Armor customization (Halo 2: Anniversary)

For other uses, see armor permutations. Armor permutations in Halo 2: Anniversary allow players to customize their Spartan and Elite player model. Every armor set is already unlocked in game. At the launch of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the armor was displayed as static images in the game's menu. Following in the footsteps of the launches of Halo: Reach and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary for PC, Halo 2: Anniversary had its menu elements updated to fully render Spartan and Elite customization options in 3D in Unreal Engine 4.

Overview
The armor of Halo 2: Anniversary is based upon the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor [GEN2] model, much like Halo 4 as well. To reiterate, armor in Anniversary is unlocked upon starting up the game, enabling the player to just swap between all available armor without any prerequisites required.

At launch of The Master Chief Collection in 2014, the armor customization of Halo 2: Anniversary regressed from that of customization featured in Halo 4 - only allowing for the swapping of entire armor sets over individual pieces of armor.

For the launch of Season 3: Recon, the system has been updated to allow players to swap individual helmets, shoulders, chests, wrists, and legs for Spartans, and helmets, arms, chests, and legs for Elite models.

Six armor sets are present, equally split between Spartans and Elites, with the latter species making a return to the multiplayer section of the game for the first time since Halo: Reach in 2010.

Mistakes

 * In reusing tooltips from Halo: Reach's appearance menu, the updated customization menu now erroneously states the choice between a Spartan and Elite player model is only applicable to appropriate, species-specific gametypes, despite the option being available regardless of gametype.
 * Additionally, at the time of the update for Halo 3's launch, the Spartan customization menu reused Reach tooltips, and stated the player can change the appearance of their Spartan by "adding or removing armor", despite the game only providing the option to switch armor sets at that time. The Elite menu properly stated the player can only select specific armor classes. This was updated at the time of Halo 3: ODST's launch later in 2020, opting to use more general terminology with the switch to more intensive customization.

Miscellaneous

 * As of the release of Halo 2: Anniversary on PC, the updated Elite armor sets reused descriptions from the Minor, Spec Ops, and Ranger Elite armor sets seen in Halo: Reach, as a result of reused menu text. With the release of Halo 3: ODST later in the year, these would change to the descriptions based on those seen in a 2015 Canon Fodder blog post.