Halo is undeniably one of the greatest first-person shooters of all time. Halo: Combat Evolved launched on the original Xbox in 2001 and quickly became a phenomenon. The game built upon previous arena shooters, such as Doom and Unreal Tournament, to create a template for a new generation of console-based games. It could be argued that Halo was solely responsible for the success of Xbox Live, and possibly the Xbox itself.
Now, with the release of Halo: Infinite and Halo's 20th birthday right around the corner, the time seems right to revisit some of the best moments from the franchise. With 6 mainline games and several spinoffs to explore, there are plenty of options to choose from, but some levels represent the Halo experience with absolute aplomb.
Battle Of Sunaion: Halo 5
Halo 5: Guardians is the black sheep of the Halo franchise, and represents 343i's furthest departure from the style and direction of the Bungie-era Halo games. While there are plenty of subjective elements about the game worthy of discussion, Halo 5 did manage to deliver some stellar moments during its campaign.
The Battle of Sunaion captures some of 343i's best ideas for the Reclaimer saga. The 343i-era design of the Covenant looks right at home on the Elite home-world, and the platformed construction of Sunaion allows the enhanced mobility mechanics of the game to shine.
Midnight: Halo 4
Halo 4 was a step in a new direction for Halo. It was a way to bridge the gap between classic Bungie Halo and the future that 343i had in mind for the series. Whether or not this strategy paid off is another discussion entirely, but one of the things that 343i did right was to add a layer of emotional depth to the game that previous Halo titles had never really touched upon.
Midnight is the conclusion to Master Chief's and Cortana's story. Cortana sacrifices herself to save Chief from the Didact, and as she fades away, players see a soul behind the armor for the first time; A soul that thinks and feels and is quickly breaking apart. It is also a gut punch to players who have spent the better part of 12 years getting attached to these characters and their relationship.
Long Night Of Solace: Halo Reach
Reach was Bungie's attempt to craft a story that portrays the human cost of the long Covenant war. Long Night of Solace introduces some gameplay elements not yet seen in the Halo series and marks the turning point in the story. This is the mission where things get real.
There is so much good stuff in this level. From piloting a spaceship and gunning down Covenant fighters in orbit, to a low gravity assault on a Covenant capitol ship, to the gut-punch of an ending that leaves the player lost in space, plummeting toward the planet's surface, Long Night of Solace showcases some of the best gameplay and storytelling that Reach has to offer.
The Pillar Of Autumn: Halo Reach
Reach was also Bungie's love letter to the Halo series. It was their personal farewell to the massive fanbase that Halo had cultivated over the years, and as all good prequels do, the ending of this story ties directly into the story of the original. The Pillar of Autumn is a very well-paced trek through nostalgia valley.
The game reintroduces characters from the original trilogy that longtime players know and love while keeping the story vague enough to not require prior knowledge of the games to understand what's going on. Meanwhile, the game throws every enemy type from the previous games at the player before reaching an explosive finale that ends where the first game began. Overall, it is a thrilling sendoff to the Bungie era of Halo.
Mombasa Streets: Halo 3 ODST
Bungie was on top of the world after Halo 3, but found themselves at a crossroads: the Halo franchise still had plenty of life left in it, but where to go next was a looming question. Their next step ended up being Halo 3: ODST, a spinoff of Halo 3 and a future-noir detective story.
Set to a soundtrack of soft pianos and mournful saxophones, a soldier explores the deserted streets of New Mombasa in the aftermath of the Covenant invasion of earth in Halo 2, trying to piece together what happened to the rest of their squad. This was an entirely new take on the Halo experience, giving the player an immersive open-world to explore, while still offering plenty of the combat that fans of the series expect.
The Covenant: Halo 3
Halo 3 was the first game in the series to masterfully capture the sense of scale that the Halo universe demanded. This is due mostly to the newly available computing power of the Xbox 360, but the artists at Bungie also deserve credit for finding fantastic ways to make the world of Halo come alive in ways that fans had never seen before.
The Covenant is perhaps the best example of this: the level begins with a Silent Cartographer-style beach assault, and takes the player through several massive set-pieces, each with its own unique environment and style. Master Chief makes his way through forests, Forerunner ruins, snowy mountains, and caves, sprinkled with multiple tank and flying sections. In terms of grandiosity, The Covenant has everything that makes Halo 3, and Halo as a whole, amazing.
Halo: Halo 3
It all came down to this. Arbiter and the Chief mounted up in a Warthog, desperately making their way to safety across a rapidly disintegrating Halo ring that is primed to fire, with Marty O'Donnell's epic score wafting through the background. This level could have come across as lazy, as it is essentially the same structure of the end mission of Halo: Combat Evolved, which also concluded with the player outrunning an impending explosion in a Warthog.
However, the original Halo trilogy puts a special emphasis on circular storytelling, and Halo 3 was designed to be a conclusion to and celebration of all that had come before it. The narrative purpose of the story taking place on a giant ring is reflected in the ending of Halo 3, as the game ends, thematically, where the first game begins.
The Arbiter: Halo 2
The best levels in the Halo franchise have two things in common: a level design that lets the player explore awe-inspiring vistas, and a narrative that invests the player in the story the game is trying to tell. Both elements help to increase the sense of scale in the game and make the urge to push forward irresistible.
The Arbiter accomplishes both of these things. The decision to include the Arbiter in the story and force the player to experience his side of events is now regarded as a wise move on Bungie's part, and the fact that the level takes place on a massive Forerunner structure plummeting through space doesn't hurt either.
343 Guilty Spark: Halo CE
It is difficult to overstate the phenomenon that was Halo: Combat Evolved. Among the many things that make the original Halo iconic is the Flood: a parasitic body-snatching menace that ends up becoming a bigger threat than the Covenant of aliens who started this whole thing.
The brilliance of the Flood revelation lies in the buildup. There were no indications at any point in the game that anything like this was coming. The level begins in a misty swamp, and all the player can really discern from the environment is that something is very wrong. The Covenant are running scared, the humans scattered around are shooting and rambling incoherently, and there are bodies and blood littering the corridors of the Forerunner vault the Chief has come to investigate.
Assault On The Control Room: Halo CE
There are so many brilliant levels in Halo: Combat Evolved. However, the most easily re-playable one has to be Assault on the Control Room. Aside from being the largest level in the game, it also has the most options for mayhem.
This is the first introduction of the Scorpion tank in the Halo series. Players can mount up and lay waste to fields of Covenant in giant, open battlefields, take flight in a Banshee, or try their best to squeeze a Warthog through the numerous Forerunner structures that dot the map.