Gameplay

Halo: Reach skulls

From Halopedia, the Halo wiki

Skulls are gameplay-modifying difficulty-multipliers in the appearance of human skulls in Halo: Reach. Most of the skulls featured in Halo 3 are included in Halo: Reach. Just like Halo 3: ODST, skulls are no longer easter eggs in-game, and can also be accessed in the campaign menu without claiming them in campaign levels. Skulls, including the newly-introduced customizable Firefight skulls, are also present in Firefight, randomly activated on every beginning of a set. A campaign game on Legendary with all skulls activated is named "Mythic".

Campaign scoring[edit]

Icon Skull Name Multiplier Short Description
HR Iron Skull.png
 Iron 1.2× In Solo play, dying reverts the player to the beginning of the level. In cooperate play, any player death reverts to the previous checkpoint.
HR Black Eye Skull.png
 Black Eye 1.1x No auto-shield regeneration. Only melee attacks cause shields to recharge.
HR Tough Luck Skull.png
 Tough Luck 1.1× Grenades, Needler fire, projectiles (i.e. Rocket Launcher, concussion rifle, and Fuel Rod Cannon) and vehicular charges are evaded more skillfully by the AI. Brutes go Berserk more often and Grunts will turn Kamikaze more often.
HR Catch Skull.png
 Catch 1.1× NPCs throw many more grenades at an alarming rate. NPCs always drop two grenades when dying.
HR Fog Skull.png
 Cloud 1.1× Motion Tracker is fully disabled.
HR Famine Skull.png
 Famine 1.2× Dropped weapons have much less ammunition/charge.
HR Thunderstorm Skull.png
 Thunderstorm 1.2× All enemies are promoted to higher ranks.
HR Tilt Skull.png
 Tilt 1.2× Enemy defensive resistances/weaknesses are amplified.
HR Mythic Skull.png
 Mythic 1.2× All NPC's health allocation is doubled.
HR Blind Skull.png
 Blind 1× Player HUD and weapon model are disabled.
HR Grunt Birthday Party Skull.png
 Grunt Birthday Party 1× Headshots on Grunts trigger a confetti effect and sounds of children cheering.
HR Cowbell Skull.png
 Cowbell 1× Increased acceleration from explosions.
HR IWHBYD Skull.png
 IWHBYD 1× Rare dialogue becomes more common.

Primary skulls[edit]

Iron[edit]

“ Co-op reverts to previous checkpoint on player death. 1P restarts mission. ”

The Iron skull causes the mission to restart if the player dies during the campaign for whatever reason. On campaign Cooperative Play, if even one player dies everyone is forced to revert back to the last reached checkpoint.[1] In Firefight, the skull disables respawning after the player died.

Black Eye[edit]

“ Shields don't recharge except from melee attacking enemies. ”

The Black Eye skull causes the automatic regeneration of the player's energy shields to be disabled. The only way to recharge the energy shields is to melee or perform assassination on an enemy.[1]

Tough Luck[edit]

“ Enemies always make every saving throw, always berserk, always dive, never flee... ”

Tough Luck skull causes enemies to evade vehicles, dodge grenades and heavy weapon projectiles. Unggoy would be less likely to flee and could easily turn suicidal.[1] Banshees are more likely to perform evasive maneuver when locked on by heavy weapons.

Catch[edit]

“ Enemies are grenade happy - 2× as often and 2× as fast. ”

The Catch skull causes the frequency in which AI-controlled characters throw grenades to be doubled, while also always dropping two grenades upon death.[1]

Cloud[edit]

“ Motion sensor disabled with this setting. ”

The Cloud skull is a new skull featured in Halo: Reach, replacing the Fog skull in Halo 3. Just like the Fog skull, the Cloud skull causes the player's motion tracker to be disabled.

Famine[edit]

“ Weapons drop 50% less ammo. ”

The Famine skull causes all dropped weapons' ammunition or charge to be reduced by 50%. Weapons stored in crates and Spartan Lasers are unaffected.[1]