Projects/Reach Mapping

The Reach Mapping Project aims to cross-reference both in-game and supplementary material to attempt to make sense of Reach's regional structure. The current pages for Viery Territory, Ütközet, Eposz and Alföld and potentially others do not have a clear or consistent hierarchy of locations, which reflects Halo Reach's lack of a consistent approach to detailing locations.

Goals

Current research

Thanks to several sources including the maps included with Dr. Halsey's personal journal, Halo: Outpost Discovery, the Order of Battle seen in the opening cutscene of Tip of the Spear and a Covenant deployment map seen on the bridge of Ardent Prayer, it is possible to begin piecing together a good idea of Reach's landscape and layout.

Official maps

To begin with, here is a full world map of Reach, taken from the in-game texture used for the holotank of the Covenant corvette.

Thanks to the map provided by the Hall of History in Outpost Discovery (left), we can place the cities of Manassas, New Alexandria, Esztergom, Quezon, Sopron and Casimir. The map provided in Halsey's Journal gives us the locations of SWORD Base (marked SWO), CASTLE Base (marked CAS), Visegrád (marked VIS) and several thus-far unidentified sites.

Outpost Discovery map.
Halsey's map.

These sources combined allows us to place a number of important locations seen in Halo: Reach and supplementary material (Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halo: First Strike, Halo: Shadows of Reach, Data Drops etc) with a fair degree of accuracy, and begin piecing together the overall geographical structure of Reach.

Thanks to this information, we can begin collating together other sources and references. One key in helping decipher these locales are the location paths usually seen in the cutscenes of Halo: Reach in the camera views, in the bottom right of the screen (these are provided below). Several other resources are collated below.

Environment Details

Winter Contingency (Visegrád Relay, 50KM from Visegrád, Eposz)

A huge valley below the Visegrád Relay to the southeast, with snowy tundra, some sparse trees and a sizable lake.

ONI: Sword Base (Sword Base, adjacent to Babd Catha Ice Shelf, Eposz)

A topographic view of the peninsula Sword Base is located upon, and the adjacent Babd Catha Ice Shelf to the east.
Sword Base viewed from orbit.
Sword Base viewed directly from the south.
South-western view across the inlet to the west of Sword Base. The inlet feeds into a large sea to the south.

New Alexandria (New Alexandria, Eposz)

A digital display located in the New Alexandria Medical Center Skybridge

Additional resources

Order of battle (Viery, Reach) - with several locations now named, we can reasonably infer what locations the units in this map were attacking/ defending.
Covenant deployment hologram - A map shown on the bridge of the Covenant corvette shows a map of Covenant deployments.
Data Drops - Many of the data drops include location paths for their sender/receiver addresses.
Halo: Reach radio conversations - Includes some descriptions and references to various locations
Halo: First Strike - Includes location hierarchies in chapter headers for sections on Reach.
Halo: The Fall of Reach - Includes location hierarchies in chapter headers for sections on Reach.
- Halo: Fall of Reach - Includes location hierarchies in establishing shots for sections on Reach.
(Unreleased) Halo: Shadows of Reach - Likely to include more info for Reach.
Old Waypoint background image - Contains currently seen Reach locations and previously unmentioned locations also likely on Reach.

Theorycrafting

Hypothetical location placements

Hypothetical locations of Farkas Lake and Asźod.

Farkas Lake - Upon superimposing the skybox texture from the mission Long Night of Solace over the map of Reach, it appears that Farkas Lake to a lake inlet area between Manassas, Visegrád and New Alexandria.

Long Night of Solace skybox texture.

Aszod - Based on the Halo: Reach radio conversations, Aszod appears to be near or in the direct flight path of the Highland Mountains. It is also arid and appears to be within a crater. As such, that narrows it down to one crater east of the mountain range containing CASTLE Base.

HR - Aszod Orbital View.jpeg

Orbital view of Aszod.

Other theorizing

In the Defiant to the End trailer, there is mentioning of a supercontinent. Based on the fact that Ütközet encompasses the continent Eposz, it is likely that Ütközet itself is the aforementioned supercontinent with Eposz being a subcontinent.
In the radio conversation for Overlook, the two speakers mention that the Army is moving in to Pálháza and suggests that it is directly connected to Visegrad. The further description of Visegrad's location further suggests that the two are located close together in northern Alfold.
In the final Data Drop, the Pillar of Autumn technician says they are holding position over Lábatlan but see activity over Eposz, suggesting that Lábatlan is not connected or a part of Eposz.
- In the same Data Drop, a different technician suggests that they contact Casimir Station while being over Lábatlan. This suggests two things. One that Casimir Station is in orbit of the city of Casimir and two that Casimir Station (and by proxy, Casimir itself) are part of Lábatlan or close by geographically.

Depolyment of forces based on available information

August 12th, 2552

Based on the satellite image provided at the beginning of Tip of the Spear, here are the known UNSC deployments that day. Note, this only includes ones whose rough locations in relation to established locations.

8th Armored Brigade — (APP-6A: AW 8 X)
- 38th Regiment — (APP-6A: AW 8 ||| 38) - Southeast of CASTLE Base
- 169th Company — (APP-6A: AW 8 | 169) - South/Southeast of New Alexandria
- 267th Company — (APP-6A: AW 8 | 267) - Northeast of New Alexandria
- 352nd Company — (APP-6A: AW 8 | 352) - North of Manassas
- 371st Company — (APP-6A: AW 8 | 371) - Southeast of Esztergom

34th Infantry Brigade — (APP-6A: INF 34 X)
- 581st Regiment — (APP-6A: INF 34 ||| 581) - Northwest of Esztergom

124th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) — (APP-6A: MCH 124 X
- 6th Regiment — (APP-6A: MCH 124 ||| 6) - Northeast of Visegrád

August 14th, 2552

Based on the hologram seen in on the Ardent Prayer in Long Night of Solace here are known Covenant deployments on this day.

SWORD Base
New Alexandria
An SDV-class heavy corvette outside of Sopron (this could be the Ardent Prayer's location over Reach as it has a giant red mark beside it)

In-game Location Camera Paths

Level/Source and Location	Image	Path
Winter Contingency/Visegrad Relay		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 MT-HDP/RM_OBS/VHC_ABN/FL RCH/VRY/UTKZT/EPSZ/VISGRD
ONI: Sword Base		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 AI-ARTC/DIRCT FEED/SAT/REG RCH/VRY/UTKZT/EPSZ/BD CTH/SL D1
Tip of the Spear/Szurdok Ridge		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 AI-ARTC/DIRCT FEED/SAT/REG RCH/VRY/UTKZT/SZURDK RDG
Tip of the Spear/Orbit over Szurdok Ridge		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 AI-ARTC/DIRCT FEED/SAT/REG RCH/ORBIT/VRY/UTKZT
Tip of the Spear/Orbit over Mohács		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 AI-ARTC/DIRCT FEED/SAT/REG RCH/VRY/UTKZT/BARS/MOHACS
Long Night of Solace		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 MT-ARTC/PLAYBACK/CV/SCTY RCH/VRY/UTKZT/EPSZ/FARKS LK
The Package/ONI: Sword Base (Tunnels)		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 MT-ARTC/PLAYBACK/CV/SCTY RCH/VRY/UTKZT/EPSZ/BD CTH/SWD
The Pillar of Autumn/Aszod Shipbreaking Yards		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 AI-ARTC/DIRCT FEED/SAT/REG REACH/ALFOLD/UNG/ASZOD
The Pillar of Autumn/Aszod Shipbreaking Yards		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP 3 MT-ARTC/PLAYBACK/CV/SCTY RCH/VRY/UTKZT/EPSZ/ASZD/A3CRC
Halo: Reach ViDoc: A Spartan Will Rise/ONI: Sword Base (Halsey's Lab)		HIGHCOM/SPECWAR/GROUP_3 AI-ARTC/DIRCT FEED/SAT/REG RCH/VRY/UTKZT/EPSZ/BD CTH/SWD/SL D2