Today we take a peek at some equipment and spartan armor of Halo Reach.

Above we see some machinery. You can find the mechanical arm at the bottom, on the last level of the campaign. It’s within the final room just before you climb the ladder to use the MAC canon.

I can really appreciate this piece. The shading is superb and the metallic sheen is near perfect for a piece of concept art.

Various equipment packs. If I recall, the one near top right is the M-spec reentry pack.

Various armor sets. The red color of the armor shows some of the differentiation and multiple configurations the Spartan IIIs can have.

A concept showing both the male and female default armor of Noble 6.

Another armor concept. This one makes me think ODST meets Spartan.

Default Noble 6? Some additions.

Often as is shown by the red armor pic and the one immediately above, base models are used which then have layers added to them to create a different effect.

The following are 9 graphics of Spartan helmet concepts.

The CQB helmet of Reach. While this color version didn’t make it in the game, I’m very happy that the helmet itself did.

The above three show subtle differences in the EOD helmet, most notably the visor.

Any one of those would have been great for the design in-game.

Here we have the Gungnir helmet. This is the first Spartan Helmet to feature a near visor-less visage. But for the small eyehole, there is no apparent way by which the Spartan can see out. It’s presumed the helmet has a view screen within that shows the Spartan their surroundings. The design is very cool. Something even more advanced than what we’re used to for Spartans. I am glad however the Bungie stopped at this one and didn’t create anymore without visors. 

This looks to be the final concept of the Mark V [b] helmet. here in green, ultimately as we know the default became steel in color. I love the clean lines of this design. It looks completely plausible as a helmet, even in rendered form.

You may have likely seen this image before. While some of these designs, didn’t make it into the game, it appears 343 borrowed a couple for Halo 4. The bottom left and bottom right looks similar in concept to the Orbital and Venator helmets, respectively.

Here the Recon helmet has had a slight redesign from previous game. I like this version a lot. For some reason, that bottom one reminds me of a snake. I can’t quite put my finger on why though.

And finally for this article, we have the HAZOP helmet. HAZOP meaning, hazardous operations. Most people refer to it as the skull helmet though. This was one of my favorite helmet designs of Reach. Now if this had also been combined with the actual skull helmet, it would have been beyond cool.

Once again, this is a little late. Heh, I have to blame my wife on this one…She started playing the Avengers movie right next to me. That made writing this extremely long as I couldn’t help but watch most of the movie as it played. LOL.

Tomorrow we look at some of the Halo 4 counterparts to these concepts.

What was your favorite helmet in Reach and why? Let me know by replying below!

-Sal

Hot on the heels of this week’s bulletin, I’ve added the Vindication, Poseidon, and Strident class ships to the poster. Click to make poster a lot bigger!!!

Please feel free to download the graphic. If you share it elsewhere, please let people know where you got the graphic from. Post “By Sal Salerno of HaloFanForLife.com” and/or the link back to this article: https://halofanforlife.com/?p=14264 Much appreciated!

-Sal

Each of these articles I’ve endeavored to show you something new. Today might buck that trend, depending on what you’e seen before. Many of these were part of the advertising campaign for Halo 4. Still, I hope you enjoy them. As always, if you ant to see them bigger, click on the pic!

First up personnel of the UNSC.

This is one of the official orthogonal views from Halo 4.This would have been a typical male scientist aboard the UNSC Infinity. We didn’t quite see this version. Though it’s pretty safe to assume it evolved into Dr. Glassman as well as the several unhooded scientists seen in Spartan Ops.

And here’s the hooded version. While the previous is similar in detail, this version is much better, just by the addition of color. I can’t stress enough how much color application to concepts helps to bring them to like.

Commander Lasky. Now this is a proper finalized concept. All the details are there. Heh, strangely though the right one is incorrect. Note the forearm device. It’s in the wrong spot on the right. Obviously the head of the character changed. I’m glad for it too as this one looks a bit bedraggled and war torn. I appreciate the friendlier face we got in the game.

Lasky Trivia:
• He was the leading character of the Forward unto Dawn miniseries.
• There was a planned action figure by McFarlane that got to the near final stages before being pulled. (Much to the chagrin of collectors, me included!)
• Mega Bloks included a micro action figure of Lasky in their Halo Mega Bloks Mammoth set. (You can see my multi-part review of it here: Pt1, Pt2, Pt3, Pt4.)

Next is a compilation of various Marines seen in Halo 4.


And a close-up of one of them. Now, while I wasn’t fond of many of the aesthetic changes made to Halo, I actually have grown to like this marine style. For me, I think the Halo 3 style will be the truest version of them, but these are definitely second to them. In the compilation pic, you can see through subtle changes in torso armor, helmets, and color, 343 achieved a varied look without having to redesign each particular version of the marines. That’s great planning there.

Now Cortana. Sweet sweet Cortana, what did 343 do to you… sigh. Before I talk about a few pieces, I have to add that I was disappointed that 343 found it necessary to kill her off. In my opinion, she’s the number 2 character in the whole of Halo. She’s only second to Master Chief. Considering her unique creation, I had hoped she would survive rampancy and achieve meta-stability. Or at the least as the campaign went on, Chief would have found a way to save her. It’s not going to be the same, without her. Okay…now the pics.

These 3, to me, almost appear to be a little evil. Now that could be the rampancy state starting to show through. The other thing is the face. She looks a lot like Christina Ricci, the actress.

In the above, I get a feeling of a cross-over between the Halo 3 Cortana and the Halo 4 Cortana. I really like this version and would have been quite happy with it being in the game. The color work here, even in mostly blue hues is very well done. There is a lot of depth to the rendering.

The above was made popular as a wraparound magazine cover. The front half showing Chief, while the back showing Cortana. This has also been available as prints. I can appreciate the work that went into this one. Tons of detail. Also, if you take a moment to consider it, with nearly everything else being blue, except Chief, his seeming to walk away from Cortana and her just looking on, this seems to have been a clue as to the ending of the game.

Using that last one, we’ll segue over to Master Chief.

This early sketch of Master Chief shows his armor in a very different version from what was ultimately used. Here the helmet is a lot more simpler as are the shoulder plates. As a concept though, it’s a great place to start the creative process that eventually led us to the Chief in Halo 4 that we know.

This storyboard concept of the final battle between Master Chief and the Didact is quite fun to read. The Didact looks a bit like General Greivous from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. I like the caption used for Chief in the fourth panel. (Second row, first column) I’d love to see more of this kind of concept art released as well as it shows the creative process really at work.

Many of the next 10 are well known, so I’m going to just post them with little commentary and let you appreciate them.

In all of those, the detail and color were thoroughly flesh out. Some of those have already become iconic to Halo 4. This is fantastic art, even if not so much in the concept phase.

Tomorrow we’ll look at other Spartan armor from Reach as well as some equipment concepts.

Thanks again as always for checking out HaloFanForLife.com. There’s a lot more to come, so keep coming back to see loads more Halo stuff!

-Sal

Hello folks. Sorry for the late post on this. I was quite busy today.

As you can see by the title, we’ll take a look at characters from Halo 4 that are either alien in nature of flood. Let’s start off with the Covenant.

In this graphic you can see the near in-game version greyed out at the upper left corner. The larger one reminds me more of the Reach Zealot with a mix of Ultra as well. I think I actually prefer the larger one. The large ornamental helmet is more reminiscent of Elite helmet of high rank. There is a slightly odd pairing of colors in this concept. It’s as if the artist (or someone directing them) were not sure of which color to go with, so they chose a hybridization of sorts.

Now here we have an Elite minor. This is very close to the in-game version. I definitely like the look of this elite. Thinking back to Halo CE, this looks like the natural progression for the armor of the minor. Kudos to 343 on this simple redesign!

What’s curious about the above pic is that we didn’t get Brutes in the game, with exception to one cutscene. Perhaps this concept was to be that Brute. He looks very imposing. That shield he’s holding looks a lot like a Hunter’s shield. In any event, I don’t think any of us would want to mess with him. I miss Brutes in Halo. I do hope they make they’re way back in to the next one in some iteration.

Lastly for the Covies is the redesigned Jackal (Kig Yar). The largest one is closer to what we’ve had in previous games. Though the taller and stunted beak is prominent. The near final designs on the left of this image show various Jackal ranks. I love everything about them, except for the head. I really don’t see why 343 felt the need to change that. Yes, they look more fierce, but they’ve also lost their “lithe-ness”. That head makes them look more bulky. Since Halo 4’s launch, we’ve now had an in-universe explanation that this is yet another sub-species of Jackals. GRRRR….stick with continuity folks. See, this is why you do not just change designs to change them… As I said, everything else is great, but that head redesign just kills it for me. I don’t expect 343 to go back to a previous version in the next game, sigh. So, we’re stuck with this stunted beak version. Strangely enough, we DO see the classic long thin versions in the Halo Escalation comic books by Darkhorse. So if you are craving to see them in a new format, I suggest getting those comics.

Moving on to the Flood.

We did not expect to see any kind of flood in this game as they had been effectively eradicated once again. Or at least that we know of. Above shows various forms. They might be infection forms or carrier forms or even a means to disperse the flood through space? There’s a lot of variety there. Perhaps when (and I do expect them to return), the flood are back in Halo, we’ll see some of these designs crop up again.

In the above pic the anatomy of the flood’s claw arm is shown in various forms. All look dangerous with pincers and jagged edges. The choice to with up that arm from left to right is a little perplexing. Of course in matchmaking it makes sense as you use that arm to strike at Spartans.

In the rendering above the claw arm is still on the left. It still looks like the typical flood we know, except that the head isn’t snapped back in some strange pose.

Now this concept I like. It shows a great variance between designs. The one marked #2 looks more like a Promethean Knight’s head. Perhaps that is where it was developed from? Number 3 is the one we got in game. Number 1 is very odd. Who knows, perhaps these might become Flood forms in future games and are from previously unknown alien species.

Now I think it’s safe to say we know were the exploding head idea for the Knights came from.

The large head here looks more like something out of Star Wars. Jedi master Saesee Tiin to be exact. I’m glad it wasn’t picked.

Undoubtedly and early sketch, with not much defined detail.

Looking at the flood concepts, it seems like minimal effort was put into fleshing them out, in lieu of just getting more designs out for someone to choose from. It was likely known early on that the flood would not have a large presence in Halo 4. Thus, no reason to take a ton of time to develop a lot of assets for them.

Finally we do get some color in the concepts. The middle shooing the infected parts of a spartan. Now here’s one thing to note. Spartan’s that I recall, were not supposed to be able to be infected. Either that or they tried to with Master Chief and just couldn’t crack his armor. Meh…

Another take on the form, this time with more depth to it.

For the last of the Flood concepts, we have the official orthogonal view rendering. I hope you can see by the addition of color really helps to engage the viewer. This rendering has a lot more detail as well. While I’m still a bit confused as to the total redesign, I’m okay with it.

Now, Forerunners!

Ancient Prometheans looks quite different from what we got in-game. These of course are the Forerunner Prometheans, not the composed Knights that were put into the game. That slight bot of orange helps to define an other wise bland color palette. The designs themselves are pretty cool. I would have liked to have seen them in full color though, rather than mostly greys.

In the concept above, we have the Knight as it might have been. Able to change form and had a full sized human inside, rather than nothing and something slightly more than ornamental small arms in the front of it. I know I would have preferred this design over what we got. I just think the Knights in Halo 4 look too clunky.

And finally for this article, we have a drawing of sentinels. Thankfully these all look similarly to ones from previous games. I’m glad 343 didn’t venture too far away from that classic design.

Once again, apologies for the late post on this.

Tomorrow, we will look at UNSC personnel, including Master Chief, Cortana, Scientists and Marines.

Let me know what you think of this article or any of the other Concept articles. Post below by hitting that reply button!

-Sal