Brush up on your lore before embarking on Master Chief’s new adventure
Written by Lars Cornelis op
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Halo Infinite is intended as a ‘spiritual reboot’, a new chapter in the twenty-year-old series. On many fronts, the game makes a fresh start, but those two decades of history are not just thrown overboard. On the contrary: Halo Infinite is full of small and large references to the past. However, it is not necessary to quickly play through all the Halo games or go through the more than thirty books: we list everything you need to know before you start Halo Infinite.
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Of course we won’t reveal anything about the story of Halo Infinite, so don’t be afraid of spoilers. We’re just refreshing your memory – or just giving you some background information if you’re really new to Halo. Logically, this article betrays the outcome of previous games. We also touch on the most important matters from a few books. We don’t go too deep into the extensive lore from Halo, but give you just enough background information so you can start off Master Chief’s new adventure perfectly prepared.
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After all, Halo Infinite is again exclusively about the Master Chief – there are no other playable characters this time around. Since 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved, we have saved humanity several times as Master Chief. Chief’s story actually begins thirty-five years earlier, when the then six-year-old John is “recruited” for a controversial military project: the SPARTAN-II program.
This program was created by Dr. Catherine Halsey and is actually intended to create super soldiers who could deal with extremist rebels. A few years later, when the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) finds itself embroiled in an interstellar war with the Covenant, a motley crew of alien races, the SPARTAN-IIs are desperately needed to stand another chance.
Especially Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, or Master Chief for short, appears to play a crucial role in this war. This is partly because Master Chief is not alone. He is assisted by the extremely advanced artificial intelligence Cortana, which is also “made” by Halsey. After the fall of Reach, the second most important planet to humanity after Earth, Chief and Cortana stumble upon the very first Halo.
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This artificial ring world turns out to be created by the Forerunners, an advanced race that ruled the universe thousands of years ago and was destroyed by that same ring. Halos, seven in total, are intended as a weapon against the Flood, a zombie-like parasite. The rings destroy all intelligent life in the universe and with it all the food of the Flood. The Forerunners have also stored genetic material from every life form with which to repopulate the universe.
However, the Covenant see the Forerunners as gods and are determined to fire the rings. In the original Halo trilogy, Chief and Cortana manage to prevent the Covenant from succeeding several times. Because of this battle, the Flood breaks out again. Ultimately, Chief and Cortana finally defeat the Covenant and the Flood, but end up stranded together in a wreckage far outside the Milky Way.
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It’s not until four years later that Chief and Cortana resurface. Their wreckage is being pulled into a Shield World (another Forerunner building) – and there also happens to be a whole fleet of a newly formed Covenant stationed on this planet. Holding on to the same religious delusions of the original Covenant, this Covenant is still obsessed with all things Forerunners.
So when Master Chief in the Shield World accidentally brings a real Forerunner to life, it won’t be long before the Forerunner takes full control of all of the Covenant’s troops. To make matters worse, he also appears to have quite a few pent up resentments towards people. Together with his new army, he immediately tries to wipe out humanity. Of course, Master Chief and Cortana put a stop to this together, but this time they do not come out unscathed: Cortana sacrifices herself in an ultimate attempt to stop the Forerunner and bring Master Chief to safety. She wouldn’t have much time anyway: AIs have a lifespan of seven years. After that, in principle, their processes continue.
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In Halo 5, Master Chief is still devastated by the loss of Cortana. During a routine mission with Blue Team, his old team of fellow SPARTAN IIs, he discovers that Cortana is still alive. In her sacrifice, she has become one with the Domain, a kind of hyper-advanced internet used by the Forerunners. This makes her more powerful than ever and can prevent her from going crazy. Or well, she continues in a different way: after all, her newly acquired power quickly goes to her head.
With the help of Guardians, gigantic weapons left behind by the Forerunners, she seizes power. She takes on the so-called ‘Mantle of Responsibility’, a mandate from the Forerunners to take care of all life in the universe. This process is also known as the Reclamation. Cortana, however, fulfills that mandate in an imperialist manner and rules with an iron fist. Most intelligent AIs also join her, so that humanity can suddenly no longer rely on its own creations. Cortana also tries to imprison Master Chief, but he is freed just in time by Spartan Locke and Fireteam Osiris.
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Meanwhile, a new conflict is brewing elsewhere in the universe. In Halo Wars 2, which takes place after Halo 5, we are introduced to the Banished, a splinter group of the original Covenant. The Banished are led by the Brute Atriox, who were the first to rebel against the Covenant’s religious leadership. Since then, the Banished has been fighting not for religious ideals, but for their own freedom. They are determined never to succumb to anyone again.
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Atriox therefore welcomes anyone who wants to fight by his side. Elites, Hunters, Jackals, Grunts – even humans are welcome at the Banished. Atriox’s second in line is War Chief Escharum. By the way, this Brute really hates people, so we don’t see any people under his command.
The Banished’s arsenal is less advanced than the Covenant’s and looks more cluttered. They row with what they have. Their methods are nevertheless brutal and fearless. In Halo Wars 2, for example, we see Atriox single-handedly defeat a team of three SPARTAN-IIs. In the expansion Awakening the Nightmare, the Banished come into conflict with the Flood, but Atriox is not impressed by that either. In short, it’s a worthy new adversary for the Master Chief when the Banished and the UNSC clash on Zeta Halo.
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Zeta Halo is the battleground in Halo Infinite. This ring world is different from the ring worlds we saw before and is described in lore as the most mysterious ring world of all. Zeta Halo, for example, is a lot older than the other rings and has a particularly bloody history. Some of that is described in the Halo books, most notably The Forerunner Trilogy. These books are set about a hundred thousand years ago.
This ringworld was not only intended by the Forerunners as a weapon, but at the time also served as a kind of reservation for (among other things) people. After all, if the Halos were to be fired, the universe would have to be repopulated afterwards. However, not only were humans kept, they were also used for experiments to investigate the Flood.
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The Flood eventually erupted on the ring and Zeta Halo was even used as a weapon against the Forerunners. The Forerunners eventually managed to regain control of the ring. Flood victims were stored on the ring, which from then on mainly served as a tomb.
Thousands of years later, chronologically somewhere between Halo 3 and 4, the UNSC discovers Zeta Halo. In the following years, humanity builds its presence on the ring and thousands of people are active on the ring, mainly for research. This shows that Zeta Halo is very different from the other rings and that not all the secrets of the ring world have been unlocked yet.
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With the Banished as a new enemy and Zeta Halo as an unexplored location, Halo Infinite is therefore really a new starting point within the series. On the other hand, Master Chief in the lead role will provide a lot of recognition. We will see on 8 December how this mix between old and new turns out.
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