Halo Wars is supposed to be a prequel to Halo but how can that be when in the preview the marines are using battle rifles and the spartans have the Mjolnir mark 6 armor ?

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narcogen's picture

You're a little late as this issue has been discussed to death.

The short answer is "because".

Halo Wars takes place decades before Halo 1. Maybe Ensemble will explain the inconsistencies like the BR, and maybe they won't.


Rampant for over se7en years.


Rampant for over se7en years.



spartan 691's picture

In reply to: Welcome to the party

oh well im new so

Anonymous's picture

They aren't wearing Mark VI armor, if you pay more attention to the detail you will see the difference, it is a lot more primitive than the Mark VI. Also, we don't know how long the BR has been available, the Master Chief didn't get one until he got back to Earth space.
spartan 691's picture

In reply to: They aren't wearing Mark VI

Actually we do know how long the battle rifle has been active beacause in the book the first strike master chief and another group of spartans find a hidden locker of expiremental weapons on reach by reading a top secret file and one of them was the battle rifle so it was shortly after Halo 1 that the battle rifle was put into service

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Battle rifle

The reference in First Strike certainly supports that conclusion, but it is not inescapable. The guns are wrapped in plastic and referred to as "new". That can mean "new" as in "a new design" or "new" as in "never been fired, and only dropped once".


Rampant for over se7en years.


Rampant for over se7en years.



spartan 691's picture

In reply to: First Strike

Narcogen I see what your saying but if you remember when the spartans hold the "new" pistols they make it seem like thev'e never seen the pistols before beacause they say that it's bulkier and that it can cause more damage than ones that they were currently being issued.

Anonymous's picture

I agree with the battle rife comments. The battle rifle should not be in service until the Battle of Reach at the earliest, however may I point out that the Spartans are NOT wearing Mark VI armour, it is the old Mark IV armour. This has no shields and has a large shoulder plate for added protection. This is easily visible in the shot of Spartan Group Omega in the Halo Wars trailer, were the Mjolnir suit is a)bulkier than normal and b)has the heavily armoured shoulder plate. DudQuitter
spartan 691's picture

In reply to: Halo wars prequel

ok see I didn't really pay attention to the armor but more to the helmet and I noticed that these Spartans had the same design on there visor as the master chief in halo 2 and they had a different vent type thing at the bottom of there helment but ok good eye I see what your talking about now.

Anonymous's picture

In reply to: Halo wars prequel
The Battle for Reach takes place before Halo 1. aka Halo Wars. Thus, the Battle Rifle makes perfect sense. They are wearing Mark 4 I believe, not mark 6. And yes, this topic is dead, I know. Just saying.
narcogen's picture

In reply to: Battle of Reach

[quote=Anonymous]The Battle for Reach takes place before Halo 1. aka Halo Wars. Thus, the Battle Rifle makes perfect sense. They are wearing Mark 4 I believe, not mark 6. And yes, this topic is dead, I know. Just saying.[/quote]

Halo Wars takes place decades before Halo 1, not days before.


Rampant for over se7en years.


Rampant for over se7en years.



spartan 691's picture

In reply to: Battle of Reach

[quote=Anonymous]The Battle for Reach takes place before Halo 1. aka Halo Wars. Thus, the Battle Rifle makes perfect sense. They are wearing Mark 4 I believe, not mark 6. And yes, this topic is dead, I know. Just saying.[/quote]

ok I see what your saying and I did eventually find out that it was mark 4, but in a technicality the battle of reach was still going on sfter halo was destroyed. It may have not had the same magnitude as when it started but when Chief returned to reach after Halo there were still marines and a small group of spartans remaining still fighting so nobody really one before Halo so you cant say the battle was over.

Anonymous's picture

In reply to: Battle of reach wasn't over

i would like to thank you all for explaning the differences in the armour to the new-comer or whatever they were. when i first saw the remark about the armour i was ready to bust some heads, but now i'm content to just think about it. that is all

Anonymous's picture

In reply to: Halo wars prequel

[quote=Anonymous]I agree with the battle rife comments. The battle rifle should not be in service until the Battle of Reach at the earliest, however may I point out that the Spartans are NOT wearing Mark VI armour, it is the old Mark IV armour. This has no shields and has a large shoulder plate for added protection. This is easily visible in the shot of Spartan Group Omega in the Halo Wars trailer, were the Mjolnir suit is a)bulkier than normal and b)has the heavily armoured shoulder plate.
DudQuitter[/quote]

i know what ur talking about but they are wearing mark 4 armour and the battle rifle was invented in 2525 5 to 10 years before halo wars is set in.

Anonymous's picture

The armor is Mark IV armor and in the Joseph Staten Halo Novel: "Contact: Harvest" it talks about how when Sgt. Johnson was a regular sargent in the Marines, they were using the battle rifle, the hornet, and the SMGs. I can say this makes since because Joseph Staten is actually an employee of Bungie and worked on all three Halo projects as a script writer.

narcogen's picture

In reply to: Re: Is Halo Wars really a prequel ?

[quote=Anonymous]The armor is Mark IV armor and in the Joseph Staten Halo Novel: "Contact: Harvest" it talks about how when Sgt. Johnson was a regular sargent in the Marines, they were using the battle rifle, the hornet, and the SMGs. I can say this makes since because Joseph Staten is actually an employee of Bungie and worked on all three Halo projects as a script writer.[/quote]

Well, let's be fair here. There's hardly a more definitive source than Staten, but it's hard to conclude that they've done anything here except hang Eric Nylund out to dry for putting the phrase "new weapons" in a description of the battle rifle-- Fred and Will pull models out of plastic wrappers during First Strike.

First Strike occurs between Halo 1 and Halo 2. The logical conclusion to make was that the weapon was new-- the battle rifle does not appear in Halo 1, and suddenly appears in Halo 2. Nylund I think logically concluded the weapon might be a new design and wrote it into the novel in a way that suggests this, without definitively stating it, just in case something changed. Bungie either never objected to that wording or never had an opportunity to object, and the rest is history.

Next you get Ensemble putting battle rifles into the hands of marines and Spartans nearly twenty years earlier, making Nylund look like a fool-- when all he was really trying to do was flesh the story out as fully and logically as possible.

Basically I'd guess Ensemble wanted a recognizable "Halo" weapon. They didn't want H1's AR, and they didn't want to make their own. So the canon is stuck with it. Staten understandably writes BRs into Contact Harvest to cover for Ensemble and Nylund. The only remaining conclusion to make is that Nylund's phrase is intended to mean these individual weapons are new (therefore wrapped in plastic) and not actually a new model. That's an entirely fair interpretation, but probably the second most likely if it were not for the other conflicting evidence.

Let's face it, guys-- these stories don't emerge fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. Lots of people are involved over a long period of time, and the details don't always mesh-- and making them mesh is often secondary to other concerns. Like having a kick-ass gun in an otherwise lackluster strategy game trailer.

Oops, did I say that out loud?


Rampant for over se7en years.


Rampant for over se7en years.



Anonymous's picture

It looks like a mix of Security pauldrons, a more squarish mark 6, and a mark 5 helmet to me.