Halo Retrospective: Brush Up On The Chief's Earlier Adventures Before The Launch Of Halo 4

Halo: Reach

The story begins (as far as the games go anyway) on the planet Reach, centered around a group of Spartans called Noble Team—no, the Chief is not part of the group, he's just chillin' aboard the Pillar of Autumn LIKE A BOSS. As Noble Six, you and your team investigate a downed communications center. Soon after, you run into the Covenant—big surprise—and that's when things start to heat up. After fending off a healthy amount alien forces, the group meets up with Dr. Halsey (you remember her) and find out that the Covenant are in pursuit of a valuable piece of intel.

The big, bad aliens refuse to let up, and when a massive Covenant carrier pulls overhead, Nobel Six and Jorge (one of the other Spartans on Nobel team) attempt to take it down. After an awesome space battle, the two make it onto the ship with a bomb. Unfortunately, the timer on the explosive doesn't work, so Jorge offers to sacrifice himself and detonate the bomb. Very sad.

Nobel Six lands back on Reach, all alone and clearly distraught at the loss of his friend. Finding himself in New Alexandria in the middle of an evacuation, the heroic Spartan aids in the effort. In doing so, he meets back up with the rest of the crew when the Covenant start to wipe out the city. Sadly, another member of the team, Kat, bites the dust after getting blasted in her dome piece by a sniper shot. Ouch.

The group is then directed by Halsey to travel to a secret underground location that houses what she believes to be the key to taking down the Covenant: Cortana. It's then up to Noble Six and what remains of the group to safely transport Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn. Along the way, a team member goes with Halsey, another dies, yada yada yada. After being the one to get the AI to Captain Keyes, Six makes the "noble" decision (har har) to stay behind and clear the sky for a swift escape. The game ends with Nobel Six fighting endless waves of Elites and Grunts until he finally collapses to his death. EPIC.



Halo: Combat Evolved

Despite being the first entry in the series, Halo: Combat Evolved takes place immediately following the events of Halo: Reach. After the Pillar of Autumn manages to escape the slew of Covenant on Reach thanks to Noble Six (may he rest in peace), they are ambushed by a Covenant fleet after exiting slipspace. Yes, these aliens are persistent little buggers. Captain Keyes orders that the Master Chief be woken from cryo-sleep to aid in holding back the alien ambush. The Chief, with Cortana plugged into the back of his helmet, fights off as many Elites and Grunts as possible before having no choice but to evacuate via an escape pod to a nearby ring structure we later find out is a Halo.

Captain Keyes manages to survive the ambush but is held captive by the Covenant. Naturally, it is up to John-117 to rescue the fearless leader, so aboard a Covenant ship known as Truth and Reconciliation he goes. After rescuing Captain Keyes, the Chief and Cortana make their way to Halo's control room to determine the purpose of this massive structure. After entering Cortana into the system, the Chief is told to leave and find Keyes, who ends up falling victim to the Flood, which the Covenant have managed to release accidentally. Not good.

This then triggers the release of Halo's AI monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, who instructs Chief to find something called the Index, which is capable of stopping the spread of the Flood. The Spartan manages to find the Index, but is stopped by Cortana from activating it after she finds out that doing so will wipe out all life in the galaxy. In an effort to prevent the activation of the Halo, the Chief and Cortana blow the entire thing up. Not an easy task, but let's face it, John-117 is no ordinary soldier.

Next: The Arbiter joins the fray as the Covenant's religious quest continues...