The Evolution of Halo's Energy Sword | Let's take a look at every version of the Halo Energy Sword

[Music] Halos energy sword is so infamous that even people unfamiliar with the game series know what this very unique looking energy blade is called ever since the lightsaber and Star Wars energy sword type weapons are a very common trope in science fiction so it really speaks to how much of an impact this thing left on gaming that it stood above the pack and still manages to be circulated around gaming culture whether it be real-life props that make the front page of Reddit or going toe-to-toe with the lightsaber for favorite sci-fi laser swords with Halo being almost twenty years old it stands to reason that like most weapons in the series there are many different interpretations and versions of it throughout the history of Halo let's take a walk through history and cover all the versions of the energy sword throughout the years if you find yourself enjoying the video a like is appreciated or better yet a share in Halo second installment the elites of combat Evolved became playable and it's really fitting that the players were now able to handle their dangerous energy swords it's the first weapon you see when you step into the massive boots of the arbiter and functionally it's kind of like a covenant response to the UNSC shotgun in the same way that the carbine is a response to the battle rifle as a precision weapon for covenant levels the energy sword is well the energy a cool detail from Bungie is that the secret to the blades on this weapon are that an electron based gas is released from the hilt when it's activated and then to magnetic ionized fields trap the gas in the shape of its iconic blades when you activate the sword its unique sound is the sound of gas releasing and then being encased in this field [Music] it's such a subtle detail but it's one that I appreciate Bungie keeping all the way through the series moving on to gameplay I have a feeling Bungie envisioned the sword being similar to the shotgun but in practice the halo 2 sword is a very fascinating Beast it's got an incredibly fast swing and the second you switch to it you can actually use it before the blade is properly ignited and if you remember my battle rifle video you know that halo twos oversights led to very interesting button combinations that players could use to break the weapons really creative ways the sword has a lunge attack whenever your crosshair turns red you can press the trigger and you'll fly at the enemy and land a strike when you reach them and as a man who murdered not just the men but the women and the children too once said this is where the fun begins using weapons such as sniper rifle you can combo it with the sword to literally fling yourself across levels and places you should be getting to it's a popular tactic for speedrunners the reason for this button combos bizarre ability is when you zoom in with a sniper rifle or scoped weapon and the crosshair turns red switching to the sword will give you a few frames where the game incorrectly has the swords crosshair as read press the trigger and you can glide your way across level and even combine it with various other tricks to fly past the enemy and into the great beyond it's just one example of the many tricks you can do another popular one is switching to the sword quickly lunging at the enemy but switching to your other weapon mid lunge so that by the time you arrive in the enemies face your sword has been pocketed it's essentially a cool little fast travel to the enemy what Bungie probably envisioned was a very defensive weapon and it turned out to be an incredible mobility tool and offensive device what makes it so skillful is that you need to learn these tricks though the sword won't let you just fly around the map it's up to you to put in the work and get the kills [Music] halo 2's energy sword was so cool that of course it would return in Halo 3 and it got a pretty sexy facelift it's now much brighter than the one in Halo 2 to the point that it lights up the area when you ignite it this makes for really Moody and Atmospheric moments in the campaign speaking of the campaign due to the Brutes replacing the elites role as squad leaders in the Covenant you rarely see the sword in the campaign unless you kill friendly elites and the missions they appear the swords do thankfully show up often during flood missions and they are excellent weapons to hack your way through swarms of infected creatures as far as multiplayer is concerned the sword is actually a bit different in its second outing well the halo 2 sword was offensive as a weapon when you mastered the button combos for it the halo 3 sword is much more defensive in design its lunge range was reduced and its swing speed is not nearly as fast as a love Jews new features were even added to allow for sword jousting which is quite exciting when it happens if two players with swords go head-to-head and strike each other at the same time they can't actually kill each other this turns the engagement into this interesting meta game of timing and parrying attacks a common strategy is to clash swords and then follow up with a Swifter sword swing while the enemy is still recovering it's cool stuff well the loss of button combos could certainly have made this sword a bit less interesting it's nice to see that Bungie included subtle changes like the jousting to allow for new sword meta games to form halo 3 even as its sub community for sword fights overall it's an excellent incarnation of this weapon just make sure to play with it more defensively than offensively the sword didn't make an appearance in OD esteem but it did show up for bungees final Halo game Halo Reach in 2010 the sword looks a bit different this time around it's a lot darker in color for some reason and the blade is starting to become a bit more angular and less round it still retains its ability to light up the surrounding area when ignited but it's a lot less bright than its halo 3 counterpart what's actually pretty neat about the sword here is that it gives its own unique stances depending on what species you're playing is if you draw the sword as an elite you'll hunch closer to the ground and your third-person animations will become a lot more aggressive and predator like it's a pretty neat detail functionally the sword is kind of like a weaker version of the Halo 3 sword its range was reduced there's now a bit of a delay from pulling the trigger and dealing the damage and the swords lunge ability can be deflected with a simple melee attack instead of requiring another sword to deflect a good way to avoid this is to make use of the evade armor ability so that instead of lunging and giving the enemy a chance to block you you can roll right up to them and cut them down a popular tactic that irritates players is to make use of the sprint armor ability and simply sprint into rooms and cut everyone down before players have a chance to react since you're moving so fast naturally this tactic is viewed as pretty cheap due to how chaotic and destructive it is to strategic gameplay overall the reach sword may be a bit duller in color and light but it's got a few tricks up its sleeve it's not uncommon though to see players prefer other versions of this weapon [Music] two years after the release of Halo Reach halo 4 released and with its shift in artistic direction also came a slight redesign of the energy sword it's now lost almost all of the curved ring around the hilt and it's very wide and quite top-heavy it also sports these weird gaps in the blade and I'm not quite sure what they do thankfully though it's much brighter looking than the Halo Reach iteration but it lost the ability to light up surroundings when ignited this was probably cut for performance reasons since dynamic light sources are rather expensive on a game's graphical resources and halo 4 is a pretty good-looking game the sound for it was also redone slightly but still very much in the spirit of the old sound it's very sharp and Hesse in the campaign it's quite common as opposed to Halo 3 since the elites are back as covenant leaders and it's quite satisfying when you find one and go on a killing spree with it as grunts and jackals flee in terror just like old times unfortunately it's a bit off in multiplayer it's a much more aggressive version of the sword than halo has ever had before the melee block from reach was removed and due to sprint now being an ability that all players have by default and customizable load outs allowing for unlimited sprint it's very common for strategic gameplay and careful map control to just be thrown out the window when someone finds a sword and Sprint's around the map indefinitely cutting up Spartans and racking up kills most pros find it their second most hated incarnation of the sword due to how little thought is needed to go on a killing spree with very few ways to defend yourself when a player is seen charging at you with unlimited sprint it also doesn't help that there's an unusual audio issue with the sword that affects multiplayer due to the audio codec that 343 uses in Halo 4 the engine will sometimes not prioritize sounds when the engine is stressed so it's not uncommon to have the energy sword be completely silent the energy sword in Halo 4 and its sequel are treated more like a free kill device instead of a strategic element of the sandbox and I feel the combat loop suffers because of it there's a different variant of the sword used in Halo Force flood game type it's a flood claw that grows out of a compromised Armour of infected Spartans and it's quite nasty looking functionally it's no different from the energy sword other than having unlimited ammo and disabling sprint sadly there's no way to use it outside of the flood game type but it's a cool weapon nonetheless with the release of the MCC came halo 2 anniversary a remaster of the bass halo 2 campaign and two multi player packages the original halo 2 multiplayer and halo 2 anniversary multiplayer a modern day remix of halo twos original multiplayer made using the halo 4 engine and complete with a series of remade maps in the campaigns remastered graphics the sword is using the halo reach model which I feel is a bit weird looking due to it having the blade be a bit more top-heavy and its ignition effect and the sounds are a bit more light saber II it's odd because in cutscene it actually uses a design and presentation that's more faithful to the original it's all subjective though in multiplayer the sword uses a similar model to the campaign cutscene version which I love it's bright angry looking and very fun to swing in the past I described halo 2 anniversary multiplayer as more of a casual eyes diversion of the classic halo experience than a direct remake of halo 2 and the sword definitely fits this bill it maintains the fast swing speed and long reaching lunge and thanks to the lack of sprint the weapon is returned to something a bit closer to Halo 3 than anything so all in all it's a bit of a hybrid between halo 2 and a halo three's version of the weapon it's one of my favorite iterations of the sword because of its ease of use and satisfying return to the swords original role not as a free kill weapon but as a situational control weapon it's pretty cool but not as cool as the infected sword used in infection game types this sword is blood red and unlike the flood claw this sword can actually be used outside of infection and it looks pretty damn cool this red energy sword was even given a place in Halo Canon and it shows up in future games it was given the name Blood blade and I hope to see it more in the future the sword returns once again in the sequel to halo 4 halo 5 guardians the top-heavy design of Halo 4 sword returns but this time the sword is given the ability to light up the surrounding environment an unlike halo 2 anniversary campaign the weapon once again has more of a gas based ignition effect sadly the sounds for it have further fallen down the lightsaber rabbit-hole and moved further away from the original sound it's hard to complain about something so small it's a lot darker than its halo 4 brother but this was done after feedback from Halo fives beta which was that the sword was too bright which is quite sad because I loved its beta appearance gameplay wise the sword sadly moves away from halo 2 anniversary and back towards the halo 4 style which is really just being used to get free kills for a limited amount of time it grants users a speed boost when equipped and even includes aiming down the sights to increase your range which can be chained with the thruster pack which only encourages incredibly aggressive play and only furthers the issues created by Halo 4's implementation of the sword spartan charging with it is an insta-kill which makes the sword infuriating to deal with since there really isn't much you can do when someone Sprint's into the room out of nowhere and charges you I won't deny the fun of being able to just go nuts and cut down the entire enemy team but that's never really what the sword was designed for and it shows interestingly though outside of traditional Halo Slayer the sword in Halo 5 does make for some interesting sword jousting gameplay of its own when paired with the thruster pack since duelists can bob and weave out of the sword swings there's a reason sword focused game types like castle wars are so popular like most weapons in Halo 5 the sword comes with different variants the relic sword is the base energy sword but with the speed boost removed in an attempt to balance the sword for competitive play but not Rob casual of the more aggressive sword with the speed boost that they prefer the ravening sliver is an energy sword variant that has the unique ability of quick handling I wonder if the thought process was having a sword variant that's a bit like Caleb to's it has a deep blue blade and a green hilt the vorpal Talon is a sword variant with a list of perks it increases your jump height gives you two thruster pack uses before recharging allows the use of the radar when aiming down the sights and allows for longer hang time when stabilizing in the air it also shows up in the campaign's last mission as a hidden weapon it's right there the infected sword makes use of a different hilt and features have corrupted and dark green blade it's used by zombies in the infection game type and while being purely aesthetic with no gameplay perks it's definitely cool looking and finally we move on to one of the coolest interpretations of the energy sword the prophets Bane it's an ancient weapon in elite culture it dates back a long time and used to be called the end of nights after the arbiter killed the high prophet of the Covenant in Halo 3 he returned home and dug this weapon out of the vaults of his people reforged it with the components of the sword that killed truth and thus the prophets Bane was formed the sword would go on to be known as a symbol of change for the elites a dagger cutting down every last remaining alien that still clung to the destructive teachings of the collapsing covenant Empire it was the arbiters personal sword and we get to use it in the campaign it can be obtained by using exploits to kill the arbiter but a multiplayer it can be used in warzone and super fiesta game types or custom maps where the maker places it gameplay wise it grants the player increased movement speed when use greater lunge distances and gives you permanent cloaking when pulled out there are ways to disable the cloaking effect when using exploits to obtain the sword but the sad tragedy of this awesome blade is that you rarely ever see it and its full glory due to the cloaking an interesting piece of trivia is it was originally much brighter during the beta and lacked its cloaking ability look how cool that thing looks halos a rather long-running series and it was pretty fun to walk down memory lane and cover each iteration of this weapon what's your favorite personal version of the energy sword my favorites the halo 3 sword due to the memories I have of it and the way it brightens up the area around you when you ignite it sound off in the comments section and let me know what the next video in the history of series needs to be on what weapon do you want to see covered and until then guys I'll see you on the next video [Music]

Channel: Late Night Gaming

Views: 659,135

Rating: 4.8989353 out of 5

Keywords: Halo, Gaming, LateNightGaming, Examining Games, Commentary, Taras, LNG, Late Night Gaming, Lootboxes, Halo 5, Call of Duty, Battlefront 2, Game discussion

Id: OcxuObqnJ9w

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2019