H3:Assault Rifle
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
| Assault Rifle | |
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| Gameplay role | |
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Faction: |
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Firing mode: |
Automatic |
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Effective range: |
Close to medium |
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Counterparts: |
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| Gameplay stats | |
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Damage: |
7.5 |
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Projectile speed: |
80 wu/s |
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~2.67 wu | |
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40 wu | |
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Rate of fire: |
10 rounds per second |
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0.1 to 3 degrees | |
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Magazine size: |
32 |
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Reserve ammo capacity: |
352 rounds (11 magazines) |
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5 degrees out to 15 wu | |
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10 degrees out to 20 wu | |
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This article is part of a series on Assault Rifles
For more gameplay weapon articles, see here!
The Assault Rifle is a weapon featured in Halo 3.
Universe and lore[edit]
- Main article: MA5C assault rifle
The Assault Rifle featured is the MA5C assault rifle; a 7.62x51mm rifle in the MA5 series utilised by the UNSC Marine Corps and UNSC Navy.[2] It is the successor to the MA5B model that was first featured in Halo: Combat Evolved.[3]
Gameplay[edit]
Counterparts[edit]
Silenced SMG
(Halo: The Master Chief Collection-only)
Brute Plasma Rifle
(Halo: The Master Chief Collection-only)
Campaign[edit]
This section is a stub. You can help Halopedia by expanding it.
The assault rifle is one of the most common weapons found throughout Halo 3. It is the first weapon used by the player in the first level of Halo 3 and it is available in all subsequent levels as either a loadout weapon, one found on the map, or in the hands of an NPC - be it Marines or Infected Marines. The Assault Rifle is a default starting weapon on Sierra 117, Tsavo Highway, The Storm, Cortana, alongside the Rally Point mid-mission starts for the levels not listed.
Multiplayer[edit]
- This section is a stub. You can help Halopedia by expanding it.
Changes from Halo: Combat Evolved to Halo 3[edit]
- Different firing sound.
- Increased maximum magazines.
- Decreased magazine capacity down from 60 rounds to 32.
- Increased range and decreased damage per round (7.5).
- Decreased rate of fire and a faster reload time.
- Decreased projectile speed.
Changes from prerelease Halo 3 to launch[edit]
- In the "Pimps At Sea" build, the Assault Rifle in first-person used the Battle Rifle's animations and reload sounds as placeholders before the final animations were in place in the final game.[4]
- In the Halo 3 Beta, the charging handle of the weapon reciprocated as you fired the weapon. However, this is not present in the final build.
Skins[edit]
In the Halo 3 component of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, there are a number of weapon skins for the Assault Rifle.
| Assault Rifle | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon | Name | Description | Unlock requirements | |||
| Default | Default skin. | Unlocked by default | ||||
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Woodland | Camping is a legitimate strategy. | Series 3, Tier 8 ( 1)
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Squirt | It's good under pressure. | Series 3, Tier 24 ( 1)
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Corrosion | The Oxidation Sensation. | Series 3, Tier 33 ( 1)
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Golden | Bling on the ring. | Series 3, Tier 37 ( 1)
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Hazard Pay | Safety first! | Series 5, Tier 43 ( 1)
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Desert | Looks very stylish with a poncho. | Series 5, Tier 86 ( 1)
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Sapphire Raven | On land and stormy seas. | Series 6, Tier 91 ( 1)
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Vexing Tomorrow | Grim beauty. | Series 8, Tier 8 ( 1)
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Black Rhine | The king of the battlefield. | The Exchange ( 3)
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OGX | If it looked any more real, it would be real. | The Exchange ( 3)
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Scorned Fate | Neither tide nor time shifts before a conquering hero. | The Exchange ( 4)
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Production notes[edit]
- Tom Doyle: "The Assault Rifle's design language really works well with the Master Chief. It has such a unique silhouette and look to it that we really didn't want to change what weapon was already Halo canon. But in terms of design and gameplay, it's been adjusted pretty considerably."
- Tyson Green: "The weapon has kind of a shallow clip, so it came down to 'How best do I use my melee attack' or 'How best do I use my grenades in order to tip that fight a little bit over in my favor'."
- Lars Bakken: "The Assault Rifle works really well with the Golden Three things of Halo, which are weapons, grenades and melee."
- — Insight from Bungie staff on the design of the Assault Rifle for Halo 3.[5]
The Assault Rifle featured in Halo 3 differs significantly from the previous iteration first featured in Halo: Combat Evolved. In Combat Evolved the Assault Rifle was considered by developers at Bungie to perform more akin to a submachine gun with its short range, high rate-of-fire, and wide spread.[6] For Halo 2 the Assault Rifle was thus replaced with the aptly-named SMG, and was totally absent from that game. In Halo 3 the weapon was brought back alongside the SMG, this time as something referred to by Jaime Griesemer as the "Ultimate Spawning Weapon"; a weapon that the player spawns with that is adept at most ranges and situations, but did not excel at anything—pushing the player to replace it with a better one.[7][8]
The weapon was featured in the Halo 3 announcement trailer debuted at E3 2006, and was from then-on featured heavily in the game's marketing. The model and tag were reused in Halo 3: ODST, which was built upon Halo 3, and the model was later reused again in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary to represent a more graphically-updated Assault Rifle in that game (though in-game texts still refer to the weapon as the original MA5B).
Gallery[edit]
John-117 looking at his Assault Rifle in Starry Night.
Marines using Assault Rifles in Believe.
Right-side view of the Assault Rifle in Halo 3.
A top-down view of the Assault Rifle .
Master Chief wielding an Assault Rifle while walking.
Master Chief wielding an Assault Rifle while crouching.
The Master Chief firing an Assault Rifle in-game on the level Halo, on Installation 08.
The Assault Rifle reticule and ammo counter as seen on the heads up display.
Marines on Tsavo Highway using the MA5C rifle.
A rack of MA5Cs in the Finish The Fight trailer.
A closeup view of an MA5C.
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Sources[edit]
- ^ Halo 3 Editing Kit, game file
tags\objects\weapons\rifle\assault_rifle\assault_rifle.weapon - ^ Halo 3 manual, page 13
- ^ Bungie.net, MA5C Assault Rifle (Retrieved on Dec 16, 2007) [local archive] [external archive]
- ^ YouTube - The Vengeful 'Vadam, Full Analysis of the Halo 3 "Pimps At Sea" Alpha
- ^ Halo 3 marketing, ViDoc: Is Quisnam Protero Damno!
- ^ The Art of Halo, page 102-103
- ^ Twitter, Jaime Griesemer (@32nds): "If I remember correctly, I saved the H1 AR as an SMG and then saved the model off as the USW. So I guess they coexisted but only in pieces." (Retrieved on Sep 13, 2022) [archive]
- ^ X.com, Jaime Griesemer (@32nds): "The USW (Ultimate Spawning Weapon) was intended to be good at most ranges and situations, but never dominant. So you could use it, but were usually looking to replace it. That's what the AR became." (Retrieved on Aug 18, 2026) [archive]
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