Halo Elites Art Style Analysis - Part 1

The Depiction of the Elites in the Halo series

1999 to 2007 (The Original Trilogy)

Posted April 2023

Introduction

The Halo series has a fantastic array of alien species, flora and fauna. At the time of writing, the series is over 20 years old with over 12 games released (if you count the mobile titles). Naturally, this has generated a number of depictions for each of the games recurring characters, most notably, the ‘Elites’. This series of articles will explore ‘all’ of the elites throughout the games and other media. I hope you enjoy!

1999 - The First Look

Live Halo gameplay was first shown to the world at the 1999 MacWorld conference. Bungie were welcomed onto the stage by Steve Jobs himself. You can watch the reveal here: Halo Reveal Trailer - MacWorld 1999

Here we saw our first glimpse of what would become my favourite enemy from the FPS Halo titles. By comparing screenshots from the demo to the concept art below, we can see how this design was iterated upon to get to the version seen in the demo.

It also happens that this design is now considered canon, as shown in Issue 122 of Canon Fodder on Halo Waypoint. You can see how far the design has come since the look was first established in concept art shown below.

2000 - Ladies love armour plating

Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in the year 2000, and by E3 that year the elites had seen a major overhaul. This is the design that would be iterated upon in the years to come as Halo established itself as the Xbox’s killer app. On that note, it’s worth pointing out that at this point the game was planned for the personal computer, rather than console.

These drawings from ‘The Art of Halo – Creating a Virtual World’, bridge the gap between the 1999 and 2000 gameplay demos. You can see the 3 toed design reminiscent of the 1999 elites, but with new armour that evokes marine wildlife such as sharks and rays. The fella on the right is using a 3-pointed shield, which actually featured in the E3 2000 demo.

Here we see that same shield design in game, along with an elite holding what is confirmed to be a Covenant sniper rifle. Ultimately, these ideas would be realised with the Jackal soldiers and snipers, rather than the elites.

2001 - Combat Evolved

Here we have it, the final design (seen both in game and as a render). The rendered version is from Bungie.net, and does not have the final colouration. However, I wanted to include it as it clearly showcases that Halo CE has 2 different armour designs for low-ranking elites. There is a sloped shoulder variant, along with a plated shoulder variant. A manta ray like helmet and a shark like pointed helmet. These armour permutations are mixed and matched throughout the first game (there is also a variant which seems to have less leg armour, but I suspect this may be an error). Finally, there is an interesting detail where the elite’s eyes actually glow the same colour as their armour.

The third armour design in Halo CE is given to all high-ranking elites. The armour has elongated points, layered plating on both wrists, a forerunner glyph behind the neck, and blue glowing lights. This design was actually used for the elite leader in the E3 2000 demo. It is one of my favourite designs in the series.

Below you can see the transition from early sketches, to fully coloured concepts, to the final render. The design established here would form the basis of all elite designs for the next 10 years.

Finally, the far left concept below shows what might have evolved into the CE elite's 'manta ray' helmet, alongside some unused helmet designs on the far right.

Extras - part 1

Ok, so here’s where things get a bit weird. The following images shows a promotional cover of the July 2002 edition of the Official UK Xbox Magazine. The origin of this design is probably lost in the depths of the internet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate.

The first solution is that someone outside of Bungie was tasked with creating a high-fidelity image of an elite to use on Halo promotional material. This could co-inside with the magazine having direct ties to Microsoft. The designer of this image likely would have had to take some artistic liberties due to the low quality of the in-game models (relative to today’s standards).

Alternatively, there is the possibility that this is actually an early design for the elites. In this pre-release interview it is brought to our attention that elites are animated to be ‘cat like’, as explained by Steve Abeyta (former Cinematic Artist at Bungie) at roughly 4:05 minutes:

Halo Combat Evolved - Developer Interview

Shiek Wang (currently Art Director at Bungie) even stated that Halo's project lead Jason Jones, had at one point, been insistent on giving the elites a tail. This was changed before release, and not without good reason. When discussing how Elites would use vehicles in the game, Wang noted: "At one point, we considered just having the Elites tuck their tails forward, between their legs, but [we] abandoned that, for obvious reasons".

In addition, Paul Russel (former Environment Artist at Bungie) once stated that when Halo became an Xbox title, Microsoft took issue with the design of the elites, feeling that their resemblance to cats might alienate Japanese consumers. Note that this is taken from the Halo wiki, and I could not verify the source, so take it with a grain of salt.

Whilst this elite doesn’t appear to have a tail, he does have a face somewhat reminiscent of a cat. Also note that he has three fingers and thumb, which is different from the final design with two fingers and two thumbs. The point I’m getting at here is that this image might be our only look at the cat-like Elites conceptualised before Halo’s launch, an interesting concept to be sure!

Extras - part 2

Moving away from this bizarre tangent, I couldn’t go on without mentioning the elite statue sculpted by Juan Ramirez and casted by Robert Standlee. This was exclusively given to Bungie Employees in 2002 to commemorate their work on Halo Combat Evolved. I have always loved the exaggerated features of this take on the elites, from the elongated fingers to the splayed mandibles.

2003 - The Sequel

These screenshots of pre-launch Halo 2 show just how much of a leap in visual fidelity Bungie were shooting for with the sequel to Halo. In technical terms, these guys are way more detailed than their 2001 counterparts, but design wise they remain faithful to the look established in the original game. Unfortunately, only one of the three armour designs from the Halo CE made it over to the sequel, but as you'll see later, Bungie didn't hold back with new designs either. It's worth noting that part of the reason the game looks so good in these early development screenshots is due to Bungie's utilisation of their 'Pstencil' engine.

By far the best showcsase of the Pstencil engine was the 2003 E3 demo of Halo 2, which showcased special operations elites dropping into New Mombasa from orbit. Notice how they still have jet black armour like in Halo CE. This was changed to a dark purple in the final version. If you're interested, Digital Foundry did a great video covering the E3 demo in detail:

DF Retro Extra - Halo 2

2004 - Halo 2

The final version of Halo 2 features my favourite rendition of the elites. With the sequel to Halo, Bungie sought to expand the universe in a number or interesting ways. Most notably, a renewed focus on the inner workings of the Covenant. Early in the game, we are introduced to the Arbiter as he is publicly shamed for failing to stop you from destroying the Halo ring at the end of the first game (spoilers). For these cutscenes, Bungie designed a fully naked elite model. For the most part this is the basis for elite anatomy throughout the series, although the facial structure is updated frequently from Halo Reach onwards, but we’ll get to that later.

Now to take a look at the standard elite armour in the game. As mentioned previously, the armour is essentially a higher polygon version of one of the armour permutations from the first game, specifically, the shark like three-pointed helmet and plated shoulders. A cool detail in Halo 2 is that the glowing orange lights on the elite’s forearms and legs actually dim when the elite’s shields are depleted. A minor change is that the elite’s eyes in Halo 2 are now black circles rather than the glowing slits they had Halo CE.

As mentioned previously, the amour variants from the first game weren’t carried over to the sequel. This can be seen by comparing the elite minor (blue armour), to the elite zealot (gold armour) in both games. In Halo 2, the armour is identical in design and all elites in the game now have the same glowing orange lights on their arms and legs. On the other hand, Halo 2 featured three new elite ranks all clad in new armour. The honour guard and councillors have elaborate, decorated helmets. Then the ranger elite has a vacuum sealed suit appropriate for combat in space.

Halo 2 also featured elites who were not part of the covenant. These 'heretic' elites donned a new armour set specifically designed to help them survive the hostile climate of the gas giant where their base is located. This really helped broaden the scope of the Halo universe for me when I first played the game as a kid. You can actually see concept art for the heretic elite helmet in the book 'The Art of Halo' (shown below). This is also a great opportunity to look at how the design for the elite's faces evolved over time, initially starting out with fangs before being updated for the Halo 2 head study.

The Graphic Novel

After the record shattering success of Halo 2’s launch, it was only a matter of time until the franchise started appearing in all manner of media. There was already a successful trio of successful novels, so it seemed like the next logical step was to release a graphic novel.

The Halo Graphic Novel, published in 2006, contained four short stories, illustrated by four different artists. In my opinion, it is the single best collection of halo imagery contained in one book. This is probably down to my own personal bias because I absolutely love the way the elites are represented in the first story, ‘The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor’. The story is written by Lee Hammack and is highly enjoyable in its own right, but we’re here to talk about the visuals. In this respect, Simon Bisley absolutely smashes it out of the park.

I would be amiss without touching on the second appearance of elites in the graphic novel. The short story: ‘Second Sunrise over New Mombasa’ features some highly stylised takes on the covenant soldiers which I’ve always found interesting. Jean Giraud wonderfully brings the battle of New Mombasa to life with his energetic artwork. The standout frame shows a very tall scarab, somewhat reminiscent of the tripods from HG Wells - War of the Worlds. The elites don silver armour fire bizarre green laser rifles. Another frame (top right), shows blue and red elites; much more familiar! A different type of green laser rifle and a pink energy sword feature in this frame. I always liked how Bungie established a recognisable look for covenant weapons so early in the franchise, despite having different designers the weapons in Second Sunrise are very similar to the concept art weapons for Halo 3 ODST (shown in the screenshot, bottom right).

The close up shots of the elites in the frames below show that a completely new design is being used in this story. Bear in mind that as of this point the only depictions of the elites were in game or on promotional material.

This design is very different from the face of the Halo 2 elites (comparison below). The large fangs and hidden upper rows of teeth are obvious differences, but I think the main reason these elites look so different is the smooth shape of the forehead and the way it blends into the upper mandibles.

The actual armour designs, although clearly different, still keep the recognisable silhouette of the armoured elites from the games.

Finally, I wanted to include these 2 depictions of the elites, which are featured at the end of the graphic novel alongside some other fantastic pieces of art. The first is by Chris Barrett, and the second by Rick Berry (details on the artist in the 'Sources' section).

Full Circle

In the aftermath of Halo 2, we didn’t just see a graphic novel and numerous action figures, but surprisingly the announcement of a spin-off Halo title in development. Ensemble Studios announced Halo Wars to the world on 27th September 2006, which would bring the series full circle by tapping into Halo’s real time strategy (RTS) routes. The CGI trailer featured an absolutely fantastic rendition of the elites, which re-assured fans that the game was in good hands; it was the first Halo game to not be developed by Bungie after all.

As an 11 year old Halo fan, seeing everything from the games I loved rendered to such high quality was a memorably exciting experience. Ensemble nailed the look and feel of the elites in this trailer. Just like the graphic novel, this trailer showed that the design of the elites could be modified and iterated upon whilst maintaining the design Bungie established back in 2001.

Despite everything I’ve said, I do have some criticisms of this design. Simply put, it looks out of proportion. The waist is far too small when compared to the broad upper body and that body makes the head look too small as well. Overall great design, although I’m happy that Ensemble overhauled this before launch.

2007 - Halo 3

With the new focus on the brutes, Bungie kept the design of the elites close to their chest on the run up to Halo 3’s launch in September of 2007. The jump to a new console generation meant an expected leap in graphical fidelity. The result was a new design for the elites that featured a more complex armour set.

Everything about Halo CE’s design has been updated in this armour set; the helmet is much more complex, the shoulders feature overlapping plates, the orange lights are gone, and the leg armour now flares out around the heel. Whilst I do like the design overall, I can’t help but feel that the elites from the previous game look much better. Pre-2007 elites have a sleeker, slender feel to them which I feel is absent in these redesigns. This may have been due to the Bungie wanting the elite’s silhouettes to be closer to that of the Spartan's, as you can play in both in multiplayer.

One interesting detail is that the eyes of the Halo 3 elites now match those of the Arbiter from Halo 2. The empty black eyes of the standard elites is no longer featured from this point on in the series.

Halo 3 also featured the introduction of armour customisation. For elites, this amounted to 5 sets total. These included the Assault, Flight, Commando, and Aesthetic. The assault version has always been my favourite, ever since I saw images of it in Edge magazine back in early 2007. The other designs are nice, especially the tusked helmet from the aesthetic amour set.

That's a wrap for part 1. Next time I'll be diving into Halo Wars, Halo Reach, and the period of transition where Halo was passed from Bungie to 343 Industries.

Jump to Part 2

Sources

The Art of Halo - Creating a Virtual World

Credit to the artist Shi Kai Wang for multiple sketches. At the time of writing he actually still works at Bungie as the Art Director for Destiny. Check out his work here: https://twitter.com/shiekthegeek

Halo Graphic Novel

Credit to Simon Bisley for his work on 'The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor'. If you like his work, you can see more at: https://www.simonbisleyart.com/

Credit to Jean 'Moebius' Giraud who is sadly no longer with us, for his work on Second Sunrise over New Mombasa. You can see some of his work in an interview on https://www.artfutura.org/v3/en/moebius/.

Credit to Chris Barrett and Rick Berry for their art in the Gallery section.

Chris is a Game Director at Bungie, you can find him on twitter: https://twitter.com/cgbarrett?lang=en

Rick specialises in figurative painting and prints: https://rickberrystudio.com/about/

Elite Images

1999 elites - https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Pre-Xbox_Halo

https://neoencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Elite_(Halo)

1999 elite concept art - https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/kx9tbi/halo_combat_evolved_concept_art_by_shi_kai_wang/

https://halo.bungie.org/misc/nomis_halo_fe/

https://www.halopedia.org/Category:Halo:_Combat_Evolved_concept_art

2000 elites - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/prexbox-halo--139611657181593938/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEVz0KyQDt8&t=302s

https://www.halopedia.org/Category:Images_of_Sangheili_Minors