Master Chief and his AI companion Cortana have been trying to take down the cosmic zealots hell-bent on conquering our galaxy with their enigmatic (and MASSIVE) ringworld constructs dubbed Halos for almost two decades. Since then, our dynamic couple and their fellow Spartans have gone through a lot, including a startling heel turn that would put Hollywood Hogan to shame.
Halo’s spectacular ascension to gaming’s Mt. Rushmore is the result of its gameplay and storyline aspects merging into a brain-melting cocktail of eldritch Armageddon that attempts to provide the player an immersive experience like no other. We believe they were successful based on the sales data for Halo: Infinite. Picking up your controller and disappearing into 26th-century space, murdering aliens with plasma grenades and good old ARs, is a strangely pleasant experience.
And, thanks to developments in gaming technology, Halo’s gameplay aspects have progressed flawlessly, bringing new, more dynamic (and gore-satisfying) death ways while never straying from the Golden Triangle, which is at the heart of every Halo game: weapons-grenades-melee. The villains, on the other hand, are what keep our boxes ticking.
Although our mostly-silent Spartans (cue 300 GIF) are intrinsically tied to Halo’s legacy, it is the Lovecraftian menace of cosmic monsters consuming you and your universe that drives you to action. Some of them are savage, while others are more subtle, but it does not matter; they are all terrible in their own way. Let us get to know these wacky creatures: here are the Top 13 Halo Monsters, as discovered.
Gravemind
Frank Herbert is one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time, and his Dune saga is seminal to the genre, but we’re pretty sure that the Gravemind edges out Leto II (Lee-tow the Second) in the omniscient-threat-to-the-universe competition. It is a sentient, organic hive mind that rules over the creatures spawned by the parasitic precursor plague known as the Flood.
Hundreds of thousands of organic biomasses- human and Flood-infected- accumulated over countless years gave rise to this grotesque monstrosity, whose single mission in life is to assimilate all life-forms in a galaxy, and then move on to another to repeat the process until the entire universe becomes droplets in the waking nightmare of the Flood infestation.
Players couldn’t immediately make out its corporeal form when it was first introduced in Halo 2, but perhaps that was for the best; this thing looks like the literal manifestation of our collective nightmares. The Gravemind appears as a sandworm-like entity, capable of shooting out tentacles to ensnare targets that are miles away.
It acts as a Flood-generating factory, exhaling Flood spores which spread like wildfire throughout Installation 05 and quickly take over any sentient life forms they encounter. The Gravemind is highly-intelligent as well; its name is an allusion to the fact that it has assimilated so many living beings into itself that it is a literal “mind of the grave”.
Its consciousness compiles the intelligence and memories of every Flood host ever consumed, giving it such a grasp over unfolding events that it can accurately predict the future, making it seem prescient. But what makes it such an existential threat is the fact that the Gravemind is an organic artificial intelligence system capable of operating & combatting the most-advanced forms of technology depicted in the entire franchise, even imprisoning Cortana at one point.
You will never fight this guy head-on, but he will toy with you for two full titles and make you squirm with every meeting, whether it’s the mind-warping appearance or its menacingly calm demeanor; (cue Gravemind dialogue) “This is not your grave, but you are welcome in it”.
Prophet of Truth
The San-Shyuum has a choke-hold on the Covenant’s technological progress and religiosity, being the species that discovered their Gods and their gifts. As such, they are central to the Covenant’s faith and society, and their leaders are often thought of as the heralds from their divine. Ord Caston was a low-level junior staffer in the Covenant’s Ministry when he started his career; within a few years, he was able to trick, outwit and outright manipulate his way to the top leading position in the alien alliance, becoming its de facto leader.
As the Prophet of Truth, he became a living manifestation of greed, dogma, and ever-lasting thirst for power, leading the Covenant in a holy war against mankind; a war he started to fulfill his ambition of breaking the galaxy and re-emerging as its “New God”. Visually, he isn’t all that threatening: think hunched over, loose-skinned E.T with a massive Cerebro-Esque helm. It’s his silent power that makes him so terrifying.
The San-Shyuum and the Sangheili were bitter enemies before the former encountered Forerunner technology and forged an alliance with the latter to exploit it to its fullest extent and transcend on “The Great Journey” (much like Leto’s Golden Path). But the divergence between divine leadership and fanatical tyranny lies in choice, and Ord Caston chose to forego his Gods’ direction.
The Forerunners’ Oracle revealed to him that they intended humanity to be their successors; Caston chose to take that position for himself. The original Halo trinity centers around this choice, which saw his plan to usurp the cosmic throne of power, come into motion: he launched a war against humanity and replaced the Sangheili Elites with Jiralhanae Brutes as the protective guard of the Prophets, marking his species’ ancient enemy for genocide in essence.
If everything worked out according to plan, the Flood would be contained, mankind would be vanquished, and the Jiralhanae would cease to pose a threat to his rule. Mercifully, that came to an end when the Arbiter impaled Truth in Halo 3 with one of the coolest kill-lines in gaming history; (cue Prophet of Truth death scene) “I am Truth! The voice of the Covenant!”, “And so, you must be silenced”; chills.
Atriox
Atriox is like Halo’s Darkseid: cold, calculating, brutal, and utterly driven by the sole purpose of wielding power. When the Covenant fell, there was chaos; different species splintered off from the lost empire and migrated to other galaxies and solar systems to sustain themselves. Out of the ashes rose Atriox; a wrongfully-disgraced Jiralhanae warrior who leads his band of Banished men across the Sol system accumulating power by any and all means.
He has the typical appearance of the Jiralhanae: a hulking, apish figure rippled with muscle, covered in custom-picked armor pieces and donning some rather rad beard-braids. But even amongst his insanely-powerful Brute brethren, Atriox was always a cut above; vicious, cunning and a brilliant strategist making him a deadly warrior and the skilled war master. He isn’t above using unconventional means to meet his ends, or deploying tried-and-tested tactics multiple times to great effect, and holds an extremely pragmatic view of the battlefield.
This detachment allows him to concoct the ideal plan of action that will guarantee his success; and his success is measured in raids, with Atriox quickly becoming one of the most-feared intergalactic pirate lords in existence. Even his weapon oozes menace & bloodlust. Chainbreaker- a modified Type-2 Gravity Hammer- is gonna be the last thing you will ever see if Atriox breaks it out (just ask some crew members of the Spirit of Fire).
It is capable of generating three energy-based blades which glow red and can cut through basically anything. All you can do is try to resist and fail, as Chainbreaker pulls you in for the kill. With a stranglehold on rare technology (including Forerunner tech), a fanatically-devoted army, and an absolute killing machine in his hands, Atriox is one of Halo’s best villains yet. Every time you think he’s done, he comes back with a vengeance; and if the ending of Halo Infinite is anything to go by, the next time we see him, things will get very real very quick.
The Flood
The Flood is a cosmic manifestation of the phrase, “A dying man’s curse will haunt you forever”. Thousands of millennia before Master Chief ever boarded a Halo; there was a war between the Forerunners and their predecessors (and creators): the Precursors. This conflict spanned across 3 centuries that brought this once-dominant species to the brink of extinction, or so we thought. You see, the Precursors didn’t die out; they simply morphed into an entity that is fuelled by the winds of rage.
The survivors of the Precursor race escaped to Path Kethona and transformed themselves into a fine powder, hoping to resuscitate themselves when the conditions are right. Eons of hate and humiliation corrupted their wills, however, and turned this Hail Mary fail-safe into a biological nightmare.
Simply called The Flood, this parasitic entity began invading and infecting all sentient life it encountered, mutating them into genetic freaks with tendril-like appendages and an appetite for destruction. Its guerilla tactics were so effective that the Forerunners ended up creating the Halos as a worst-case scenario; in case of a near-successful Flood infestation, they would detonate them and wipe out any trace of Flood parasites, repopulating the galaxy with the cylixes after the proverbial (and literal) dust had settled.
Things clearly didn’t go according to plan, because the Flood has been everywhere since it first appeared in Halo 2. Taking over Covenant and UN Space Command operatives alike, these alien parasites are fast, hard-hitting, and will swarm you in waves if you don’t pay attention. Flood-infected troop units have had their base attributes shot through the roof, putting you at an immediate disadvantage. If you let The Flood go unchecked, it will spawn a Proto-Gravemind sooner or later, and if you’ve been paying attention, you already know why that’s grim news.
Precursor
The only thing to outdate the Forerunners in the entire Haloverse, it makes sense that the aptly-titled Precursors would be depicted as Lovecraftian terrors. They look like ethereal, floating Cthulus: tentacles wreathing under their chins, beady eyes gazing into your very being, as their gargantuan size dwarves every structure in sight.
The Precursors wielded the Mantle of Responsibility unopposed for ages beyond count, shaping and evolving the universe to the best of their abilities. Being a Tier-0 Civilization, they were adept in all things that the Forerunners could do, and their kind was referred to as the World-Building Class.
Forerunners could control the flow of gravity, perform slip space navigation with pinpoint accuracy, create fully-sentient AIs, and manipulate the densest types of matter to entire build worlds. The Precursors could do all that and more, directly accelerating the evolution process (indicating complete control of space-time) and being able to travel across galaxies, all performed via neural physics which is the foundation of all their technology.
Fun fact: they created the Domain system that is used by the Forerunners, aka the place where Cortana’s rampage was birthed. After the Forerunner-Precursor War, all that was left of these god-like Elder Beings was their malignant willpower in the form of The Flood and a solitary Gravemind imprisoned on Charum Hakkor called The Primordial.
As the “last living Precursor”, this entity is questioned for 43 years and the secret it reveals causes the interrogating team to commit suicide. Though they’re never seen on-screen, they shaped the Haloverse, and continue to influence it well beyond their supposed extinction.
The Didact
The primary antagonist for the fourth installment in the franchise should serve as a reminder to all of us: belief is a hair’s breadth from turning into insanity. The Mantle of Responsibility is a core belief shared by all Forerunners: all life in the universe is equally-precious and must be preserved above everything else if possible.
The Didact was, by all accounts, a staunch believer who wanted to avert confrontation at all costs; despite the fact that he looked like Lord Voldemort with fangs. He was even offended by the creation of the Halos, seeing them as the ultimate WMD; a cosmic atom bomb that would wipe out all life.
Despite his expert leadership that made the Forerunner war machine unstoppable during the Forerunner-Human War, he chose to exile himself at its conclusion. So you can imagine our terror when we realized just who had taken control of the Storm Covenant, and what his plans were.
The Last Forerunner, driven insane by the Gravemind-sized threat of The Flood, had convinced himself that the Forerunners were the only ones capable of wielding the Mantle and that humans needed to be terminated for the universe to survive. He donned his bad-ass TRON Legacy-Esque armor, digitally composed his Promethean Knights, and was ready to wipe out all The Flood and Humanity when he was imprisoned by The Librarian.
Enter Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 and Cortana, who managed to release this cosmic threat and allow it to find equally-ravenous allies. Though the climactic boss-fight has to be one of the worst in Halo history, we cannot deny the fact that the looming threat of this ancient, twisted & vengeful being kept us on the edge of our chairs.
Tartarus
If a soldier’s worth is measured by their loyalty, then Tartarus is the model soldier of the Covenant. The right-hand man of the Prophet of Truth, this Jiralhanae brute is a monster even amongst his brethren; 9 feet of pure muscle and violence. Though his silver fur indicates his age, the fanged beast’s true strength is reflected in his smoldering red eyes: a conviction in the Prophets.
Tartarus is deeply-devout and loyal to a fault; an intergalactic Victarion Greyjoy, except this behemoth, likes to wield a gravity hammer and mounts Sangheili skulls on his shoulder guard. He is entirely complicit in Truth’s grand scheme to take control of the Covenant prior to embarking on the Great Journey. Of course, we know this to be a lie; Truth was going to Halo-bomb the galaxy and re-build it from scratch.
But try telling that to this beef-headed jock. Somewhat fittingly, he meets his end by the very species he was trying to depose of. Tartarus is the first monster on this list we actually get to fight in an extended battle, and what’s cooler is we’re not Master Chief anymore; you get to control the Arbiter to add a Shakespearean touch to the stand-off.
As expected from a Jiralhanae, he is extremely strong, and you definitely want to avoid his gravity hammer if you expect to survive. The best way to play this out is by pelting him with plasma bursts when he’s engaged by your team and his shield is down. Your window will be short, 2-3 seconds at most, so make those shots count. The biggest trick will be the waves of brutes with him, so keep your distance & stay on the move if you don’t want to get smashed into a pulp.
Escharum
If Atriox is Darkseid, then Escharum is his Steppenwolf; his right-hand man, and the second-in-command of the Banished. Though he was Atriox’s mentor, he was proud of serving as his student’s trusted lieutenant; that is until Atriox presumably died. Having replaced him, he oversees the Banished with an iron fist.
Where Atriox would show mercy to Banished-allied humans and other creatures, Escharum propagated views similar to Tartarus and rallied the Banished around Atriox’s holographic presence, establishing a cult of personality that let him rule from the shadows. Escharum is the penultimate boss fight in Halo Infinite, and one of the toughest challenges that Master Chief has faced in the entire franchise.
He manages to lure the Spartan by trapping Echo-216 and proceeds to the wrecked shop. Escharum’s shield is connected to an energy field that makes Echo-216 feel the combat damage it absorbs, essentially torturing him.
In order to defeat him, you must disable his shield, which is only possible when you destroy the four relays powering it. Oh, and remember the Golden Triangle of Halo? You better, because one step in the wrong direction can mean instant death. Escharum is deceptively fast and will attack you with more than just his hammer, so keep your regens on the ready.
Huragok
The only other Forerunner creations to feature in the franchise, Huragoks are rather peaceful creatures, honestly. These small, tentacled creatures with six beaming eyes “fly”, thanks to their gas-filled bodies and special limbs that help facilitate movement. And before you question us, yes, it’s methane, ya filthy animals. But despite their comical logistics situation, the Huragoks are exceptionally-good at repairing machines, which earned them the nickname “Engineers” from humans.
The dogma of the Covenant stated the Prophets as the harbingers of technological advancement, when in fact it was the Huragoks who helped reverse-engineer all the Forerunner tech they came across. They can split their tentacles into millions of cilia to create a special “beam” that can repair things in a matter of seconds, making them an invaluable asset for any side to have. Unfortunately for us, it’s mostly with the bad guys, where they serve as field medics, mechanics, and amplifiers alike.
They are the only thing that can heal, repair, or augment your enemy units, so taking them out first should be a priority on your list. If its attending squadron has been defeated, the Huragok will self-destruct in a last-ditch effort to cause damage. Though mostly, it will just try to get out of the way and curl up into a ball to avoid a fight; it just wants to fix things, okay?!
Warden Eternal
Another Halo title, another Forerunner gone genocidal; but at least this time, it wasn’t entirely his fault, we don’t think. The Warden Eternal was originally created as a Promethean AI designed to protect the galaxy-wide network known as The Domain. However, once Cortana makes her way to the Domain and turns heel on humanity, he becomes her thrall and second-in-command.
The Warden Eternal has a similar, supremacist attitude that was expressed by Didact, except he contends that artificial intelligence will take over the Mantle as opposed to organic life forms and sees Cortana as the one who will pave that path. As a Promethean AI, he can command identical robot avatars, which instantly brings his numbers up from 0 to anywhere over a million.
These bodies are no joke, either; 16-and-a-half feet tall, all-metal held together by a hard light, with a hard dlight blade and a skull-like “face” that can shoot laser beams and orb-like projectiles. The Warden Eternal can commandeer up to 3 bodies simultaneously, and each of them is just as strong as the other.
The only way to defeat him is to attack the slip space bubbles on his body, most notably his back. You can exploit this weakness to force it through the bubble and destroy the body. Since Halo 5 almost entirely focuses on Cortana’s descent into the dark side, you’re gonna be fighting the Warden a lot; like, at least 5 times, and sometimes with backup. So strap in; this is going to be one long playthrough for you.
Prophet of Regret
The youngest of the Trinity of High Prophets of the Covenant and perhaps the most appropriately named, the Prophet of Regret, he was the first antagonist of the Halo franchise and is very close to our hearts. In terms of appearance, he is much like the Prophet of Truth, down to the auto-defensive thrones the High Prophets occupy.
The place where they diverge is their ideology: the Prophet of Truth takes up his designation in an ironic spirit, intending to “uncover the truth” by constantly lying to his subjects. In comparison, the Prophet of Regret embodied his designation; brash, quick-to-judge, prone to vices, and filled with religious fervor that eventually ended with his namesake. In the first game, he attacked Earth knowing he only had a fraction of the Covenant’s power backing him, in a maddened charge exalting the Great Journey.
In Halo 2, you get to actually face the San-Shyuum himself, and boy does it get annoying. Even after clearing through Covenant forces like a lawnmower, you better prepare yourself for a never-ending wave of infinitely-spawning Grunts & Elites as you try to take down the hoverchair-bound Prophet.
And the only way to damage him is to physically punch him; your bullets can’t hurt him, and neither can those ever-handy plasma grenades, so you gotta deck the slugger old-school style. It usually takes 5 rounds of punches to take him down, but what makes it tricky is the fact that if you don’t move quickly, you will get swarmed by enemy units, so timing is crucial. Keep your distance, keep moving, and the time your punch sequences as well as you can.
Gek Lhar
Brutal, sadistic, and unrelenting in his pursuits, Gek Lhar used to be one of the finest Elites of the Covenant. The Sangheili were called the Elites for a reason. These Predator-Esque beings were natural warriors; strong, proud, and intelligent, as well as skilled combat tacticians which made them indispensable to the Covenant’s military exploits.
Even amongst their well-populated ranks, not much is known about him; except his unwavering loyalty and unflinching ability to commit horrific acts in the name of their Gods and Prophets. This alone made him a force to reckon with; but after becoming Jul M’Dama’s right-hand man, there was little that could stop this genocidal maniac from realizing his violent fantasies under the auspices of his Covenant.
He harbors a deep hatred for humans and was a lethal force against them during the Human-Covenant Conflict. It seems like he escaped his encounters with them with little trophies of his own; 11 dog tags (including those of SPARTANS, allegedly) that he hangs over his shoulders in a cruel display of superiority. It’s ironic that he meets his end guarding a human, as he was shot and killed by Paul DeMarco while protecting Dr. Henry Glassman on Jul’s orders.
Jul M’dama
And we end this list with perhaps the smartest Avenger (not that one) ever seen in the Halo franchise, and we’ve seen a boat-load of them. A Sangheili Elite in service of the Covenant, by the time the Human-Covenant War came around; Jul had already become disillusioned with his religion and its overarching figures.
He privately started questioning the truth about the Forerunners’ mythos, while keeping up a front of religious fanaticism. Turns out, smart move; because after the Great Schism, he used these contacts to stay hidden from the encroaching humans, who had now targeted his homeworld of Sangheilos. Unlike the Prophets, he didn’t view the humans as heretical demons; his views were harsher.
He compared humanity to The Flood: an endless, parasitic entity that is nowhere near capable enough of becoming galactic rulers but is good enough to survive any calamity. This Darwinian mirth devolved into a personal vendetta when a UNSC-led attack killed his family. Now fuelled by vengeance, Jul M’dama established his own Covenant and set out to destroy mankind for his own pleasure.
Although he displays the signs of aggression & violence that are typical of his species, Jul M’dama is an unusually-clever Sangheili. He has often tricked humans and aliens alike into divulging sensitive information to him, most-notable when he gets his Huragok escort Prone to Drift to reveal information about the Forerunners that confirms his suspicions and opens up a new possibility for him; Requiem, and the Didact hidden within.
Taking up the mantle of Supreme Commander and manipulating the customs and general knowledge of his species and the general vicinity with expert precision, Jul M’dama was successful in becoming the first Covenant member to make contact with their Gods; though ironically enough, it happened after he’d lost his faith.
He is easily the most-prolific Sangheili in the Haloverse, becoming the Didact’s Hand, rubbing shoulders with the Librarian, and even receiving the Janus Key, which is a map that displays every piece of Forerunner technology in existence. His complex, layered backstory coupled with a menacing screen presence and tragic fate makes him one of Halo’s best antagonists, to date.