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Many weapons exist across the Halo video games, all of which can be grouped together and classified in numerous ways. The following is an overview of classifications created by or officially recognized by the developers of Halo, and how they affect gameplay.

Weapon Classes

Main article: Weapon class

Weapon classes are the means by which the Halo video games group together different weapons with similar animations. Characters can only hold weapons that belong to weapon classes which are supported by their own set of third person character animations. Grunts can carry pistols and launchers but not rifles, marines can carry rifles but not support weapons, and so on.

Before being introduced in Halo 2 each weapon required its own set of animations per character. As such grunts in Halo: Combat Evolved could carry plasma pistols and needlers, but not the human pistol. Weapon classes remove this restriction by having all three of these weapons share a simplified set of pistol animations. Weapons may still posses unique animations as overlays such as the correct hand position for the SMG's vertical foregrip or the shotgun's staged reload.

Halo Infinite formalized weapons classes as information presented to the player through the use of the game's user interface. In this context the use of weapon classes describes the intended role of a weapon, combining its appearance with its functionality.

Melee

Weapons apart of the melee category do not possess firing animations, relying solely on their melee capabilities. There are two subcategories that exist for player use although more exist exclusive to NPCs.

Energy Sword - Swords are melee weapons that can perform powerful lunge attacks in addition to dealing increased cutting damage when performing a regular melee attack.
Gravity Hammer - Hammers are melee weapons that create explosions in front of the user without inflicting self harm. Their increased physics impulses are also useful for pushing enemies off of ledges, performing splatters with physics objects, and golfing.

Multiplayer

Essentially the same as melee weapons, multiplayer weapons are classified under their own category presumably for organizational purposes. Multiplayer weapons are divided up into two subcategories.

Ball - Spherical multiplayer weapons held with sports influenced animations, and beginning with Halo 4 can also be thrown. Originally comprising of just the oddball, the class now includes the assault bomb, throwable fusion coils, and power seeds.
Flag - Pole shaped multiplayer weapons used for CTF gamemodes. Flags are dual wielded with magnums in Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians.

Pistol

Pistols are projectile weapons held either one handed or with both hands supporting the rear grip. Despite their appearance pistols can possess any level of destructive capability, from low damage per shot to the explosive power of the target locator and sticky detonator.

Rifle

Rifles are projectile weapons held with two hands, one supporting the barrel from underneath. It is the most common weapon class and has been divided into numerous subcategories.

Assault Rifle - Mid-ranged weapons lacking scopes, offering performance that fills a niche in between tactical rifles and SMGs.
Tactical Rifle - Mid-ranged, headshot capable weapons featuring magnified optics.
SMG - Short-ranged weapons with high rates of fire.
Shotgun - Short-ranged weapons that fire multiple projectiles at once in a spread pattern.
Sniper Rifle - Long-ranged, headshot capable weapons that deal considerably high damage.

Launcher

Also known internally as "support_high" and "missile" weapons, launchers typically have been any weapon carried over characters' shoulders. Halo Infinite now classifies any projectile weapon with explosive damage as a launcher but this does not affect support_high weapons as an animation class.

Support

Also known internally as "support_low" weapons, support weapons are any weapon held in first person down by the character's hips. Support weapon animations are very similar to those of the flamethrower from Halo: Combat Evolved, which may have directly inspired the category. Only two support weapons appear in the finalized games, being the brute shot and sentinel beam. Both weapons, along with the class itself, did not return in Halo: Reach, marking Halo 3 as the final appearance of the weapon class. Later appearances of the brute shot and sentinel beam have their animations built using the rifle class with overlays positioning character arms to hold the weapons in their typical support location. It is because of this reason that marines in Halo Infinite are able to use the sentinel beam for the first time.

Detachable Turret

Known simply as "turret" weapons within the game files, detachable turrets are essentially very powerful support weapons that switch the player camera to a third person perspective and restrict certain actions such as crouching, grenades, melee, and equipment. Because of their similar appearances, turret weapons are often called support weapons as well. The data core and power supply featured in Invasion use turret animations, and thus the inherent restrictions, to make players more vulnerable while encouraging cooperative play in escorting teammates to objectives.

Damage Types

Main article: Damage Groups

In addition to weapon classes, weapons may also be categorized by the type of damage they inflict.

Melee Weapon

Melee weapons are any weapon that does not fire a projectile, instead only being able to perform melee attacks. All weapons belonging the melee weapon class and multiplayer weapon class fall under this melee damage category.

Kinetic Weapon

Being comprised of multiple projectile types such as bullets, spikes, and the impact damage of explosives, kinetic weapons are the most common form of projectile damage. Often times kinetic weapons deal consistent damage against a variety of different materials but usually lack the ability to significantly damage vehicles. However exceptions do exist such as Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 3: ODST reducing damage against shields, and the sniper rifle dealing extra damage against vehicles in Halo: Reach and the Reclaimer Saga games.

Precision Weapon

The Sniper Rifle, a precision weapon, in action during a match of Firefight.

"Particularly useful against delicate equipment—like brains."

— Halo: Reach manual description

A precision weapon is any weapon which is capable of instantly killing a character upon hitting an area of their body marked as the head. As the name suggests this is the actual head of most characters, although there are some exceptions. Certain enemies such as drones in Halo 2 or the Warden Eternal are immune to headshots, while in Halo: Combat Evolved the exposed backs of hunters are susceptible to headshot damage.

In all games up until Halo 5: Guardians scoring a headshot on an unshielded enemy with a headshot capable weapon will instantly kill them, regardless of how much health they had remaining. Starting with H5 weapons with headshot multipliers were introduced, and in Halo Infinite the shock rifle features a headshot multiplier that still applies while shields are active. The term precision weapon is retained to describe weapons that can still kill with a single unshielded headshot.

Automatic Weapon

While not exclusive to the kinetic damage type, automatic weapons are typically used to describe bullet based, fully automatic weapons that appear as starting weapons in auto slayer playlists, in contrast to the typical precision weapon starts.

Plasma Weapon

Plasma weapons are Covenant weapons that are very effective against energy shields. While they always deal reduced damage to player health, this trait is not mutually exclusive against other characters.

Hardlight Weapon

Hardlight weapons are Forerunner in origin and disintegrate targets upon inflicting critical damage. Their use differs slightly from game to game. Introduced in Halo 4 they glow orange and possess a damage type similar to the covenant carbine, having no bonus against any material but able to destroy jackal shields and deployable cover. In Halo 5 they now deal bonus damage to Promethean weakspots. In Halo Infinite hardlight is now purple and can kill vehicle occupants without destroying the vehicle itself.

Shock Weapon

First introduced in Halo Infinite, shock weapons are extremely weak per shot but are able to chain damage to multiple targets as well as EMP vehicles.

Anti-vehicle Weapon

Anti-vehicle weapons deal considerable damage, explosive or otherwise, and are ideal for taking out heavily armored targets.

Weapon Roles

Over the years the Halo community has also created its own terminology based on the way weapons are obtained in multiplayer and their roles within the context of multiplayer gameplay. The following are notable multiplayer weapon terms both created by Halo developers and officially recognized by them.

Loadout Weapon

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Primary Weapon

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Secondary Weapon

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Utility Weapon

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Dual-wield Weapon

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Power Weapon

Named power weapons in Halo 3, and being previously named "heavy weapons" in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, they are

Weapon Sets

Weapon sets are a custom game option used in multiplayer gametypes and forge menus to replace weapons placed on multiplayer maps based on faction, role, weapon class, damage type, or any other form of organization the developers have made for the game. Below is a list of common and reoccurring weapon sets.

• Pistols (Magnum, Pistol, Plasma Pistol)
• Plasma Weapons (Plasma Pistol, Plasma Rifle, Brute Plasma Rifle)
• Dual-wield Weapons (Plasma Weapons, Magnum, SMG, Suppressed SMG, Needler, Mauler, Spiker)
• Rifles (Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, DMR, Carbine, Plasma Rifle, Storm Rifle, Light Rifle, Sentinel Beam, Suppressor)
• Sniping Weapons (Sniper Rifle, Beam Rifle, Focus Rifle, Binary Rifle)
• Heavy/Power Weapons (Melee Weapons, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Launchers, Detached Turrets, SAW)

Weapon Tiers

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Tier-1

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• Loadout Weapons, Plasma Rifle, Sentinel Beam

Tier-2

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• Melee Weapons, Shotguns, Grenade Launchers, Plasma Pistol, Needler, Hydra

Tier-3

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• Sniper Rifles, Launchers, SAW

Weapon Variants

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