Main menu

The main menu is a series of menus and lobbies that players interact with in all Halo games.

The main menu is reached after a series of logos for the companies that produced the game and a splash screen. Sometimes the music of this sequence leads into the music of main menu itself. Examples of this are in Halo 2 and Halo Wars 2.

Upon reaching the menus and lobbies, one can access a number of gamemodes, settings and options, and view the Message of the Day (MotD). The Season is also often shown in the menu too. In the options section, one can change their control schemes.

The gamemodes that can be accessed through the menu include campaign, multiplayer, firefight, Spartan Ops, Warzone, Big Team Battle, Custom games, Theater, Forge, and File Share. Downloadable content such as new campaigns, Battle Passes, the Store, and The Exchange are often directly accessed through their respective lobbies or areas of the menu.

A player's service record, which includes Commendations and Achievements, is usually also seen somewhere in the main menu.

Customization
In most games, the ability to change one's Armor permutations and armor effects is accessed through the main menu in some form. So to for Skins for weapons and vehicles as well. In Halo: The Master Chief Collection, The Exchange is only accessed through the main menu.

One's Loadout, Avatars, Stance, multiplayer emblem, service tag, and nameplate are also all changed through the main menu.

Seeing one's unlocked REQs or unlocked Blitz cards can be found here too; on top of purchasing the related packs.

Halo: Combat Evolved
The Halo: Combat Evolved menu is set in orbit of Installation 04, with the camera rotating and moving about it showing its interior, the exterior shell, and Threshold. The music heard is Halo Theme and the final part of Brothers in Arms.

Release
The menu of Halo 2 features a background of the Solemn Penance, next to the Mombasa Tether in Mombasa, East African Protectorate. The music heard is the Gregorian chant in Prologue, Ghosts of Reach, Heavy Price Paid, the last minute of The Last Spartan, and Unforgotten.

Halo 3
The main menu of Halo 3 features an animated view of a cliff at the edge of the Portal at Voi with several Covenant starships circling it, and Banshees patrolling over it. Movement, Never Forget, Choose Wisely, the beginning of Honorable Intentions and an unidentified choir track will rotate as the backing music.

Halo 3: ODST
Halo 3: ODST's main menu is set in the, with Jonathan Doherty sleeping in his pod. Overture accompanies it.

Halo Wars
In the background, scenes from the Halo Wars announcement trailer as well as cutscenes from the campaign will play. Spirit of Fire is the music that accompanies it.

Release
Halo: Reach has a variety of lobbies all using their own artwork(s). The music used in the lobbies is Overture, though sometimes no music at all will play and instead, the sounds of distant gunfire and other fighting will play.

Illustrations
Most of the artwork used in the various menus and lobbies of Reach were actually pieces of concept art created by Isaac Hannaford. Depending on the lobby, the artwork would be different. As well, the artwork on the main menu would be different depending on which campaign level(s) were last played.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
The main menu for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was designed very similarly to the original Halo: Combat Evolved menu. When selecting multiplayer however, the menu was change to one more designed like and using from Halo: Reach.

Pre-release
In an alpha menu, the background was to be the broken planet around Installation 03. Two versions of To Galaxy were to play; one of just the strings used in the song and the other of the background electronic "drums" as well as an unknown track that was later used in the Halo 4 epilogue, Halo 4 lobbies in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and at the beginning of the track Blue Team in Halo 5: Guardians.

Release
The released main menu is of a debris field around Requiem. When reaching the title screen and for a time in the main menu, Atonement will play. It will change to Wreckage then the first minute or so of Green and Blue and rotate through all three while on the menu. When Infinity multiplayer lobby is selected, the image will move into the bridge of the where the first minute of To Galaxy will play on repeat.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Uniquely, depending on the lobby for which game that will be played, the menu music for that game will be played. Uniquely, for Halo 4 lobbies a new track was added. This being the unnamed Epilogue track (used in the early Halo 4 menu and the opening for Blue Team).

Illustrations
Prior to the August 2022 Update, the Season and certain lobbies used to determine menu backgrounds. Following the update, players were allowed to directly customize the art themselves.

Pre-release
In the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta, the menu was set in an orbital facility of some kind (the skybox of which is used on Breakout Arena) with SPARTAN-IVs, Naval personnel, and scientists at various computer and hologram stations.

Musically, the menu opens with parts of Osiris Suite, Act 1, then moves into On Deck, before finally playing parts of Osiris Suite, Act 4. The music will repeat in that order.

Release
The menu consists of a profile shot of the in orbit of an unknown planet. Various UNSC starships and dropships will fly by, dock or move about the Infinity. These include s, s and D79-TC Pelicans.

When getting to the start screen and for a time afterward, Halo Canticles will play. The music will then rotate through Rock and Ice, about a minute of Blue Team, Dominion, the first minute of Jameson Locke, about a minute of Osiris Suite, Act 3, and two minutes of Osiris Suite, Act 4. After returning to the menu from playing a multiplayer match, On Deck will play.

If sat on the main menu for long enough, the Floating Grunt Easter egg will play out.

Release
The menu is composed of a tableau scene of several units from either the Banished or UNSC. The menu background is chosen at random upon the game's launch. The music heard in the background is Cratered. After purchasing Awakening the Nightmare, the menu can also be Voridus or Pavium themed.

Pre-release
During the Halo Infinite gameplay demo, the menu was set in grasslands on Installation 07 with the title placed in the middle of a ring-like Forerunner machine. The accompanying music is Reverie.