Cut Halo: Reach armor
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| This page discusses elements of deleted material and cut content. Some information on the page is sourced from game files and may not be verifiable through external sources. Where possible, such information should be clearly-marked and replaced with a proper external source as soon as one is available. |
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Halo: Reach cut content
- Cut content
- Development
To check out cut content for other Halo games, see here!
During the production of the downloadable content for Halo: Reach, a number of armor permutations were developed but ultimately cut. The sets were originally teased in a trailer for the game's Defiant Map Pack, and intended to be included in the Anniversary Map Pack - though were ultimately scrapped.
Base game[edit]
Alternate Elite Minor[edit]
An alternate design for the Elite Minor armour can be seen in the UI icons for early builds of Halo: Reach. This armour design is mostly the same as the final game, with one major exception - the shoulders of the early variant are significantly more pronounced than in final. This model was used as the basis for the Minor Elites in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary the year following Reach's release.
The Elite UI icon.
The Elite Minor in the final game, for comparison.
The cut Reach Minor armour in the Library of Combat Evolved Anniversary.
A rear view of the cut Minor variant, seen in a concept paintover for the Covenant thruster pack.
A rear view of the cut Minor variant, seen in a concept paintover for the Covenant thruster pack.
Hardened External Sensor Array - External[edit]
- "Hardened external sensor array - external; standard issue for Outer Colony Beta-5 security units."
The Hardened External Sensor Array - External (HESA-E) was a helmet attachment available in the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta. The attachment is useable on the Military Police helmet, and costs 20,000 cR to buy. In the final game, this attachment is still available though under the name of the HU/RS attachment.
The HESA-E attachment in the Beta.
DLC armor[edit]
Background[edit]
These cut armour sets first appeared in promotional material for Halo: Reach's Defiant Map Pack in 2011, where some of them were worn by a player in three screenshots of the map Condemned. The player wore the AKIS helmet, with the CBRN and GRD attachments, in combination with the EXO/TSCS chest piece.[1][2] In the absence of an official name, the Halo community took to calling the then-unknown helmet "GRD",[3] a nickname that stuck and eventually became the official name for one of the helmet's attachments.[4]
A lack of official communication about or acknowledgement of the mystery helmet from Bungie or 343 Industries led to a great deal of speculation about how it might be released, with some even suggesting that it could already be unlocked through some esoteric method.[3] Eventually, these rumours were proven false when, on February 11th, 2012, 343 Industries employee David Ellis confirmed that 343 had intended to release it alongside the Anniversary Map Pack, but that it had been cut due to time and resource constraints.[5] Ultimately, neither the AKIS helmet nor the EXO/TSCS chest piece were ever released for Reach on the Xbox 360.
The Spartan dolls Easter egg in the Anniversary Map Pack features dolls of Spartans wearing the same armor configuration as the player in the Defiant Map Pack screenshots, including the AKIS helmet. This was a deliberate acknowledgment of the armor on 343 Industries' part.[5] This doll object was later made available as a placeable object in Halo 5: Guardians' Forge mode, in which it is known as the "5th Spartan" doll.[6]
In 2019, it was announced that Halo: Reach would be added to Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and that The Master Chief Collection would be ported to PC, with Reach being the first of the games in the collection to release on the platform.[7] This brought with it renewed interest in the unreleased armour, with many requesting that it be included in the game's re-release.[8][9][10] 343 Industries would officially address these requests in a development update in July of that year, saying that they "[were] currently investigating it but [could not] commit to it being in the game at [that] time" and also noting that they were interested in expanding the pool of customization items in each game, potentially even including new armors.[11]
Later the same year, a modder by the name of Gamecheat13 discovered customisation renders for two cut ar