Halo Elites - Part 3 | Laughing Cephalopod

The Depiction of the Elites in the Halo series

2012 to 2024 (343 Industries)

Posted December 2024

2012 - Halo 4

When Halo 4 launched in 2012, it was a strong indication of 343’s plans for the series future. To me at least, the music, visual style, user interface, and general tone were completely different to the Bungie games. I find this interesting as all previous projects overseen by 343 were a lot closer to Bungie’s rendition of the Halo universe. Let’s dig in, shall we?

The design for the elites is completely different in Halo 4. The skin is pale and scaley, the helmet shape and silhouette are unique, the legs are chunkier, and the armour is sleeveless! Whilst this may seem a bit crazy when considering how consistent the elite’s design remained across the series, it is fair to say that 343 did have their reasons for this. The ‘Storm’ faction in Halo 4 are a splinter group from the original covenant; and as confirmed by Cortana in the game’s first mission ‘they aren’t outfitted like standard covenant military’ (paraphrasing).

Below you can see elites from Halo 3, Halo 4, and Halo Reach side by side. Back during Reach's development, Bungie wanted to go back to the roots of the elites, meaning sleek armour and elegant movement. 343's new elite design definitely different, but if you look back at Halo 3, there are actually a lot of similarities.

What I do find strange is the change to the facial structure of the elites in Halo 4. The upper mandibles are now higher and almost look like they would close over the eyes, which are much smaller compared to the Bungie elites. The general shape of the mandibles is also changed, and the skin is paler with bony protrusions running up the head. You can see the difference clearly in the comparison between Halo 4 and Halo 2 below.

As with Halo Reach, the elites in Halo 4 all receive unique armour to denote their ranks. This is something that I'm very much in favour of as the distinct silhouettes make elites more identifiable at a distance. The elite commander (purple) is a new rank which has some really nice looking armour. The large helmet is reminiscent of the Halo 2 elite councillors, which were themselves inspired by the large headdress of the alien queen from the sci-fi classic ‘Aliens’. Considering Halo CE took heavy inspiartion from that film, I feel that the Halo 4 design reflects that part of the Bungie legacy.

The red elite below is the new zealot design. Elite zealots in Halo CE and 2 were always clad in golden armour but in Halo Reach, Bungie changed their default colour to red, with the golden armour gifted to the elite generals. I have no idea why Bungie implemented this change, but it appears it is here to stay as all Halo shooters developed by 343 Industries follow suite.

In Halo 4, I'd say that the zealot design is actually closest to the spec ops elites from Halo Reach. I think the design looks fantastic, boasting a far more organic style with 4 distinctive glowing lights on the helmet.

Finally, we have the ranger elite and elite 'warrior'. I don't have much to say on these other than that I like the horned feet of the gold elite. Overall, there are elements I like about the Halo 4 elites, but overall I think they are a massive step down from what we had in Halo Reach, where elites were sleek and elegant.

2014 - The Master Chief Collection

After Halo 4, it was clear that 343 had a different vision for Halo than Bungie did. Their debut title had it's own music and art styles and the story had a very different tone to the Bungie games.

Then came the Master Chief Collection, a new way to experience the original Halo trilogy all in one place. Outside of the multiplayer, the big selling point was the remaster of Halo 2, with the campaign getting the anniversary treatment by Saber Interactive. Unlike combat evolved anniversary, this remaster featured completely new designs for most characters in the game.

I much prefer the elite design here when compared with Halo 4. It is very reminiscent of the Halo 2 design, even going so far as to keep the orange lights on the arms and legs! However, it does have some visual oddities. The armour looks quite blocky and a lot less organic, the helmet shape looks a bit off (like a backwards hat), and the hoofed feet look oddly small compared to the body.

The images below shows some CGI renders of the Halo 2 Anniversary elite without a helmet. Comparing to the Halo 2 elite, you can see that the facial structure has changed significantly. I've always found it reminiscent of a snake, with hard ridges above the eyes and the narrowing of the face in the middle. Whilst the overall design is actually very similar to the original, the new version is more reptilian and the original is more mammalian.

The most notable change is the way the jaws hang open. This is such a minor gripe but every elite design since Halo Reach looks like the elite can't actually close it's mouth. The Halo 2 Anniversary one looks almost gormless the way it stares with it's mouth hanging open. As I say, a small gripe, but just something I found odd.

I don't have much else to say apart from that the designs for each of the elite ranks are very faithful to the original. I was delighted to see all of these designs that I love in high definition with upgraded textures and models. To this day I would probably say that Halo 2 Anniversary is the best looking Halo game on the market. Below you can see the excellent redesigns of the elite honour guards, councillors, and rangers.

2015 - Halo 5: Guardians

Moving swiftly on, it’s time to look at Halo 5. I’m going to keep this one brief as the elites in this game look almost identical to Halo 4. The main differentiator being that the colours are consistent between rank (in Halo 4, an elite minor could appear in blue, green and white, as an example).

To 343’s credit, I do think that these elites look cleaner and crisper than the previous game. The texture of the armour is much improved and the game clearly benefits from being run on an Xbox One rather than the 360.

As you can see below, the faces of the Halo 5 elites remain similar to Halo 4 as well. However, the colouration is darker similar to the original trilogy elites.

2017 - Halo Wars 2

Halo was in a weird place after Halo 5. The series had declined in popularity since the Bungie era and by 2017 there was still no news on the inevitable Halo 6. Not all hope was lost though, as 343 partnered with Creative Assembly to develop a surprise sequel to Halo Wars. I'll admit that I didn't really follow this games development at all, and I only played a bit of the Blitz beta for Halo Wars 2. By this point my interest in the Halo franchise had faded significantly.

One thing that did catch my eye though was the revamped elites. In my opinion, Halo Wars 2 was a significant improvement over Halo 4 and 5. They are similar to the anniversary versions, but with a different helmet shape reminiscent of aquatic animals liek rays and sharks.

Halo Wars 2 has a weird quirk where everything looks different in cutscenes compared to in game. I don't mean because it is CGI, I mean the actual designs are different. The armour in the image below is the cutscene style and is more rubberised, with a squat helmet design and more muted colours. I like seeing designs like this because they feel like an extension of the original design from 2001. The Halo universe feels bigger when there is a variety of designs, but it has a core art style which keeps everything coherent, and these designs fit the bill for a mercenary group of elites under 'the banished' faction.

2021 - Halo Infinite

Finally, after a 6 year wait, 343 released the next mainline Halo game. It's clear that at some point during development 343 decided to rethink the art direction of the franchise and whilst my thoughts on the game are mixed, I think the art style revamp was a resounding success! You can see the 20 years of progress in the images below.

The Halo Infinite design is seemingly based on some Halo Reach concept art by Isaac Hannaford. Comparing the images below you can see how the designs are near identical.

Part of the reason I think these elites are so much better is that the proportions are more balanced. I've always liked the Reach designs but they have oddly skinny legs which I think are rectified in Infinite. Below you can see numerous ranks of elites and how closely the designs match Reach, with my favourite new design being the new spec ops variant.

2022 - Halo Television Series

The idea to compare the elites of the Halo series originally came to me when I saw the first trailer for the Halo TV Series. After seeing some clips online I couldn't bring myself to watch the series as it looked so far removed from the Halo I grew up with (full disclosure - I still haven't seen it and could be completely wrong about it's quality), but I still want to look at how the elites are presented as it is their last official appearance at the time of writing.

The elites in series one wear armour which appears at least somewhat inspired by the Arbiter from the games, with layered plates and a beak like helmet. I actually like it a lot despite being so different from what we see in the games. What I'm not so keen on is the face as it is essentially the same as the Halo 2 Anniversary design, which I've given my thoughts on earlier in this article. The elites are also very chunky, akin to Halo 4 and 5.

That's all folks

If you've gotten this far than thank you for tolerating my ramblings as I looked through 23 years of Halo media to discuss a very niche topic! As a final sign off, I'd like to highlight the work of Abimael Salazar, a 3D artist with a stunning portfolio of work inspired by Halo and Half Life. Abimael has lovingly recreated the Halo elite designs from Halo 2 and 3 and brought them up to current standards. I can confidently say that the Halo 2 recreation is my favourite style elite and I hope that artists for future Halo games take inspiration from this going forward.