Easy

"Your foes cower and fall before your unstoppable onslaught, yet final victory will leave you wanting more."

- Description from Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2.

"Laugh as helpless victims flee in terror from their inevitable slaughter. The game basically plays itself."

- Description from Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST.

"Laugh as helpless victims flee in terror from their inevitable slaughter. Achievements cannot be unlocked on this difficulty."

- Description from Halo: Reach.

Easy is the least challenging difficulty setting on Halo: Combat Evolved, 2, 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars and Halo: Reach. The enemies are few, target inaccurately, and are overall far weaker than on higher difficulty levels. Many players use it to learn the story. After they accomplish it on easy, they will often play again on harder difficulties.

Summary
The icon for the Easy difficulty setting is represented with a shield that has the Marathon logo encrusted into the center. This is for people just beginning to enter the Halo Universe and the first person shooter genre in general.

Notable differences on this difficulty include:
 * Increased shield and health strength
 * Reduced health and shield levels for enemies. Most enemies die from a single melee.
 * Elites or Brutes are less common, and there are very few Major Elites or Brute Captains; Minor Elites or Brute Minors are almost exclusively seen
 * Notable reduction in enemy intelligence. Enemies are far more reckless and easy to kill
 * Marines and other allies are tougher, more accurate, and do more damage
 * Meta-point score is reduced by 4 times

Trivia

 * In Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST and Halo: Reach, the game will keep track of whether you have finished the Campaign on Solo or Co-op.
 * Most of the achievements in the Halo series do not unlock when played on Easy, as most need to be on Normal or higher, although there are exceptions. In addition, no skulls will appear in Halo 3 when played on Easy difficulty except for the mythic skull for unknown reasons, however the achievement for finding it will not be earned even if collected.
 * Developers have referred to Easy in Halo: CE as "grandma mode", according to the official guidebook.
 * 343 Guilty Spark will suggest that the player switch to "Easy" if the player starts attacking allies in Halo 3 with the IWHBYD Skull activated.
 * In the beginning of each of the Halo games, there is a look inversion test on Easy and Normal to set your preferred view inversion setting, whilst on Heroic and Legendary, it will skipped based on the assumption that you will already be familiar with them.
 * Commendations and Challenges will not advance on the Easy difficulty.