History YMMV / HaloCombatEvolved

** "Truth and Reconciliation" is only the third level in the game, and yet it comes with a ''nasty ''[[pmwiki.php/{{}} Difficulty Spike]], even on Normal difficulty! Much of the first half of the level is covered in complete darkness, requiring you to use your flashlight. It is also a stealth mission, and the first level to give you a Sniper Rifle, in which you are tasked to snipe out the Covenant. Thankfully, it comes equipped with night vision, which you will have to make good use of in order to make it through the first half. In particular there are some Grunts on turrets that can eat your entire shield and be damaging to your allies if you don't take them out first. What really makes this level difficult is the fact that there are little, if ''any ''health packs in this level, so if you take enough damage, good luck getting your health back! Once you make it onto the ship of the same name as the level, you would think it would be the next level, right? '''Nope!! '''You're still in the same level as before, so any damage you have taken is still there! And, get this, soon after you get inside the ship, there's an invisible enemy. '''''With an energy sword. '''''Who will more often than not one shot you even on "Normal" difficulty if you can't kill it fast enough! And again, '''''this is only the third level of the game.'''''

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: One of the more prominent theories in the fandom's early days was that Cortana had deliberately led the ''Pillar of Autumn'' to Installation 04 for her own purposes, and was at best very selective about what information she shared with Master Chief; this was based on players who came in directly from ''Marathon'' expecting her to still be characterized as she was in "The Cortana Letters", and her statement to Keyes about making a "blind jump" being contradicted by ''The Fall of Reach'', where her decision was shown to be at least partially informed.

* CommonKnowledge: Contrary to popular inception, not only was this game not the first video game (or FPS, for that matter) to feature regenerating health, but it doesn't even feature regenerating health at all; the player's ''shield'' regenerates after a certain amount of time, but health is a static and separate mechanic, and actual regenerating health would only be introduced in the next game. The first game to ever feature regenerating health was actually ''VideoGame/PunchOut'', while ''VideoGame/{{Hydlide}}'' was the first game to feature it in the "take cover for a few seconds" manner that eventually became commonplace in [=FPS's=].

* SpiritualAdaptation: The best adaptation of ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' ever made. There's a reason that [[TheWikiRule Halopedia]] has a whole page just for listing [[https://www.halopedia.org/List_of_references_to_Aliens_in_the_Halo_series Alien references]], and that almost all of these references show up in the first game.

** It's somewhat debated over ''how'' much the Windows port averts this; graphics, textures and level geometry were downgraded, particularly in bumpmapping, which was extensively used to give surfaces detail, being broken in the port (so that it only actually shows up if you shine your flashlight on it), the Plasma weapons weren't capable of stun-locking players as effectively, and there's no co-op function. However, it was the first version of the game to include online multiplayer, the later release of a "Custom Edition" added proper mod support, and it was very well supported by Bungie and Gearbox - the final patch, 1.10, came out in 2014, 11 years after launch and four after Bungie stepped away from the series. The Mac OS X port, however, had far worse performance, was extremely crash-prone and had horrible network code.

** Dustin Echoes, the Ultimate Marine[[labelnote]]Another meme relating to Cortana's dialogue, this time during the very end of the game. When Master Chief asks if there were any other survivors of Installation 4's destruction, Cortana replies with "Just 'dust and echoes'", as a poetic way to say that everyone but her and Chief died. Due to audio quality issues and a lack of subtitles for the time, however, people took this to say that there was exactly one survivor, a Marine named Dustin Echoes who somehow survived ''planetary annihilation'' no worse for wear. Cue speculation on how cool Dustin must be and what kind of adventures he gets into.[[/labelnote]]

* BreatherLevel: The first half of 343 Guilty Spark, which focuses more on atmosphere than being challenging. The only enemies faced are small groups of Grunts and Jackals who will even ignore you occasionally. Of course, [[GenreShift this all changes once you discover the Flood]]. Even then, however, the Flood and their various gimmicks[[note]]Infection Forms, Elite Combat Forms, Human Combat Forms, Flood with weaponry[[/note]] are gradually introduced to the player to give them time to adjust to fighting this new enemy until they finally get out of the compound.

** The PC port of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' has a demo that houses servers which featured 24/7 max vehicle 16-player CTF matches on Blood Gulch, and nearly nothing else; in fairness, the map choice at least is because Blood Gulch is the only map available in the demo, and until the port of ''The Master Chief Collection'' this demo was basically the only way to still get the game on PC). Organized 4v4 or 2v2 games are a rarity, if they ever existed at all.

** Flood armed with Rocket Launchers are an endless source of cheap death. Insane reflexes plus sniper rifle accuracy plus typically spawning in enclosed spaces or areas where vehicles are expected to be used equals a bad time for all involved.
** Although Hunters are easy on foot, while driving the Scorpion on "Assault on the Control Room", they can become a problem. Especially while you're dealing with other stuff such as Wraiths and Ghosts.

* DisappointingLastLevel: For some, the last three levels were this because of extensive BackTracking (the final third of the game is essentially the entire first half of it in reverse and with the Flood and Sentinels added). Though many still consider "Two Betrayals" and "The Maw" among the best levels.

** The fan-named Thirsty Grunt, a grunt encountered as an EasterEgg near the end of the the final level as the sole survivor among several Flood corpses. He doesn't attack the player and instead comments on how the battle made him work up "a big, grunty thirst!" Subsequent games would include similar hidden grunts as a tribute.

** Sergeant Johnson; it's easy to forget that he was simply a RecurringExtra in this game as a generic Marine sergeant who was given a bit of extra focus thanks to his role in the intro cutscene, [[spoiler:accompanying Captain Keyes on his ill-fated weapons cache expedition]], and for being the focus of the secret Legendary ending. That, plus his memorably hammy voice acting and SergeantRock personality stemming from being an obvious [[Film/{{Aliens}} Sergeant Al Apone]] homage, made him an immediate BreakoutCharacter who was promoted to the main cast come the sequels.

** The PunchPackingPistol, at least, for many people. Its perfect-kill ratio is three shots, and it regularly keeps the power weapons (namely the Sniper Rifle) in check. The Magnum got {{nerf}}ed ''heavily'' in the sequels. ''Videogame/Halo2'''s Magnum ([=M6C=]) had a much faster [=RoF=] (Rate of Fire), but it took ''13'' bullets (one whole magazine and one bullet from the next) to kill a player. The [=M6G=] in ''Videogame/Halo3'' added some much needed power into the Pistol, but reduced the magazine to 8 shots and had the slowest [=RoF=] out of them all. It wouldn't be until ''Videogame/Halo3ODST'' that the Magnum would regain respectable power, [=RoF=] ''and'' the ability to scope, while remaining balanced.
** The [[InfiniteAmmo Bandanna skull]] from Anniversary tears the game to ribbons. While there's the obvious problem with shotguns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers, the real breaker is infinite grenades. In a game filled to the brim with tight spaces and walkways the player can chuck grenades like mad with little need to aim. Add Grunt Funeral for extra power. Most of the achievements are still attainable with it too. In fact, you can use it to make one of the achievements (which requires you to beat a level on Heroic with three skulls on) a cinch.
** The PC/Mac port made the Banshee available in Multiplayer, with its Fuel Rod Gun intact. The latter is what particularly makes it a GameBreaker, due to its unlimited ammo, being fired from a high vantage point, flipping ground vehicles with ease, and just plain wasting infantry. It does have a somewhat slow rate of fire, but one well-aimed shot is generally all it takes to ruin someone's day. The lack of counter play was the most damning, as the Banshees were originally designed to be controlled by the AI and move in predictable patterns; only tanks are generally very effective against them. Rockets are too slow to properly lead with at anything other than close range, and tend to result in you getting splattered by the empty Banshee if you managed to kill the pilot.
* GenreTurningPoint: ''Halo'' is widely considered to have modernized the FPS genre, influencing pretty much every shooter made after it. It was so influential that contemporary shooters were often labeled as "''Halo'' killers", being seen as direct competition to it.

* HarsherInHindsight: Cortana's retort, "This war has enough dead heroes." at Keyes gains a ''lot'' of gravitas after playing ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' (or reading the novel it was based on), [[spoiler:and even moreso after Cortana's FaceHeelTurn in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'']].

* ItWasHisSled: The Flood appear in the level "343 Guilty Spark", and suddenly the Covenant goes from being "big time threat" to "secondary nuisance." It was a massive twist at the time, but now it's one of the game's more notable moments. And the Flood have such a central role in the lore of ''Halo'' that it's hard ''not'' to talk about their appearance here.
* LadyMondegreen: ''Combat Evolved'' introduced to us "Dustin Echoes", after a line where Cortana responds that all that's left is "just dust and echoes." {{Creator/Bungie}} even joked about this on their commentary for the cutscenes!

** ''Anniversary'' was built on top of the PC port, and carried over many of its graphical downgrades when you are using the classic graphics. Thankfully, this was addressed in ''The Master Chief Collection'', where the classic graphics were given a rework in the Season 7 update to make it much closer to the Xbox original.

** The Assault Rifle, partly based on the fact that its name implies an entirely different method of operation than what it actually gets. While it does have its upsides - generous ammo capacity (60 rounds per mag, 600 in total) with an extremely fast rate of fire letting it shred through shields despite bullet-firing weapons' poor performance against them, having a really fast QuickMelee animation, and the fact that switching to it lets players in MP with invisibility become fully invisible instantly (compared to the several seconds to fade out when using scoped or other heavy weapons) - much of these positives are left unrecognized, as most players still hate it because of its incredibly wide spread and [[ArbitraryGunPower anemic power per bullet]]. It quickly regains usefulness once the Flood show up however.

** The indoor segments of "Assault on the Control Room" have you go through several long identical looking hallways. On harder difficulties, conserving ammo can be a problem. This is somewhat remedied by SequenceBreaking (via jumping on the windows on the bridges which connect to said indoor segments).

** The indoor segments in [=AotCR=] make a return in [[LevelinReverse "Two Betrayals"]], with the Flood this time. While you can be fine if you know how to read the floor arrows, what takes the cake in "Two Betrayals" is Pulse Generator #2. Up to ''four'' Rocket Launcher-wielding combat forms can be among the twenty or more that jump you just as you're making the required shield overload. The nearest health pack is all the way at the bottom of the canyon outside, so have fun reverting if you've anything less than full health. The level also features a particularly nasty battle near the end, where the game almost literally throws ''everything'' it has at you. Rocket Flood, Stealth Elites, Turret Grunts, and ''two'' Wraiths are the main nuisances, and that doesn't even take into account the veritable army of lesser enemies duking it out. Letting the two factions wear each other out won't help much, as the Covenant will [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomp]] the Flood before an entire miniature army comes at you.
** "Keyes" suffers from the same problems as ''The Library'' regarding how the Flood like to spawn. At least one section has endless waves of Carrier Forms emerging from a coolant pool that happen to be between you and the path forward, and once you get back on the ''Truth and Reconciliation'' the corridors are ''choked'' with Flood that race up from the next sections and force you to kill them all at once.
** The last section of "The Maw" requires you to drive a Warthog along an obstacle course against the clock. If you find the Warthog hard to control, this is rather annoying. And when you finally reach the target, [[spoiler: the pickup transport for which you have been waiting crashes, and you have to reach another target, within the original time limit, which may result in having to start all over again.]] Which is also rather annoying. That said, it can be made a lot easier when you realize that the clock stops while the shuttle takes its dive, but you're not obligated to stand still, so you can get a few free seconds of extra driving time if you don't stop to watch.

** A lot of people saw the premise of ScaryDogmaticAliens starting a war against heroic Eaglelandish marines as typical TurnOfTheMillennium propaganda about UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror. Bungie countered this by pointing out that [[ProductionLeadTime the overwhelming majority of the game's development occurred]] ''before'' 9/11. However, note that no references to the Covenant being religious zealots actually show up in ''Combat Evolved'' aside from lines in the manual and a couple offhand lines that in-game that easily could've been added late in the development process. Also note that ''Literature/HaloTheFallOfReach'', which is responsible for much of the universe's backstory, was written in around ''seven'' weeks (reported as Eric Nylund's shortest deadline). That's from a full week after 9/11, to the day the novel was released. ''Halo 2'' muddies this even further, as it dives deeper into the Covenant viewpoint and amalgamates them into more of a hybrid Catholic/extremist Islam-style theocracy.

** The PC port of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'' had a demo that used to housed servers which featured 24/7 max vehicle 16-player CTF matches on Blood Gulch, and nearly nothing else (Blood Gulch is the only map available in the demo, which until the port of ''The Master Chief Collection'' was basically the only way to still get the game on PC). Organized 4v4 or 2v2 games were a rarity, if they ever existed at all.
** In general, ''Combat Evolved'' multiplayer revolved around the original [=M6D=] Pistol, which isn't unusually as mid-range combat makes a large bulk of combat in the ''Halo'' franchise; the precision weapon is often considered the UtilityWeapon.

** The PunchPackingPistol, at least, for many people. Its perfect-kill ratio is three shots, and it regularly keeps the power weapons (namely the Sniper Rifle) in check. The Magnum got {{nerf}}ed ''heavily'' in the sequels. ''Videogame/Halo2'''s Magnum([=M6C=]) had a much faster [=RoF=] (Rate of Fire), but it took an entire clip and one bullet to kill a player (13, in total). The [=M6G=] in ''Videogame/Halo3'' added some much needed power into the Pistol, but used half a clip and had the slowest [=RoF=] out of them all. It wouldn't be until ''Videogame/Halo3ODST'' that the Magnum would regain respectable power, [=RoF=] ''and'' the ability to scope, while remaining balanced.

** The PC/Mac port made the Banshee available in Multiplayer, with its Fuel Rod Gun intact. The latter is what particularly makes it a GameBreaker, due to its unlimited ammo, being fired from a high vantage point, flipping ground vehicles with ease, and just plain wasting infantry. It does have a somewhat slow rate of fire, but one well-aimed shot is generally all it takes to ruin someone's day.
** The lack of counter play was the most damning though as the Banshees were originally designed to be controlled by the AI and move in predictable patterns; only tanks were generally very effective against them. Rockets were too slow to properly lead with at anything other than close range, and tended to result in you getting splattered by the empty banshee if you managed to kill the pilot.

* MemeticMutation: "This cave is not a natural formation."[[note]]Cortana [[CaptainObvious describing]] a clearly metallic Forerunner tunnel to the Master Chief in "Halo". According to WordOfGod the dialogue was from when the tunnels looked more natural.[[/note]]
** Dustin Echoes, the Ultimate Marine [[note]]Another meme relating to Cortana's dialogue, this time during the very end of the game. When Master Chief asks if there were any other survivors of Installation 4's destruction, Cortana replies with "Just 'dust and echoes', as a poetic way to say that everyone but her and Chief died. Due to audio quality issues and a lack of subtitles for the time, however, people took this to say that there was exactly one survivor, a Marine named Dustin Echoes who somehow survived ''planetary annihilation'' no worse for wear. Cue speculation on how cool Dustin must be and what kind of adventures he gets into.[[/note]]

** It's somewhat debated over ''how'' much the Windows port averts this; graphics, textures and level geometry were downgraded, particularly in bumpmapping, which was extensively used to give surfaces detail, being broken in the port (so that it only actually shows up if you shine your flashlight on it), the Plasma weapons weren't capable of stun-locking players as effectively, and there's no co-op function. However, it was the first version of the game to include online multiplayer, the later release of a "Custom Edition" added proper mod support, and it was very well supported by Bungie and Gearbox - the final patch, 1.10, came out in 2014, 11 years after launch. The Mac OS X port, however, had far worse performance, was extremely crash-prone and had horrible network code.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: One of the more prominent theories in the fandom's early days was that Cortana had deliberately led the ''Pillar of Autumn'' to Installation 04 for her own purposes, and was at best very selective about what information she shared with Master Chief; this based on players who came in directly from ''Marathon'' expecting her to still be characterized as she was in "The Cortana Letters", and her statement to Keyes about making a "blind jump" being contradicted by ''The Fall of Reach'', where her decision was shown to be at least partially informed.

** A lot of people saw the premise of ScaryDogmaticAliens starting a war against heroic Eaglelandish marines as typical TurnOfTheMillennium propaganda about UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror. Bungie countered this by pointing out that [[AnimationLeadTime the overwhelming majority of the game's development occurred]] ''before'' 9/11. However, note that no references to the Covenant being religious zealots actually show up in ''Combat Evolved'' aside from lines in the manual and a couple offhand lines that in-game that easily could've been added late in the development process. Also note that ''Literature/HaloTheFallOfReach'', which is responsible for much of the universe's backstory, was written in around ''seven'' weeks (reported as Eric Nylund's shortest deadline). That's from a full week after 9/11, to the day the novel was released. ''Halo 2'' muddies this even further, as it dives deeper into the Covenant viewpoint and amalgamates them into more of a hybrid Catholic/extremist Islam-style theocracy.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The Season 7 update to the ''Master Chief Collection'' restored and corrected several of the graphical effects that had been removed or altered starting with the original Gearbox PC port (which served as the basis for all subsequent ports), finally giving players the ability to enjoy the full ''Halo'' experience without having to drag out their old original Xboxes.

** When it comes to multiplayer maps, Blood Gulch is this without a doubt. ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' aside, its layout makes it the perfect level to have hectic Big Team Battles.
* BreatherLevel: The first half of 343 Guilty Spark, which focuses more on atmosphere than being challenging. The only enemies faced are small groups of Grunts and Jackals who will even ignore you occasionally. Of course, [[GenreShift this all changes once you discover the Flood]]. Even then, however, the Flood and their various gimmicks[[note]]Infection Forms, Elite Combat Forms, Human Combat Forms, Flood with weaponry[[/note]] are gradually introduced to the player to give them time to adjust to fighting this new enemy until they finally get out of the compund.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Aside from not having a "final boss" to fight, the game's ending EscapeSequence is actually fairly easy, assuming you're already well-accustomed to the Warthog's awkward driving physics. Even if you crash a few times, you can still complete the run with minutes to spare, and [=Legendary=] only bumps down the timer one minute. Of course, part of the problem with the design is that you can rush past the in-game scripted event of [[spoiler:Foehammer being shot down]] without losing the time you were expected to stay.

* BestLevelEver: The aptly-named second level, Silent Cartographer, Assault on the Control Room and The Maw are recognize as some of the most iconic levels in the series:

** It's somewhat debated over ''how'' much The windows port averts this; graphics, textures and level geometry were downgraded, particularly in bumpmapping, which was extensively used to give surfaces detail, being broken in the port (so that it only actually shows up if you shine your flashlight on it), the Plasma weapons weren't capable of stun-locking players as effectively, and there's no co-op function, but it was the first version of the game to include online multiplayer, including a demo that people are ''still'' playing ''nearly'' two decades on, and the later release of a "Custom Edition" added proper mod support. The Mac OS X port, however, had far worse performance, was extremely crash-prone and had horrible network code.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: While still a largely despised character, 343 Guilty Spark could be perceived as something of a ''tragic'' character, thanks to the Terminals of ''Anniversary''. [[spoiler: His eventual redemption in ''Halo: Renegades'' cements this even further.]]

* ShockingSwerve: The game goes from a fairly standard first-person shooter where it's one super soldier fighting a ton of aliens...then the Flood show up and the game turns into a partial survival horror title.

* GenreTurningPoint: ''Halo'' is widely considered to have modernized the FPS genre, influencing pretty much every shooter made after it. It was so influential that contemporary shooters were often labeled as a "''Halo'' killer", being seen as direct competition to it.

** The Needler in the multiplayer. Think of it as the Gauntlet in ''VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena''. While the Needler in the Campaign is a whole different weapon, since while despite its slow projectiles are still able to connect with an Elite's body, emptying an entire magazine at a player who makes a minimal effort to strafe will result in none of the needles hitting their target.

* MemeticMutation:
** "This cave is not a natural formation."[[note]]Cortana [[CaptainObvious describing]] a clearly metallic Forerunner tunnel to the Master Chief in "Halo". According to WordOfGod the dialogue was from when the tunnels looked more natural.[[/note]]