Master Chief bungee jumping without a Bungie.
"This is my last fight. A true test of legends. Our story will outlive us both. Set a fire in your heart, Spartan! Bare your fangs! Fight hard! Die well."
— Escharum
WARNING! UNMARKED SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
- The opening cutscene features Atriox completely curb-stomping Master Chief as if he were a rag-doll. For the first time in any Halo game, Master Chief looks helpless.
- Though to give credit to Master Chief, compared to Red Team, who fought Atriox 3 vs. 1 and couldn't make him budge, he actually does manage to put up a good fight, tanking a few hits from Atriox's gravity mace and delivering a few solid punches that manage to stagger Atriox.
- When attempts to reason with Adjutant Resolution go south, he attempts to kill the main duo. The last time Master Chief got hit with a monitor's laser, it sent him flying across the room and brought him to his knees. This time? He offhandedly shields the console Weapon is in from it with his arm without even bothering to look at Adjutant Resolution.
- The Spire is exploding, and after having killed Adjutant Resolution, the internal gravity shafts are unavailable. Master Chief's solution? Contact Echo-216, tell him to get the Pelican to him, but since there's no time to wait for the Pelican to pick him up, he jumps off the mile-high Spire to dive into the Pelican's cargo bay.Echo-216: Oh, come on!
- Spartan IV Hudson Griffin's role as Hero of Another Story. During the six months that Master Chief is incapacitated, Griffin is engaging in a Hopeless War, where his sole mission is to stalemate the Banished as long as possible before he's forced to act, knowing time is running out. He stalls them so much that Escharum and the Harbinger haven't been able to even begin activating the Spires, and to the point that the two antagonists are bickering, with Escharum thinking Harbinger is full of shit and Harbinger thinking Escharum's troops are incompetent.
- Cortana tries to recruit Atriox to her cause, who remains steadfast in his devotion to the Banished, even reminding him of the consequence of refusal, to which Atriox asks her the same question. Then Cortana blows up the Brute homeworld of Doisac right in front of him, and Atriox vows to make her pay for her actions. A while later he destroys everything Cortana has fought for, bringing her empire to its knees.
- Once Cortana and Atriox finally meet face to face afterward, the leader of the Banished shows her that he (seemingly) killed Master Chief and gives her a cathartic Ironic Echo where he asks her to think about the consequences of her actions.
- Escharum's battle against Master Chief, which proves to be a crowning moment for not only Master Chief, but Escharum as well, who gets his wish to go out in a blaze of glory rather than keel over and die from some unnamed disease or old age.
- Credit must be given to the Marines, they survived for six months against the Banished. And despite being cut off from all supply lines, and surrounded by hostile aliens, they actually managed to last longer than the Spartan IV's did until the Master Chief returned to pull them out of the fire.
- The
Deleted Scene Sequel Hook:Echo-216: Chief... you're not gonna believe this...
Computer: UNSC tag detected. Designation: Friendly. - Gameplay-wise, taking down a Dropship, even more so than mini-bosses. Taking them down while they still have passengers is especially satisfactory.
