Halo 2 skulls
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
Skulls are gameplay modifiers included in the Halo 2 campaign to modify gameplay experience or difficulty. Bungie first introduced skulls to the Halo series in Halo 2, and they have been included in every game since.
Skulls are collected by picking them up, as the player would a weapon, though there is no information text to wield a skull. Skulls' effects are only found in the game's campaign.
In the original Xbox game, once a skull is collected it is immediately activated (with the exception of IWHBYD); this activation is denoted by a white flash and a loud "whoosh" sound. The skull's effects then last until the console is restarted. The same is true of Halo 2 for Windows Vista, though the effects last until the game is restarted. In order to reactivate the skull, the player must find and collect the skull again.
In Halo: The Master Chief Collection the skulls are present, however they are not activated when they are collected (though the flash and "whoosh" are still present). Instead, skulls must be selected from the pre-game menu before beginning the level. The skulls are unlocked by default (along with a number of new skulls) and do not need to be found before they can be used, however each skull unlocks an achievement when collected, providing players motivation to seek them out.
Background[edit]
Every skull except for Blind and Assassins can only be found on Legendary difficulty (though on other difficulties the Assassins skull will have no effect). The Blind skull may be a very handy tool when recording video on the original Xbox, and, fortunately, is very easy to activate.
The skulls are mostly used by players to customize their gaming experience by manipulating the game-play engines with the various skull combinations. Each skull has various effects: Mythic increases enemy armor and shield strength greatly (Ultra Elites even require two overcharged Plasma Pistol bursts to compromise their shields); Thunderstorm changes all enemies to their highest rank; Envy allows the Master Chief to use Active Camouflage technology at the expense of his flashlight; and IWHBYD unlocks hidden dialog and causes the AI to interact verbally more often.
Campaign order[edit]
- The Heretic: N/A
- The Armory: That's Just... Wrong
- Cairo Station: Thunderstorm
- Outskirts: Blind & I Would Have Been Your Daddy
- Metropolis: Catch
- The Arbiter: Grunt Birthday Party
- The Oracle: Famine
- Delta Halo: Envy
- Regret: Assassins
- Sacred Icon: Mythic
- Quarantine Zone: Sputnik
- Gravemind: Anger
- Uprising: Ghost
- High Charity: Iron
- The Great Journey: Black Eye
List of known skulls[edit]
Anger[edit]
Level: Gravemind
Difficulty: Legendary
Effects: Enemies and allies fire their weapons faster and more frequently.
Directions:
- After saving both groups of Marines, the player reaches the first outdoor area with dirt and vegetation.
- Take a right as entering the area and run up to the wall past the Gravity lift that leads up to the Covenant watchtower.
- Get on top of the wall by going up the dirt mound on your left.
- Follow the wall and an invisible Unggoy Heavy will spawn wielding a Pez'tk-pattern fuel rod gun. Kill him and reach the floating skull called "Anger".
Trivia: The skull floats above a Gravity Lift ring. This skull is treated as a "third" weapon rather than a pickup weapon. You can throw grenades (though there is no animation) and switch to primary and secondary weapons (though there is no side symbol, but a put-away animation).
Assassins[edit]
Level: Regret
Difficulty: Legendary
Effect: All enemies in game are permanently cloaked. Allies can sometimes see them but mostly they can't, so they can't help much.
Directions:
- Immediately after the first gondola ride (following the battle with the Mgalekgolo), you will arrive at a building with two turrets on it.
- Enter the building and turn to your right.
- Jump on the cube structure, then jump to the adjacent light fixture, then to the ledge. The ledge leads to the balcony with the two turrets.
- Once there, use Grenade Jump to get onto the roof area. Then, using Crouch Jumps and/or Grenade Jumps, follow the right side perimeter of the building.
- Once you have gone as far as you can go you will find a small grassy area with two Stealth Elites holding Energy Swords (one can be assassinated, the other cannot) in their "angry stance" and the Assassins skull between them.
Note: This skull also appears on any difficulty, and even on co-op play, but no Elites will be standing there, the flash and name will not appear, and the effect will not take place. If you betray two Marines in a row, they will turn against you and become cloaked.
Black Eye[edit]
Level: The Great Journey
Difficulty: Legendary
Effect: Your shield does not charge normally. To charge your shields you must kill something (enemy, ally, or turret) with a melee attack (anything but the Energy Sword). You can charge your shields into the Overshield range by doing this (one kill will charge 100% of your normal shields). Also activates subtitles during cut scenes. Additionally, this skull causes the falling snow in the multiplayer level Lockout to disappear.
Directions:
- Progress through the level until you need to escort Sergeant Johnson's Scarab, to Installation 05's Control room.
- Directly above the door that Johnson blows open with the Scarab is an angled beam. Land your Banshee on this beam and walk to the top of the beam.
- Look down and to your left and you will see a circular angled wall. Jump onto this wall and walk to the top.
- Walk straight along the right-hand side of this area.
- You will have to jump over a small beam in front of you.
- Continue walking straight until you come to a grassy area.
- Keep walking up the grassy hill and go until you come to the point where can jump onto the angled support for the tower meets the grass.
- Jump onto the support and walk up the support. It's a very steep climb, so jumping while you're going up the support speeds up the walk some.
- At the first landing you will see the Black Eye skull sitting on a glowing white panel on the floor.
Blind[edit]
Level: Outskirts
Difficulty: Any
Effect: Your heads-up display becomes invisible. In other words, you cannot see your weapon (unless it's the Energy Sword, which has a glitched appearance with this skull), body, shields, ammunition, motion tracker, or use your flashlight. Muzzle flare from weapons though, are still visible.
Directions:
- Immediately at the beginning of the level, go through the door and kill the Unggoy there.
- Backtrack and right above the first door you came through there is a light.
- Crouch Jump onto that and either Crouch Jump or Grenade Jump again (Crouch jumping is easier), and you should be on the roof (or you can get the Sputnik skull and only use one grenade).
- Look for a space between the two buildings, and go into it, at the end there should be four M9 fragmentation grenades, a spotting scope, and the skull in front of them.
Note: An interesting possible message left by Bungie is seen in the form of the frags and scope. Since the Blind skull is available on all difficulties, it is a sort of "trick skull", to trick players into thinking they have obtained the skull of the level, since a skull is obtainable in every other level (excluding The Heretic, which is an opening cut-scene). So, it could be here to divert players from finding the IWHBYD skull. Alternatively, the scope is meant to stand for the word "Look" and the four grenades stand for the word "For" which could make the message "Look for Skulls" ("Skull" is in reference to the Blind skull).
Catch[edit]
Level: Metropolis
Difficulty: Legendary
Effect: A.I. will throw more grenades. Also, everybody (allies and enemies) will drop two grenades of their kind (humans drop frag grenades and aliens drop plasma grenades) Flood will drop grenades depending on whether they're human or Covenant.
Directions:
- Right after exiting from the underground highway, you'll come to a large open-air circular area with a handful of Jackal Snipers and some Elites. The quickest way to get safely to the skull is to get the next checkpoint by jumping into the Warthog and drive to the next area.
- Backtrack to the large area, and clear the enemies. Alternatively, you can skip through the area until you reach where you find the Wraiths attacking the building where the Marines are (but you don't have to fight them) and then go back and the enemies will be gone when you go back.
- There is a large semi-circular beam going from one of the main platforms that goes from the ground up to the top of the two towers. Do a Grenade Jump at the bottom of this beam and walk all the way to the top. Jump over to the ledge of the left tower. Walk to the end of the ledge and you will find the Catch skull. The Sputnik skull may be helpful if you have trouble Grenade Jumping.
Note: This skull is slightly tinged orange whereas the other skulls are not. Since Flood combat forms do not throw grenades but do drop grenades upon death, this skull is particularly useful in levels featuring Flood as the player would have a constant supply of grenades.
Envy[edit]
Level: Delta Halo
Difficulty: Legendary
Effect: The Master Chief now has an Active camouflage just like the Arbiter's. However, there is no visible timer, so remember: five second cloak with ten second recharge on Legendary (the cloak and recharge times are longer and shorter, respectively, on easier difficulties). To fully exploit the effects of this skull, execute the permanent invisibility glitch.
Directions:
Method 1
- Progress through Delta Halo until you come to an area with a large central structure that has a multitude of columns (the place with the many stationary shield generators). This is the area where Cortana tells you that they are all pouring out of the middle.
- When you first get into this area, you have to go left, and there is a ramp on the left that goes up and then back down. Get on this ramp and continue up the wall until you are on the landing where there will be (or used to be) some Plasma Turrets.
- Follow this landing all the way to its end, and you'll see a door that is blocked off by a large stone.
- Jump on top of the stone, and jump again to get on a thin ledge. Make sure you're up against the left wall, and Grenade Jump up to the top of the wall to your left.
- Once you're on this wall, you'll see that the right wall ends and there is some earth behind it.
- Jump onto the dirt, and follow the stone wall all the way to the top.
- When you're on the top of this wall, you can look down towards the center and you should see two Stealth Elites repeating their "angry stance" towards each other with the Envy skull between them. (Note: They will not attack you, even if you shoot at them. But if they are killed they will fire their weapons randomly before they hit the ground, which can hurt you).
Method 2
Use grenades to blast the stone away from the door. For that, you'll need all the Fragmentation and Plasma Grenades you can carry, sometimes even more (using rocket launcher and having the Sputnik skull would be helpful). Throw each of them into the corner behind the stone. Every time a grenade explodes, the stone will move a little. You'll never get it fully out of the way, but after about eight or nine grenades, there will be enough space to go through the door. Alternatively jump on the rock and throw one Plasma Grenade in the corner behind the rock. This should move it enough so that you can drop into the crack and melee the rock until the doorway is clear. If not, throw a couple more grenades. If you do not have any grenades or rocket launcher ammo, use a Scorpion or Wraith to blast the stone away. This method leads you up a ramp and into a room open to one side where you'll find two dead Grunts along with two Energy Swords (an Easter egg which implies that these two Grunts accidentally killed themselves with the Swords). Exit the room and you'll be on a platform above the normal area. Grenade jump towards the room you just exited, and you'll be with the Stealth Elites and the Envy skull.
Famine[edit]
Level: The Oracle
Difficulty: Legendary
Effect: All dropped weapons have half ammo. Weapons that spawned on the floor or spawned with are unaffected.
Directions:
- After you get off of the slowly descending elevator, you will come to a hallway where you see a handful of dead bodies.
- Continue into the next room, and you will be on the second floor of a room that has a lot of glass windows. When you enter this room, look to the right, and find the third pane of glass. It should be to the right of a wall that has some Flood guts splattered on it.
- Shoot out this window, and the windows directly across the room.
- If you look below you, you will see a platform that has four tall posts. On the far side of the room there is a column that is right in between the two windows on the far side of the room.
- Turn on your Active Camouflage, and jump to the center platform.
- Jump on either of the posts on the far side of the platform and jump to the column between the windows.
- Make another jump through the window you shot out, and make a left.
- Walk all the way to the end and you'll find four Elite Combat Forms convulsing on the floor, with the Famine skull in the middle of them. Sometimes, the Combat Form nearest to the battlefield stands up, but it does not attack.
Ghost[edit]
Level: Uprising
Difficulty: Legendary
Effect: A.I. characters will not flinch from attacks, melee or otherwise.
Directions: Immediately after the armory room that is full of Covenant and human weapons, there is an L shaped hallway. Grenade Jump, using a Ghost, up to the rafters of this room, and you will find the skull over a doorway. Or, if you are playing co-op, get a box from the weapon room, and have one player stand on the box, then have the other player stand on the first player's head, have player two Crouch Jump on to the ledge and grab the skull.
