Armor customization (Halo 5: Guardians)

This article is about the armor customization in Halo 5: Guardians. For other games, see armor customizations.

Some of the armor variants in Halo 5: Guardians.

Armor customization in Halo 5: Guardians allows players to customize their Spartan player model. Unlike earlier titles, Halo 5 featured a revised and scaled back player customization suite. Expanding on Halo 4's Champions Bundle armor, new armor permutations were released post-launch via REQ content updates, as was the case for Mark IV and Mark V, and likewise, certain armor could be unlocked through achievements and Commendations. Most armor within Halo 5 is unlocked through the Requisition system.

Overview

Halo 5: Guardians features more customization slots than launch Halo 2: Anniversary, yet, features much less than Halo 4. The three slots available for armor customization include the Helmet, the Armor, and the Visor with previously player-decided armor pieces such as the legs, wrists, and shoulders being determined by the base armor the player chooses. Aesthetically, the armor of Halo 5: Guardians is based upon the [GEN2] model, much like Halo 4, and also allows for armor skins, enabling further unique customization options. Halo 5 doesn't allow the player to switch to an Elite, be it for multiplayer, Forge, or custom games.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo Channel

Halo: The Master Chief Collection allowed players to unlock achievements, which would subsequently unlock armor that would carry over to both the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta and the final title. For example, unlocking "Legend", grants the player Helioskrill armor, while unlocking the "Your Journey Begins" and "Cairo Station" would unlock the [GEN1] Mark VI armor and its "Scarred" variant.

The Halo Channel app on the Xbox One platform also allowed players to unlock Nightfall armor by watching Halo: Nightfall's five episodes and certain special features within it. This could be done as early as November 11, 2014, which allowed for the armor's use in the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta, alongside the three other achievement-based armor sets.

All armor unlocked through these methods would be released through Halo 5: Guardians' general REQ pool on launch, although they could still be unlocked through these methods following launch.

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  Helioskrill.
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  GEN1 Mark VI.
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  GEN1 Mark VI [Scarred].
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  Nightfall.

Halo 5: Guardians

The general method of unlocking permutations upon Halo 5's launch involves the use of REQ packs, which provide pseudo-randomized armor and visor unlocks to the player, among other items such as emblems. Certain REQ packs also exist that can grant truly exclusive armor to the player. These include the Halo Championship Series (HCS) pack, which contains a specific variant of Athlon armor known as "Champion", and the Halo World Championship 2016 pack, which was only available if the player watched the event on a stream with their Xbox LIVE account linked to social media during a certain time frame. This pack gave out the Challenger armor. Both the Champion variant and Challenger armor are exclusive to their specific REQ packs and aren't in the general pool.

The Monitor's Bounty update released in February 2017 included a special REQ pack known as the "Classic Helmet REQ pack" was released as a standalone purchasable item containing nine helmets: CQB, EOD, EVA GEN1, Mark V Delta, Military Police, Operator GEN1, Pilot, Recon GEN1 and Security GEN1. These nine helmets are not a part of the general REQ pool, much like HCS-branded items, although it could be purchased for 150,000.

The Achilles armor follows a unique unlock trend, as it requires the completion of the 31 "Kill" commendations that are available to Spartan Companies. Upon the completion of level 3 for all "Kill" commendations, the body armor for Achilles was granted to the player, and upon the completion of level 5 for all, the helmet was granted. With the release of Halo 5's "evergreen" season, and the cessation of support for older elements of Halo Waypoint, Achilles armor was made generally inaccessible at the end of 2021; Companies could no longer be joined, and tracking commendation progress was made impossible, although earning the armor should commendation milestones happen to be met is still possible, and grants the reward REQ packs.

Two helmets, Timmy and Olive, also feature unique unlock prerequisites, with the former unlocked through playtime in custom games and the latter awarded to players who had their Forge maps featured in Halo 5: Guardians' matchmaking following the Monitor's Bounty update. Neither were unlockable through the REQ system. Of note, unlike Halo 3's Bungie armor, and Reach's Eternal armor effect, Halo 5: Guardians featured no exclusive armor cosmetics for 343 Industries employees.

List of permutations

Helmets

Helmets v • d • e
Helmet	Lore	Rarity	Introduced In	Variants	Unlock Requirements
AIR ASSAULT	The AIR ASSAULT helmet's long-range comm system makes it popular with Spartan fireteam leaders, but Naphtali also markets this helmet to Army special forces.	Common (Air Assault) Uncommon (Disrupt) Rare (Impact) Ultra Rare (Specialist)	Introduced on launch.