Halo Reach: Exodus with nearly All Skulls On On Legendary

Through the Halo Reach Daily Challenges I rediscovered the site of Tyrant which has a nice video walkthrough of Halo Reach with all Skulls on. This week the weekly challenge is to do Exodus with all but the Blind skull on. This makes it easier to handle because one knows the health status, sees the reticle and one sees the status of the jet pack, active camouflage or armor lock. Tyrant’s walkthrough is done with Blind on so it is easier to do in the challenge. So if you want to know how to beat it then use Tyrant’s walkthrough and I am not going to repeat it here. That said I want to give some additional hints that you maybe miss if you just look at Exodus.

When you start Exodus with all but Blind skulls on then you want to keep the following in mind:

• If you die, and you will, you can quickly hit Menu and select Save and Exit. If you restart the game you jump back to the last checkbox without having died
• If you die and you missed that short window (a few seconds) and the mission restarts you have to shut off the XBox otherwise you save the game when the mission starts. That said you loose any progress from the last saved checkpoint.
• In order to prevent to loose too much in the case you missed the Save and Exit time frame you should Save and Exit the game from time to time. This is also important if you start a new segment and you might end up in a situation w/o ammunition or other very difficult situation where the only way out would be to shut off the XBox.
• If you never tried this you might want to do it without Iron skull on because then you don’t need to Save and Exit too many times which speeds up the process a little bit.
• Be patient, make your shots count, crouch often and early. It is advisable to adjust your settings so that you can toggle between crouching and standing instead of keeping the stick pressed. But then again you need to adjust your muscle memory to avoid sticky situations.
• Conserve your ammo. “Count” the shots it takes to take out an enemy. This is important for high-value weapons like the DMR, the needler etc.
• Take cover early and often and peek just over the cover to take the shots. The shield only replenishes with melee and health only recovers 3 bars on each side from the lowest settings.
• In order to replenish you health with a Health Pack you need to have reduced health. You can stand in from of a HP and shot an overcharged Plasma gun or you can throw a grenade at a wall but just don’t die with that. Then you can pick up a HP while you have reduced health. Note: that the HP also replenishes the shield.

Now when you playing Exodus this is what you should consider:

• At the beginning get up to catch the Magnum rounds and then move quickly down the boardwalk. You don’t want to wait too long because the Skirmisher in the first fight would leave and you would need to use you Magnum rounds to fight the suicide Grunts right afterwards. If you kill on Skirmisher you can use its Plasma gun to kill the Grunts w/o using any Magnum rounds.
• After you called the Elevator on the Traxus tower head back to the first Kiosk and hide behind it. If you are lucky all brutes including the ones with the Gravity Hammer pass you by. But then they are a pain in the neck to find. If that happens stay on the lower level and use the sniper rifle to look for them. Also listen for any sound they make. If you hear them but cannot see them head back to the Kiosk and start all over again. Be aware that they throw grenades like crazy so you don’t have much time to kill them if they are close. The sniper rifle is pure gold to take them out. The second one with the Gravity Hammer maybe come down as well but can also be stuck near the Elevator. Slowly move forward until you know where he is.
• To fly from the New Alexandria root top to the landing pad on the other side I used the following tactic. Use long burst to go high (so hight that your are out of bounds) rather than short bursts but don’t empty the jets before you reached the other side.
• After you killed the big Kahuna inside the landing pad building you need to jump / jet up to the 3rd level immediately. Beside the fly over that was the point were I died the most times and there is no Checkpoint there until you finished off all the enemies.
• Here I would suggest to save the rockets for the Brute with the Gravity Hammer. Take out all the enemies inside the building and as many as you can take out on the landing pad. Make sure there is no Grunt around with the Fuel Rod Gun which would be a deadly mistake. If the Brute with the Gravity Hammer is the only one left inside the building take the Rocket Launcher and jump down to the second level. Expect some other enemies and if kill them or jump back up. If it is clear then engage the Brute and kill it with the Rocket Launcher (2 rockets should be enough). Then jump back up to the 3rd level and evaluate where the rest or your enemies are. BTW there is some ammunition on the other side of the building behind the 2nd crate. Not sure what happens when you jump out there so I wouldn’t try it until you are out of ammunition.
• Anytime you need to run quickly after you activated a button (calling the Elevator or activating the second Anti-Air canon) you should Save and Exit the game. If you get stuck but hit an checkpoint you might be stuck there forever and that would suck.
• Finally on the last run I was in a tight spot because after I activated the 2nd anti-air gun I lost some precious time. So when I came to the stairs I did not use the Moongoose to go up the stairs but exited at the bottom, activated the Active Camo and then hit up the stairs. If not the Grunts might see you can kill your Active Camo making you an easy target. When you are up to the table make sure you activate the button. If you activate it then the screen with get dark immediately otherwise you missed that and you need to retry right away.

Have fun and Enjoy that Challenge

– Andy