force of the explosions as he sinks deeper into the lake a giant tentacle grabs him and pulls him into the darkness back on high charity the death of regret has caused some unexpected turmoil the remaining hierarchs have placed the blame of his death on the elites who've traditionally served as the honor guard for the high council in light of regret's death though they're stripped of their ranks and brutes led by tartarus are instead brought into position tensions between elites and brutes have always been high but this event makes things even pricklier that said the covenant also have more pressing matters on their hands from 343 guilty spark truth and mercy learn about the process of how to activate a halo ring and then task the arbiter with heading down to the ring to recover the activation index which they refer to as the sacred icon the arbiter finds heavy resistance on the ring primarily from the flood which is broken out and is wreaking havoc on installation 5 as well just as it did in installation 4. meanwhile sentinels have also been activated and also serve as obstacles for the arbiter he successfully makes his way to the library though refines that keys and johnson got to the index a few seconds before he did the arbiter attacks the pair in attempt to take the index from them but in the middle of their fight tartarus arrives with a whole squad of brutes in tow he takes the index for himself captures keys and johnson and finally reveals to arbiter the treachery of the hierarchs who ordered him to kill the arbiter and oust the elites from the covenant's ranks he overpowers the arbiter knocking him down a shaft in the index chamber into unknown depths he is grabbed in those unknown depths with a giant tentacle and brought to a place where he sees also grabbed by a tentacle the master chief their paths finally converging the two find themselves in the presence of an ancient sentient massive creature known as the gravemind which acts as the controlling intelligence of the flood also present is 2401 penitent tangent the monitor of installation 5 now corrupted by the flood the grave mine and penitent tangent reveal to the arbiter the true nature of the halo rings causing him to question the great journey that the hierarchs value so much the arbiter master chief and the grave mind are of course all enemies of each other and under ordinary circumstances this would quickly end in a firefight here however they all find themselves facing a common enemy with the activation index truth and mercy we'll be able to activate the halo ring which will obliterate all sentient life in the galaxy and neither of them wants that the arbiter in fact has plenty of other reasons to fight as well what with the elites having been betrayed by the brutes in the high council and being murdered in scores and so the gravemind teleports the arbiter and master chief to different locations master chief finds himself on high charity where he fights his way through scores of covenant soldiers just as their military command has passed over to the brutes upon the chief's arrival truth and mercy flee to a nearby forerunner dreadnought as chaos erupts all throughout high charity with the brutes and the elites openly taking each other on in combat master chief gives chase to the hierarchs to make things even more chaotic though the flood controlled by the gravemind crashes into high charity using the unsc frigate in amber clad cortana realizes that the grave mind used them merely as distractions and as the flood ravages the mobile city master chief witnesses mercy being assimilated by the parasitic aliens as he's about to die he tells the chief that truth the last remaining hierarchy is headed to earth to finish what the covenant started and destroy earth and by extension all of humanity cortana urges master chief to board the forerunner dreadnought and chase truth back to earth but knowing that the index still hasn't been retrieved and that the halo ring may very well be activated he is hesitant to do so cortana however comes up with a plan she tells him that if the covenant do activate installation 5 she will detonate the engines of in amber clad which in turn will destroy the ring itself similar to what happened to the pillar of autumn in installation 4. to be able to do so however cortana will have to stay behind on high charity with time running out master chief promises cortana that he will be back for her and boards the dreadnought as he flees and one final time we turn our attention back to the arbiter who is teleported by the gravemind to the installation's control room there is an uneasy alliance of elite and human forces led by the arbiter and sergeant johnson respectively successfully fighting covenant forces to get into the control room the arbiter confronts tartarus and tells him about the true nature of the halo array 343 guilty spark also present there tells the brute the full truth as well but completely blinded by faith he refuses to listen to either of them he forces miranda keys to use the index to activate the ring at which point the arbiter attacks him a tough fight ensues but the arbiter succeeds in killing tartarus upon his death keys removes the index just in time to stop the ring from firing even so it seems ominous things have still been set into motion guilty spark tells them that the activation and deactivation of the ring triggered a fail-safe in the ancient system built by the forerunners which means installation 5 has sent out a signal to all of the other rings in the halo array barring the destroyed installation 4 of course the entire array is primed and guilty spark informs them that they can all be remotely activated from another 4runner installation known as the ark at the same time truth's dreadnought and his covenant forces arrive at earth unaware that master chief has followed them back from the halo ring and he's ready and itching to finish the fight in a post-credits scene we see cortana on high charity which has now been completely overtaken and assimilated by the grave mind in halo 2's final scene the gravemind tells cortana that he has several questions he wants to ask her and she agrees to answer and that's it for halo 2. when we come back we'll take a short break from master chief and cortana's story and focus instead on the fallout of new mumbas destruction and the events of halo 3 odst in our ongoing halo recap so far we've spoken about halo reach wars 1 and 2 which means we're a little less than halfway through the series which in turn means that there's a lot left to talk about in fact given the fact we last left off with a recap of halo 2 and given how the game ends there's a truckload of important things to cover even in the very immediate future halo 3 after all is where master chief finishes the fight and defeats the covenant for good or well for a while before we move on to that however we need to focus first on halo 3 odst halo 2's events particularly some things that happen early on in the game set in motion the story of halo 3 odst and that side narrative is what we're going to be focusing on here a quick refresher on the halo 2 event that triggers the story of odst covenant forces led by regret one of their three high arcs attack earth with regret's own dreadnought landing in the city of new mambasa and kenya and mounting a crippling and swift invasion with overwhelming forces unsc forces including the master chief and cortana follow defending the city and giving chase to regret but as he sees the tide turning in the human's favor the hierarch flees launching his ship through a slip space portal that the master chief carrying unsc frigate and amber clad narrowly manages to follow them through that slip space is opened up too close to the city though and that rash exit has disastrous consequences the resulting shock wave spreads out and destroys huge chunks of the city leaving it battered in half in ruins and with large numbers of the covenant forces still occupying new mombasa the problems of the people there and those responsible for defending it seem doubly impossible halo 3 odst begins slightly before that event its story focused on new mombasa away from the master chief and cortana's excursions to installation 5 and high charity during the course of the rest of halo 2. as such players step into the shoes of an unnamed orbital deep shock trooper or odst known only as the rookie who's part of the squad of fellow elite odsts who find themselves preparing for a drop down to the surface of earth and defend new mombasa shortly after regrets dreadnought makes landfall besides the rookie the squad consists of dutch romeo mickey and their team leader buck in the early moments of the game though their squad gets a new member captain veronica dare is an o i operative sent by command on a classified mission for which they have tapped up buck's squad to provide support for her effectively making her the new boss while buck feels strongly that stopping and killing regret should take priority dare reminds him that their orders have come from high up the chain and need to be followed and so the odst squad gets into its individual drop pods and this is where we finally take control of the protagonist the rookie but the drop through the atmosphere and down into new mombasa doesn't go as planned because at that moment regrets dreadnought and the unsc frigate jump through the slipspace portal the result shockwave sends the entire squad careening way off course scattering them throughout new mombasa the rookie and mickey's pods collide and crash before landing knocking the rookie unconscious he comes to six hours later with one very clear and obvious goal find out what happened to the rest of the squad promptly he enlists the aid of the superintendent which is the name given to the ai that runs and manages the civil operations of new mombasa this is where halo 3 odst structurally opens up in a way no other halo game has with the superintendent's help the rookie is able to pinpoint where spots throughout the city where he might get leads on his squad mates and players can head to these in whatever order they want once the rookie gets there the game flashes back and has you playing as that specific squad member so let's talk about what happened to them shall we let's start with mickey and dutch six hours before the rookie regains consciousness dutch lands in a nature reserve while mickey lands nearby as well the two with the help of marines that they cross paths with are reunited not long after they land together they decide to rally at a nearby oni site hoping to mount a proper defense of the city from there the following trek through the city is an eventful and grueling one for both of them involving everything from blowing up a bridge in an attempt to slow down the covenant's advance to having to flee from the o and i sight and destroy it remotely as they fly away in a pelican so that the rampant covenant cannot find and use the intel they have discovered in the facility at this point dutch and mickey managed to re-establish contact with buck so what happened with buck well he landed in a completely different part of the city and soon afterward was contacted by dare but when he got to her pod's crash site he found it completely empty with her nowhere to be seen soon he's reunited with romeo and after the two of them find dare's helmet romeo guesses that she's probably dead she isn't of course but we'll get to that in a bit soon dutch and mickey arrive at the new mombasa pd's headquarters to rendezvous with buck and romeo and pick them up but upon their arrival they're attacked by a formidable covenant force a long fight follows which sees them suffer devastating blows their pelican is shot down and rendered inoperable romeo is badly wounded and they're forced to flee from the police station ultimately they manage to hijack a phantom and make their escape but though their plan is to get far away from new mombasa they spot a massive covenant force moving towards a specific point in the city at which point buck realizes that dare isn't dead after all and whatever her classified mission was she's still at it and has drawn the covenant to herself under his orders the squad turns around and rushes to get to her position but here we pause and shift focus back to the rookie after trekking through different parts of new mombasa and fighting through covenant forces as he discovers new intel about what happened to his squad mates the rookie chances upon a distress call it's from dare and when he follows it to its source he finds her in the data center of the ai superintendent which is a massive underground facility beneath new mombasa here she reveals what her true mission was to fight through the covenant forces flooding the many levels of the data center get to the ai's core and retrieve recently discovered sensitive information and prevent it from falling into the covenant's hands and what is that information it's about something buried beneath the city a forerunner portal that leads directly to the ark an ancient forerunner facility that can be used to remotely activate the entire halo array and in turn destroy all sentient life in the galaxy the covenant's faith however has blinded them to the true nature of the halo rings and they believe the activation of the array to be a cleansing of the galaxy which of course means that they have to be stopped with the rookie's help dare manages to get to the superintendent's core and even though the damaged ai shuts down for good as they arrive the two of them discover something interesting merged into the ai's core is a huragok named virgil what's a haragok you ask they're ancient biomechanical creatures that were created by the forerunners also known as engineers they've been enslaved by the covenant for a long time and as such bear no love or loyalty for them conveniently enough the one that the rookie and dare find themselves standing in front of doesn't either and wishes to help humanity fight the covenant dare who realizes how valuable the engineer is has assimilated the superintendent ai's core and contains all of the information and knowledge within it and of course has also been privy to crucial information about the covenant deciding that her mission has changed she and the rookie decide to escort the engineer safely out of the facility out of the city and into the hands of the unsc as they exit the facility they finally converge with the rest of the squad with the help of buck mickey romeo and dutch the entire squad narrowly escapes from new mombasa with the engineer in tow they watch on as an overwhelming covenant floods the city and glasses it with devastating explosions completely destroying it which in turn leads to them finding and beginning the excavation of the forerunner portal before it ends halo 3 odst still has a couple of scenes to show and tie things off with a month later sergeant major avery johnson is interrogating the engineer and demands to know what the covenant wants and how they can be stopped the scene ends as the engineer agrees to help the human race a final post-credit scene which you only get if you finish the game on legendary difficulty shows truth who is the last remaining covenant hierarch at this point looking on as the excavation of the portal progresses and that's it the entire story of halo 3 odst now that that's wrapped up it's time to move on to halo 3 and finish the fight before beginning another one with halo 4 one thing at a time though stay tuned for a halo 3 recap in the coming days the launch of halo 3 was an event unlike any other the games industry has ever seen the legendary franchise's story would be brought to a close and while bungie would still go on to make two more halo games with halo 3 odst and halo reach halo 3 would be their final game in this series chronology with the master chief heading back to earth to finish the fight it was an appropriately climactic story and the hype and anticipation surrounding it in the lead up to its launch was also appropriately at a fever pitch and in retrospect it's fair to say that halo 3 did a great job bringing that original trilogy to a close over the last few weeks we've spoken about all the games that precede halo 3 in the series's timeline having recently wrapped up halo 2 and halo 3 odst both of which lead up to the dramatic conclusion that is halo 3. here we'll be continuing our story recap of the entire series and talk about the final master chief story bungie ever told by the time halo 3 begins many dramatic events have set the stage for what's about to happen next master chief was successful in stopping installation zero five from firing but that also activated the forerunner installation known as the ark which can now be used to remotely fire the entire halo array effectively destroying all sentient life in the milky way galaxy the covenant have suffered some losses with the elites having splintered off from the collective and now fighting against it alongside the humans thanks to the betrayal of the brutes meanwhile of the covenant's three hierarchs only one remains truth that said the covenant have discovered and excavated a massive forerunner artifact close to the outskirts of the ruined earth city of new mombasa which can take them directly to the ark and knowing the obvious dangers that that threat poses humans and elites together are fighting desperately to stop the covenant from enacting its plan and of course the flood is running rampant in the galaxy as well with the grave mind having taken control of former covenant capital high charity where cortana remains even now so yeah stuff is happening lots of it halo 3 begins a couple of weeks after the end of halo 2 with master chief arriving back on earth and reuniting with the likes of sergeant avery johnson and the arbiter after fighting through covenant forces in their path they arrive at a unsc outpost close by where they meet with commander miranda keys and fleet admiral terrence hood and together all of them devised their next step and that next step is pretty obvious at this point kill truth fight back against the covenant and stop them from reaching the ark the odds however are firmly stacked against them the unsc base is promptly attacked by overwhelming covenant forces and the chief and all the rest have no option but to retreat causing the destruction of the base with a bomb in the process they reconvene again in the nearby city of voy but once again their planes are thwarted as master chief sets out to destroy covenant anti-air weapons to allow hood's fleet to destroy the forerunner artifact truth uses it to open up a massive split space portal and head through it with the entire covenant fleet following him at the same time a covenant cruiser under the flood's control crashes and devoid spewing out scores of the parasitic aliens conveniently enough a force of elites arrives on the scene at the same time as well and together they and the humans fight back against the flood to stop their spread chief meanwhile learns thanks to commander keys and elites that there is a unsc construct aboard the crafts ship believing it to be cortana master chief retrieves the construct but realizes that it is not cortana herself but a message recorded by her and left on the ship for unsc to find the message as you'd expect turns out to be instrumental in informing the next phase of their plan it's brief and not entirely detailed but it tells them enough cortana says that the key to stopping the covenant and the flood and ensuring that the halo array isn't fired is on the other side of the portal opened up by truth and although admiral hood suspects that the message might be a trap chief convinces him that cortana can't be trusted and so while hood and the unsc fleet stay behind to protect earth master chief the arbiter johnson and his splinter unsc force led by keys head through the portal they find unsurprisingly the ark a massive installation created by the forerunners about a hundred thousand years ago drifting ominously through space thousands of light years away from the fringes of the milky way galaxy unsurprisingly things don't exactly go to plan here either upon their arrival on the ark they quickly find the installation's map room where they learn that to access its control room they're going to have to deactivate three shield towers master chief the arbiter and johnson each head to one of the towers and the former two successfully deactivate one each but johnson finds himself faced with an overwhelming covenant defense and is forced to retreat the chief and the arbiter both arrive at the third tower soon afterward to deactivate it but when they get there they find that johnson and his forces are nowhere to be seen and as if all of this wasn't chaotic enough the gravemind controlled high charity arrives on the scene as well crashing onto the ark together the chief and the arbiter head to the control room but at this time truth broadcasts a message for everyone in the vicinity to see it's revealed that he has captured johnson the covenant as you might remember cannot use and activate forerunner artifacts and installations which is why truth needs johnson and just as he is about to force the sergeant to activate the ark keys arrives on the scene flying a pelican and crashing it into the control room she quickly realizes however that she's heavily outnumbered by brutes and covenant defenses and decides that since she has no way of killing them all she's gonna have to kill herself and johnson to stop truth from activating the ark half of that goes to plan truth kills keys and forces johnson's hand on the activation panel bringing the ark to life and remotely activating the galaxy's entire halo array once again a desperate situation makes uneasy allies out of master chief the arbiter and the grave mind and his flood with all of them being forced to work together to get to the top of the control room kill truth and deactivate the ark once again after a gruelling fight to the top in which they're faced with strong covenant defenses they ultimately arrive at the top the arbiter confronts truth but their conversation is a short one and the former ends up killing the latter master chief meanwhile deactivates all of the halo rings once again but now that truth and his covenant are out of the equation a bigger threat has come to light the grave mind betrays them to no one's surprise preventing them from escaping while johnson manages to use keys as crashed pelican to flee master chief and the arbiter are forced to find a different path and while they're doing so chief learns some crucial new information it's revealed that a new halo ring is being constructed at the ark as a replacement for installation zero four which of course was destroyed by master chief during the events of halo combat evolved and quickly a final plan forms itself in chief's head he decides to activate the new halo ring in order to kill the flood since its blast radius wouldn't deal too much damage to the life in the milky way well with the ark being far away from the galaxy's rim to do that of course he needs an activation index and he knows exactly where to find one cortana still has the index that they almost use on installation zero four and so with the help of the arbiter he heads to high charity there he fights through the flood retrieves cortana at long last and sets the ship to self-destruct just as cortana and the arbiter flee knowing what's about to come next the surviving forces of the unsc and the elites head back to earth through the slipspace portal while master chief johnson cortana and the arbiter head to the new halo ring in the ring's central control room things quickly come to a head the flood has grown greatly while the grave mind is trying to reconstruct as well chief and the others fight through opposing forces and justice johnson is about to activate the ring he's killed by none other than 343 guilty spark yeah he's still around and making a mess of things for everyone around him guilty spark it turns out views this new ring as a replacement for the destroyed installation zero 4 of which he was the assigned monitor and vowing to protect it as its new monitor decides to stop it from being activated and in turn destroyed master chief takes guilty spark on and finally destroys the annoying little machine the halo ring is activated and master chief cortana and the arbiter make a tense and narrow escape from the installation first by driving a warthog through a field of fire and destruction and then climbing aboard the unsc frigate forward unto dawn the ship successfully takes off but their escape once again doesn't go exactly according to plan though it makes it far enough away from the halo ring to not be caught in its blast radius as it attempts to escape back to earth through the slip space portal the portal closes on it the front half of the forward unto dawn carrying the arbiter makes its way back to earth while the rear half carrying the chief is left behind stranded in space far away from earth and on the edges of the galaxy ultimately though the biggest threats humanity has ever seen are brought to an end the war against the covenant is over and the hierarchs are now dead the flood has been destroyed once and for all and of course the threat of the halo array has been dealt with as well admiral hood holds a memorial service back on earth in honor of those who lost their lives during this long-drawn conflict and grudgingly thanks the arbiter for playing his part in humanity's victory over the covenant following which the elites head back to sang helios their home world and what about master chief and cortana they didn't make it back home but obviously they're still alive and kicking as the destroyed forward unto dawn drifts through space cortana informs the chief that it'll be a while before anyone picks up the distress beacon that she's activated master chief enters cryo sleep telling her to wake him when she needs him if you finish the game on legendary difficulty halo 3's final scene shows the ship floating in the direction of a mysterious forerunner planet setting the stage for the events of halo 4. and that's it the fight is finished done and dusted well for now anyway the next leg of halo under the guidance of 343 industries brings the chief and cortana back and puts them in the midst of new conflicts and stories of course the halo series's track record under 343 has been far less consistent and impressive than it was under bungie but from a narrative perspective there's still plenty to talk about in these games when we come back we'll talk about halo 4 the game that kicks off that next journey last time we left off having finished talking about halo 3. that means we're stepping into the 343 industries era of halo now and that in turn also means that things get a little messy halo 4 and 5 have both drawn their fair share of criticism over the years for their narrative deficiencies and disappointments but even so given how momentous the stories they do tell are they're obviously going to have a big impact on what unfolds in the upcoming halo infinite so here we're going to continue our halo recap and go over the full story of halo 4. halo 4 is set in the year 2557 nearly five years after the conclusion of the human covenant war thanks to master chief's efforts in halo 3. for nearly five years the remains of the unsc ship forward unto dawn have been silently drifting through empty unknown space and in all the time master chief has remained in cryosleep while cortana has watched over him as halo 4 begins though the forward unto dawn finds itself drifting by a forerunner shield world called requiem shield worlds as we discussed when we talked about the story of halo wars were worlds created by forerunners a hundred thousand years ago and their interiors were the only places in the entire galaxy where you could survive the destructive beams of the halo array as the forward unto dawn drifts towards requiem it's boarded by a force of covenant soldiers who are part of an entire fleet led by the sangili or elite as they're commonly referred to jule madoma this fleet as it turns out is a splinter covenant faction that still sticks to the old hierarchs ways and even though humanity's war with the covenant is over some factions like this one continue to fight as the forward unto dawn is boarded by a number of these covenant soldiers cortana pulls chief out of cryosleep and he's instantly forced into action master chief quickly realizes that answers to questions about where they are and why they're being attacked by a covenant fleet aren't forthcoming so he quickly gets to work fighting his way through the intruding force as the fight progresses however every ship in the vicinity of requiem begins getting pulled in by the shield world's gravity well the forward unto dawn which is already really only half a ship at this stage is powerless to resist the pull of the gravity well the chief and cortana attempt to get off the ship but the escape pods are destroyed before that can happen and the ship crashes into the interior of requiem chief passes out when it comes to however things only take a turn for the worse cortana you see has started behaving erratically and she reveals that this is a symptom of her rampancy which is getting progressively worse what is rampancy exactly well each unscai has a lifespan of seven years after which it begins deteriorating and begins losing function that process is known as rampancy cortana is one year past her seven year expiration thanks to the forward unto dawn's silent journey through unknown space for nearly five years and that means her rampancy has actually progressed quite a bit in simple terms she's beginning to lose her grip on sanity be that as it may master chief vows not to let that happen and tells cortana that if they make it back to earth and find dr catherine halsey who runs the spartan program and of course is also cortana's creator she might be able to help them cure the ai's rampancy with a goal firmly in mind the chief sets out to find a way to contact the unsc as you might imagine he quickly finds resistance not only does that come in the form of covenant fighters it also comes in the form of a mysterious new enemy formidable mechanical soldiers of great strength and unknown origins whom cortana is only able to identify as prometheans eventually cortana picks up a weak signal from the unsc infinity arriving at long last in response to the distress beacon cortana had activated nearly five years in the past in the closing moments of halo 3 their arrival however is also unfortunately timed cortana attempts to contact them to warn them about requiem's gravity well but discovers that all transmissions are being jammed as such the chief sets out to deactivate the communication jammers but sadly fails in the worst way possible not only is he unable to warn the unsc infinity and time which of course means that the frigate crashes into requiem as well master chief also inadvertently awakens someone who's been asleep and imprisoned within the heart of requiem for a long long time in his attempts to destroy the communication jammers the chief ends up freeing a forerunner a figure known as the died act in a nutshell the died act was regarded by the forerunners as an elite warrior and while we will be getting into exactly what he wants and why he was imprisoned in a bit right now this is what you need to know as you may have guessed he's bad news the didact easily overpowers and defeats the master chief with almost zero effort and declares that he heralds the return of the forerunners to the galaxy the died act finds humans who haven't been able to bring the covenant to heel to be unworthy of being the leading race of the galaxy and more importantly unworthy of the mantle of responsibility what exactly is that well back when the forerunners were still alive and kicking about a hundred thousand years ago the highly advanced and benevolent race followed a policy of shepherding other races in the galaxy and helping them advance and expand that essentially was known as the mantle of responsibility back to what's going on in the moment though the died act swats the chief aside like a fly who realizing that he's unwittingly freed a formidable threat decides to head to the crash landing site of the unsc infinity where he plans to regroup with them and debrief them about the situation upon making contact with them and meeting the key characters such as commander thomas lasky spartan commander sarah palmer and captain andrew del rio master chief helps an attack from covenant and prometheus who've now joined forces under the didact's leadership afterward captain del rio sends master chief lasky and palmer on a mission with orders to destroy requiem's gravity well so that the unsc infinity can escape and head back to earth after fighting through overwhelming waves of covenant and prometheans they are successful in shutting off the gravity well but in the process master chief ends up being contacted by the lingering essence of another ancient forerunner figure the librarian wife of the died act back during the forerunner flood war a hundred thousand years ago the librarian was in charge of indexing all life in the galaxy and once the halo array had been fired and as she comes into contact with master chief she tells him what it is that the didact is after before we move on though we're going to have to pause and talk about the forerunners a little bit because really 343 industries reclaimer saga halo 4 in particular makes the forerunners an even more crucial part of the series larger story as the librarian explains to the chief in ancient times hundreds of thousands of years ago humans were an advanced space-faring civilization with impressive military and technological advancements during their expansion into the unknown the humans fought a war with the flood following which they came into contact with the forerunners humans refused to heed the forerunners warnings about the flood which in turn led to a conflict between the two graces as well the forerunners ended up winning that conflict beating humanity and stripping it of its powers and its empire but weakened as they were by the conflict with humanity they found themselves inadequately prepared for the subsequent onslaught of the flood eventually the forerunners decided that they would activate the halo array to destroy the flood following which they would reseed the galaxy with the samples of sentient life they'd collected which included humanity some had different plans however the dyed act widely regarded as the forerunner's greatest warrior used a device called the composer which was capable of essentially turning living beings into mechanical soldiers aka the prometheans the didact used the composer to turn all the soldiers under his command into an army of promethean knights seeing as once turned they would become immune to the flood infection being mechanical and everything realizing he needed a much larger army though the died act also started forcibly conscripting human prisoners and turning them into prometheans as well many forerunner leaders did not stand for this which incidentally included the didact's own wife the librarian as well the died act was imprisoned for his drastic actions and the composer confiscated and hidden away now the died act means to get the composer back to finish what he started and ensure that forerunners not humans remain the dominant species in the galaxy as her final act in an effort to aid him on his quest to stop the died act the librarian accelerates chief's evolution reconstructing him on a molecular level so that he becomes immune to the effects of the composer with that in the rear view mirror and the gravity wells shut down master chief lansky and palmer return to the unsc infinity where the chief and cortana tell captain del rio about the didact's plan the died act has fled from requiem and is headed somewhere with purpose presumably to get his hands on the composer again and master chief and the increasingly and rampantly pun intended unstable cortana implore captain del rio to follow in pursuit del rio however is unconvinced and fearing that cortana has reached dangerous stages of her rampancy orders her decommissioned as you'd expect master chief refuses to hand her over and still very much plans on following the didact himself if he has to with lansky and palmer's help he escapes from the unsc infinity and stowing aboard a covenant craft gives chase to the died act he arrives close to another halo ring installation o3 which has in its orbit a unsc science facility that facility incidentally is where the composer is housed and though the chief does make it inside in time as he's being guided to where the device is kept the didact attacks he gets to the composer before master chief can and instantly uses it to turn everyone on the station except master chief who's immune into prometheans instantly he races back to earth but master chief somehow manages to latch on to the didact ship as it flees soon afterward chief reunites with the unsc infinity this time with more unsc forces in company and now that the threat of the didact is real and very obvious in spite of what captain del rio may have initially believed there's no denying it anymore with the unsc backing him up the master chief attempts to stop the didact from using the composer but it's too late the forerunner warrior uses the device to wreak massive destruction in the city of new phoenix armed with the nuclear device however master chief boards the didact's ship and confronts the forerunner once again once more the chief finds that he's no match for his foe and is easily bested by this point even cortana is running on fumes and is essentially in the final stages of her life she manages however to muster her strength to help master chief destroy the composer and defeat the died act which he does by using a cluster grenade to send the forerunner hurtling into a slipspace portal chief detonates the nuclear bomb remotely and cortana using her last bit of strength manages to teleport him away from the ship so that he can survive the blast in their final meeting the master chief and cortana have a fittingly emotional farewell and while halo 4 ends with the defeat of the didact it also sets the stage for ominous events in the future we're now approaching the final leg of our full story recap of the halo series last time we talked about halo 4 which ended in dramatic fashion with the death of cortana and a new threat to the galaxy emerging now we're moving on to halo 5 guardians which frankly is a little bit of a mess but obviously it's going to be crucial to what happens in halo infinite so let's dive right in halo 5 guardians are set about eight months after the ending of halo 4 and much like halo 2 before it it splits its attention between two perspectives each with their own stories first of course we have the master chief who's reeling with the loss of cortana and everything he's been through in the time between halo 4 and 5 master chief was reunited with blue team a squad of spartan soldiers he used to fight with before the events of halo combat evolved in addition to the chief himself blue team is compromised of elite sniper linda the skeleton one of the chief's closest friends kelly and hand-to-hand specialist frederick who's technically blue team's highest ranking spartan but still defers to the chief's judgment then we have fire team osiris another squad of newer generation spartan soldiers led by deuteragonists only agents and former assassin jameson lock fire team osiris also consists of combat technician and engineer holly tanaka political liaison and intelligence agent olympia vale and former odst edward buck who of course was one of the primary characters in halo 3 odst as well as halo 5 kicks off elite warrior jewel madame's splinter covenant faction is still at large and so in chaos and events are kicked into motion when the unsc is contacted by dr catherine halsey who claims to have information about a series of impending forerunner attacks on humanity the mission to extract her from the planet of kamchatka which is occupied by jilma dama's covenant faction falls to the unsc infinity now fully recovered from the battering it took at requiem eight months ago aboard the ship thomas lasky who's now the captain of the unsc infinity commands fire team osiris to head to kamchatka and extract halsey led by locke fire team osiris lands on the planet and makes its way to halsey's coordinates while fighting their way through the covenants but discovers bafflingly enough that for some inexplicable reason the covenant forces and the prometheans seem to have turned on each other and are battling against each other the covenant as such are weakening and taking the opportunity fire team osiris fights its way through enemy forces lock eventually succeeds in killing jewel madame reaching halsey and safely getting her back to the unsc infinity aboard the ship however it turns out the madame's splinter covenant faction is the least of their worries because according to halsey they're all facing a much bigger threat here halo 5 switches gears to none other than the master chief who alongside blue team is on a mission concerning the derelict only research vessel argent moon which was captured by covenant forces chief and blue team kill the straggling covenant forces aboard the vessel that are stripping it for parts but while there something strange happens to master chief he has a mysterious vision of cortana activating a massive mechanical winged monstrosity of some sort and while there is much about the vision that he doesn't understand it seems to be directing him to the planet meridian at this moment however blue team realizes that a covenant fleet is approaching the argent moon and quickly decides that its best move now is to scuttle the ship to prevent it from falling into enemy hands but while their orders are to return to the unsc infinity after the vessel has been destroyed master chief hoping to get to cortana who he's believed to be dead for eight months redirects blue team to disobey their superiors and instead head to meridian aboard the unsc infinity captain lasky has forced a brand blue team as deserters but as halsey informs lasky cortana is a far bigger threat to them all right now though it was believed that she was destroyed in her encounter with the died act halsey reveals that cortana somehow managed to gain access to the domain which was the name the forerunners had given to their quantum information repository of vast amounts of knowledge a hundred thousand years ago she managed to gain control of the domain healing her rampancy in the process and became convinced that she and the created other artificial intelligences scattered throughout the galaxy should be the ones to inherit the forerunner's mantle of responsibility which in short means that she thinks that she and her fellow artificial intelligences should rule over all the sentient beings of the galaxy and bring peace and harmony to all under their rule the catch of course is that cortana is now completely driven to do that and is willing to do so by any means necessary halsey believes that she's looking for something that will help her inherit the mantle and suspects that she might be manipulating master chief and in turn the rest of blue team lasky orders lock and fire team osiris to head to meridian capture blue team and bring them back to the unsc infinity on meridian osiris is contacted by sloan the governor of the independent human outer colony on the planet sloan interestingly enough is an old ai that's in the stages of rampancy lock and osiris however agree to help him fight off promethean forces that have been attacking colonists and in exchange sloan helps them in their pursuit of master chief on their pursuit the spartans of fire team osiris also cross paths with the warden eternal an old forerunner promethean ai that has long served as the guardian of the domain and has the ability to take control of several different promethean bodies when cortana broke through into the domain and took control over it she outsmarted the warden as well and he now serves as her enforcer fire team osiris defeats the warden's form and proceeds forward discovering where exactly it is that the chief is headed he's headed to a guardian a massive winged machine that looks a lot like the one that the chief saw in his vision aboard the argent moon what exactly is a guardian though well think of them as devastating peacekeeping weapons the forerunners built these massive weapons to enforce the mantle long ago and each guardian was equipped with several weapons for that purpose such as powerful emp blasts and pulses that it could emit to disable any and all electronics weaponry and anything else of the like in its vicinity the forerunners embedded various guardians on a number of planets throughout the galaxy and cortana intends to take control of them all and use them for her plan osiris fights through promethean forces as it gives chase to master chief and blue team but ultimately locke is the only one who manages to catch up with them he takes on chief in hand-to-hand combat but predictably enough loses the fight upon neutralizing lock master chief and blue team board meridian's guardian it's revealed however that sloan the rampant governor ai of meridian had been working with cortana all along he was contacted by her before all of this went down which allowed him to evacuate many of his colonists from the planet and he now intends to join with cortana and help her realise her vision of the galaxy the guardian charges up its slip space drive emitting emp pulses that devastate meridian around it and flies off lock and the rest of fire team osiris returned to the unsc infinity where thankfully they at least know where to head next dr halsey has deduced that there's another guardian on the planet of sankhelios the homeworld of the alien race referred to as the elites the unsc infiniti's ai roland meanwhile informs them that the distinct sounds that the guardian on meridian was emitting as it was fleeing the planet was actually a set of slip space coordinates that they could follow by inputting it into the guardian of saint helios with a plan firmly in mind the ship heads to the planet the chief and blue team meanwhile are still aboard the meridian guardian and find that they've now arrived as another planet an ancient lush forerunner world their paths soon crossed with the ward and eternal in a different body this time but upon deciding that master chief and blue team are a threat to cortana's goal he attacks them the spartans manage to defeat the warden and promptly afterward master chief is finally contacted by cortana who explains to him that when they defeated the died act eight months ago his ship crashed with fragments of cortana still lingering on it was here that she found the domain and managed to gain control of it she tells master chief her exact location on the planet at the access point of the domain and asked blue team to find her there meanwhile the unsc infinity has arrived at sanghelios and fire team osiris is inserted into the planet sang helios as it turns out has plenty of issues of its own right now fel vadam better known to halo fans as the arbiter now leads the sanghelis with the swords of sanghelius who are fighting against the splinter covenant faction the covenant meanwhile are focused first and foremost on killing the arbiter in an attempt to take control of the planet a good chunk of halo 5 after loch and osiris arrival on sanghelius is focused on the conflict against the covenant as the fire team assists the arbiter and his forces against the covenant ultimately the arbiter leads a final attack against the remaining covenant forces while lock and osiris fight their way to the guardian though they are once again obstructed by the warden in another body they defeat the prometheum once again and arrive at the guardian just as it's powering up and preparing jump into slip space in the nick of time fire team osiris manages to get aboard the guardian as it jumps into slip space while down on the surface the arbiter and his soldiers sweep through straggling covenant forces the guardian lands and immediately upon arriving at the forerunner planet locke attempts to contact master chief though the squad of spartans soon encounters the monitor ai of the planet 031 exuberant witness she explains that she's been locked out of her own planet systems ever since cortana and the warden took control of the domain the ai explains the full extent of cortana's plans to attain the forerunner's mantle and use the guardians to enforce her vision of peace over everyone in the galaxy by any means necessary regardless of whether or not anyone accepts her and her created the other ais that she's drawing to her cause as their rulers with the help of exuberant witness fire team osiris sets out to find blue team and stop cortana though things don't exactly go to plan from that point forward as master chief and blue team make their way to cortana they have another run-in with the warden and soon they realize that cortana has been leading them in circles to buy herself some time as she prepares to power up the domain system in full in order to use the guardians the warden meanwhile seems hell-bent on eliminating master chief and blue team entirely even though he claims to act as cortana's defender and the enforcer of her goals cortana of course doesn't want the master chief dead and ultimately a confrontation between her and the warden leads to cortana destroying the promethean and all of its bodies afterwards though master chief tries to talk cortana out of her plan she traps him and blue team in a forerunner stasis pod known as a kryptom by now cortana's plan has well and truly kicked into gear guardians are being deployed and hundreds of ais from across the galaxy are arriving to join her cause and become one of the created fire team osiris attempts to stop cortana from fleeing from the planet with the kryptom but of course meet heavy resistance on the way cortana means to keep master chief and the rest of blue team in stasis for 10 000 years by which time she'll have properly established her hold over the galaxy with exuberant witnesses help however lock and osiris fight through promethean forces and win control for the monitor ai as cortana sends her guardians ahead throughout the galaxy and prepares to follow them osiris manages to pry the krypton from her control and snatch it away just as cortana's guardian itself jumps into slip space master chief and blue team are freed from the krypton by fire team osiris but all over the galaxy things quickly begin crumbling cortana and the created begin shutting down unsc control all over the galaxy with the help of the guardians and start taking control of it themselves that said though she manages to track down the unsc infinity the ship's ai roland who hasn't defected to cortana begins a string of random slip space jumps so that cortana doesn't catch them which they plan to keep up until they can come up with a better way to fight back against her and are created as halo 5 comes to a close fire team osiris blue team the arbiter and halsey regroup on sanghelios meanwhile finishing the game on legendary difficulty also adds a final cut scene that shows an unknown halo ring powering up as cortana hums in the background setting the stage for the events of halo infinite and that's it for halo 5 guardians when we return for our eighth and final installments in our halo recap series we'll talk about halo wars 2 which also leads into the events of infinite and introduces the banished he will serve as the primary antagonists at the upcoming shooter as halo infinite's launch approaches so too do we approach the end of our recap of the entire halo series haven't spoken about nearly everything there is to speak about where the games are concerned we now arrive at the final installment and the series's chronology so far halo wars 2 set nearly three decades after the events of the first halo wars and shortly after the dramatic events of halo 5 guardians with the banished first introduced in halo wars 2 serving as major antagonists in the upcoming halo infinite the 2017 strategy title obviously has an important place in the series canon so here is the full story of halo wars 2. 28 years have passed since the events of halo wars which ended with the unsc spirit of fire drifting through unknown space and its crew entering cryosleep since then the ship and its entire crew have been declared lost with all hands by the unsc and the galaxy at large is a much different place with the covenant having been defeated and newer and bigger threats now looming large meanwhile things have changed aboard the spirit of fire as well some time after the ship's crew entered cryosleep the ai serena terminated herself in accordance with unsc guidelines to prevent entering rampancy as the ship's crew awakens and the ship itself begins getting itself operational again captain james cutter watches a message recorded by serena before she entered rampancy where she explains what happened to her following that cutter meets with professor ellen anders to figure out what the situation's looking like for them now and as you would expect it's not looking good as it turns out the spirit of fire finds itself in uncharted space outside of the milky way galaxy drifting close to an ancient forerunner superstructure which is broadcasting an encrypted unsc transmission that structure is the arc which served as the stage for the climactic battle in the human covenant war in halo 3 but of course the spirit of fire's crew who've all been asleep for nearly three decades at this point have no idea what any of it is intending to investigate the structure and the unsc signal coming from it cutter dispatches spartan red team super soldiers alice jerome and douglas to the ark's surface things quickly go wrong to no one's surprise after discovering unsc corpses evidence of a battle and what seems to be a deserted outpost red team chances upon isabel a logistics ai that used to serve at the outpost though she is clearly frightened before she can explain what's going on red team is ambushed by a brute and taken by surprise and are forced to retreat from the flight and fall back especially with douglas getting critically wounded during the scuffle with isabel in their position the spartans regroup and return to the spirit of fire with alice staying behind to hold off the oncoming attacking forces aboard the ship isabel explains the situation the ark was attacked by the banished a group of soldiers who broke off from the covenant empire at the peak of its powers and have steadily grown in power and influence in the years since then under the leadership of the brute known as atriox the banished attacked the ark massacred any and all humans who were working at the unsc outpost there and attempted to seize control of the forerunner installation the deeply frightened isabel implores the spirit of fire to flee from the scene and return to unsc space but cutter decides otherwise choosing instead to stay and fight the banished the first step in that fight arrives in the form of an attack against a group of the banished led by decimas one of the original founders of the group and a top lieutenant of atriox the fight goes in the spirit of fire's favor and though decimus manages to escape with his life the crew does discover data that points to the location of the ark's cartographer a room that serves as a map for the entire installation while cutter leads an attack on the cartographer in hopes of gaining control of it alice continues to rescue unsc marines on the ark and lead attacks on the installation's surface against banished forces and outposts things begin to turn around for the spirit of fire's crew not only because of alice's efforts but also because they quickly managed to gain control of the cartographer following which they also foiled atriox's plans to some degree at least by killing decimus and destroying a portal node that was allowing the banished to teleport their forces quickly throughout the entire installation the tide quickly turns again however and their short-lived victory is followed promptly afterward by the arrival of enduring conviction a banished flagship that engages the spirit of fire in battle while leftovers of the ship's crew and unsc forces continue to battle against the banished on the ark anders however soon formulates a bold and risky plan that might just help them gain an edge over their foes before we get into that however let's take a step back all the way back to halo combat evolved the events of that game many years ago at this stage in the series chronology saw the master chief and cortana destroying the halo ring known as installation 4. to replace the ring the ark quietly began construction of installation 08 and though that too was destroyed during the events of halo 3 the arc soon began construction of another replacement or installation 09 as it's technically called conveniently enough it turns out that the construction of that ring is more or less complete with the structure now lying in weight in the ark's foundry and anders's plan involves using that ring no she doesn't want to activate it of course they suggest that they deactivate its firing mechanics but send it through space back to unsc space where any broadcast they sent could be picked up by friendly ears thus hopefully leading back up back to the ark the arc of course can only deploy the ring which is meant as a replacement for installation 4 where the destroyed ring was once placed and with that location being not that far from planet reach that would put the ring very much in unsc space on paper then there's no reason that anders's plan shouldn't work of course before they can get down to executing that plan they have other more pressing matters to attend to like taking care of the banished flagship and during conviction with the help of isabel and some assistance from anders red team spartan jerome infiltrates the ship through a gravity lift which is far easier said than done and succeeds in taking the ship out of the equation by manipulating the ark's forerunner defenses against it with some luck on his side he's also able to make an escape from the ship along with isabel promptly afterward while atriox serves the aftermath of the battle the new halo ring rises from the ark with sanders on board unsc forces and the banished clash in furious battles as both sides attempt to seize control of the ring while anders infiltrates its control room hoping to deactivate its firing mechanisms and deploy a communications beacon for the unsc incredibly enough not only does she succeed in doing that she also cordons off the section of the ring that held most of the banished forces and launches it into space thus killing them unsc forces soon evacuate from the ring as well but as it turns out there isn't enough time for anders to get off the structure as the ring enters a slip space portal anders assures cutter that she'll be back very soon with unsc forces cutter continues to lead the fight against the banished and atriox at the ark two of halo wars two's expansions continue that side of the story showing not only the spirit of fire's continued fight against their enemies but also how a botched plan of the banished sees the threat of the flood returning at the former covenant capital known as high charity with atriox's timely intervention managing to shut the problem down and contain the flood again just in a nick of time meanwhile anders's own trip doesn't quite go the way she had expected halo wars 2's post-credits scene shows installation 09 prematurely dropping out of slip space with a guardian looming large above it and anders looking on at its imposing figure with the guardians and essentially the entire galaxy being firmly under the control of cortana and the created at this point that probably doesn't count as a happy ending halo wars 2's ending has left many questions unanswered of course we don't know what atriox has been up to since then and how his plans involve zeta halo the setting of halo infinite how exactly they're working with cortana and her created and what exactly his orders to warchief esrim are whether or not all of these questions will be answered remains to be seen but there's no doubting that heading into halo infinite the pieces are certainly in place for what could be a very dramatic chapter of the ongoing halo saga so what are your thoughts on this go ahead and share them in the comments below and if you like the video please subscribe to the channel and enable all notifications by clicking on the bell icon to get updates on new videos we upload every day and would really appreciate your support thanks for watching

Channel: GamingBolt

Views: 1,287,734

Keywords: the full story of halo series, halo story, the full story of halo explained, halo infinite

Id: 8Mj_dkfhAhQ

Length: 95min 16sec (5716 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 06 2021