Is that a hand grenade or an Easter egg?
In "Halo," the answer is "both."
"Halo" is bringing the video game series to life in ways large and small on Paramount+,
and only real fans will recognize the series' deeper references.
These are the Easter eggs you missed in "Halo" episode 1.
"Halo" starts out on the planet Madrigal -- one of humanity's outer colonies and a major center
for the rebellion against the UNSC.
In the opening scenes of the show, Madrigal is shown to be relatively barren, save for
occasional mining colonies.
This peaceful façade is shattered by a surprise attack by the Covenant, who kill all but one
inhabitant of the settlement they target.
The Sangheili warriors (more commonly known as "elites" in the games) are in turn dispatched
by the UNSC Spartan squad Silver Team, led by the Master Chief.
"Spartans."
Madrigal may not ring any bells for newcomers to the "Halo" franchise, or even for those
who've played the games, but the planet does play a significant role in the spinoff novels
-- particularly Joseph Staten's "Halo: Contact Harvest" and Tobias Buckell's "Halo: The Cole
Protocol."
In the original canon, Madrigal is one of the first planets to be "glassed" by the covenant
-- a genocidal act of orbital attack that eliminates all life on a world and renders
it essentially uninhabitable.
The show's version of Madrigal is a bit different, as it remains un-glassed well into humanity's
war with the Covenant.
However, with a heavy narrative focus still being placed on the planet, its original fate
may eventually catch up with it on Paramount+ as well.
The first episode of "Halo" kicks into high gear almost immediately with a fierce battle
between Silver Team and the Covenant's Sangheili elites.
It's a great way to show off the kind of action fans can expect from the series early on,
and it also features a number of specific references to the "Halo" video games.
Several of those Easter eggs come in the form of the Covenant's weapons and sci-fi gear,
much of which will be instantly recognizable for longtime fans.
While the design of the Sangheili armor is a bit different in the show (one of very few
design divergences), their weapons and shields are spot-on, right down to the little details.
Anyone who's played the "Halo" games on the higher difficulties of "heroic" or "legendary"
will empathize with the Madrigal militia's inability to penetrate the elites' shields
-- defenses that are heavily resistant to bullets but more susceptible to plasma weapons.
The new series does a great job of keeping these qualities of the shields consistent.
Another great touch in the Madrigal fight is the plasma pistol -- a classic Covenant
weapon from the games.
When one of the Silver Team Spartans fires a charged shot from the plasma pistol at an
enemy Sangheili, a vent on the top of the gun pops open to vent the excess heat, just
as it does in the games.
Additionally, the Madrigal fight features incredibly faithful recreations of the energy
sword and the elites' active camouflage.
If you thought the "Halo" show would break the trend of awkward first-person sequences
in video game adaptations, you'd be wrong.
The first episode barely gets 10 minutes deep before the camera jumps inside Master Chief's
helmet to show a heads-up display, or HUD, that's very reminiscent of the video games,
right down to a radar in the bottom left-hand corner, targeting reticles, and a readout
of his currently equipped weapon and available ammunition.
It's a bit silly, but that doesn't stop the show from using the HUD view repeatedly through
the Madrigal battle.
Although the first-person view itself feels a bit heavy-handed in its callback to the
games, there's a more subtle Easter egg incorporated into the scene that only fans of the games
will recognize.
At one point, Master Chief takes a heavy amount of plasma fire from an attacking Elite, and
his HUD shows that his energy shields are temporarily depleted.
He quickly ducks behind the nearest available cover to wait for his shields to come back.
This isn't just a nod to the mechanics of the "Halo" games -- which were some of the
first to introduce the concept of regenerating shields instead of a traditional health pack
system -- it also uses the exact same sound effects for the shields being broken and subsequently
coming back.
"Kai, hold your position."
The "Halo" show uses a number of specific audio cues from the games, and the shield
noise is sure to flash players back to all the times they had to hide behind cover.
Within just the first action sequence of the "Halo" TV series, Master Chief and his Spartan
comrades exhibit a wide array of moves and tactics pulled directly from the video games.
Many viewers will recognize the weapons themselves, which include the standard-issue UNSC assault
rifle, sniper rifle, handgun, and designated marksman rifle.
But the allusions to the games go further than simply the guns themselves.
The way Master Chief fights on Madrigal is spot-on to the combat flow "Halo" players
know so well.
Because of his armor and shields, Master Chief maneuvers pretty freely in the open, only
using cover when his defenses are briefly knocked out.
He also makes good use of hand grenades and melee attacks -- two key pieces of the so-called
"combat puzzle" that's always made the gameplay in "Halo" so engaging.
One specific sequence has Master Chief toss a grenade at a group of elites, use it as
cover to move in close, and deliver some brutal physical blows with the butt of his rifle
that batter down the enemy's shields.
It's an approach anyone who's played the games will be familiar with, even if it might not
be so easy to pull off at home.
To top it off, Master Chief picks up a fallen minigun dislodged from its mount and wields
it like it's nothing -- a specific reference to a mechanic implemented in "Halo 3."
In their investigation of the Covenant ship on Madrigal, Master Chief and Silver Team
happen upon an excavation site and a mysterious artifact at its center.
The device turns out to be a "keystone" -- a relic from the ancient Forerunner race with
ties to the mythical and deadly Halo rings.
All of this lore, only alluded to in the show's first episode, harkens back to the games in
interesting ways, but there's a specific Easter egg mixed into the scene that only eagle-eyed
viewers will catch.
When Master Chief first activates the keystone by touching it, a symbol appears: A relatively
nondescript circle within a circle.
This symbol is actually the logo for the video game "Marathon," another property developed
by Bungie in the years before the release of "Halo."
Curiously, "Marathon" features many narrative similarities with "Halo" and can be seen in
some ways as an elaborate prototype for the franchise.
Themes like human colonization of space, alien wars, and rogue AI all play into the "Marathon"
story, just as they do in "Halo."
One of the more interesting parts of the "Halo" show is that it features scenes from the Covenant
side of the war as early as the first episode.
These scenes take place on High Charity, the massive spaceship/planetoid that serves as
the capital of the alien force.
High Charity appears prominently in the "Halo" games, as do the Prophets -- the enigmatic
race of older, wizened spacefarers who lead the Covenant forces.
The show's version of the vessel is pretty much an exact match to the High Charity of
the games -- a bulbous, mushroom-like structure of the Covenant's signature purple.
The "Halo" scenes aboard High Charity in the series' early episodes include a number of
smaller Easter eggs for game fans as well, such as references to the "Great Journey"
-- the core belief of the Covenant religion, which is tied to the Halo rings -- and specific
characters like the Prophet of Mercy and the Prophet of Truth.
A major change in the Paramount+ "Halo" series is the human character Makee, who appears
to be a genuine ally of the Covenant.
Her inclusion is one of the major departures from the games, in which the Covenant was
never known to accept a human into their ranks.
It remains to be seen why this particular human was.
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