Halo: Reach skulls
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
Halo: Reach skulls are gameplay-modifying difficulty-multipliers in the appearance of human skulls in Halo: Reach. Most of the skulls featured in Halo 3 are included in Halo: Reach. Just like Halo 3: ODST, skulls are no longer easter eggs in-game, and can also be accessed in the campaign menu without claiming them in campaign levels. Skulls, including the newly-introduced customizable Firefight skulls, are also present in Firefight, randomly activated on every beginning of a set. A campaign game on Legendary with all skulls activated is named "Mythic".
Campaign scoring[edit]
| Icon | Skull Name | Multiplier | Short Description |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Iron | 1.2× | In Solo play, dying reverts the player to the beginning of the level. In cooperate play, any player death reverts to the previous checkpoint. |
 |
Black Eye | 1.1x | No auto-shield regeneration. Only melee attacks cause shields to recharge. |
 |
Tough Luck | 1.1× | Grenades, Needler fire, projectiles (i.e. Rocket Launcher, concussion rifle, and Fuel Rod Cannon) and vehicular charges are evaded more skillfully by the AI. Brutes go Berserk more often and Grunts will turn Kamikaze more often. |
 |
Catch | 1.1× | NPCs throw many more grenades at an alarming rate. NPCs always drop two grenades when dying. |
 |
Cloud | 1.1× | Motion Tracker is fully disabled. |
 |
Famine | 1.2× | Dropped weapons have much less ammunition/charge. |
 |
Thunderstorm | 1.2× | All enemies are promoted to higher ranks. |
 |
Tilt | 1.2× | Enemy defensive resistances/weaknesses are amplified. |
 |
Mythic | 1.2× | All NPC's health allocation is doubled. |
 |
Blind | 1× | Player HUD and weapon model are disabled. |
 |
Grunt Birthday Party | 1× | Headshots on Grunts trigger a confetti effect and sounds of children cheering. |
 |
Cowbell | 1× | Increased acceleration from explosions. |
 |
IWHBYD | 1× | Rare dialogue becomes more common. |
Primary skulls[edit]
Iron[edit]
| “ | Co-op reverts to previous checkpoint on player death. 1P restarts mission. | ” |
The Iron skull causes the mission to restart if the player dies during the campaign for whatever reason. On campaign Cooperative Play, if even one player dies everyone is forced to revert back to the last reached checkpoint.[1] In Firefight, the skull disables respawning after the player died.
Black Eye[edit]
| “ | Shields don't recharge except from melee attacking enemies. | ” |
The Black Eye skull causes the automatic regeneration of the player's energy shields to be disabled. The only way to recharge the energy shields is to melee or perform assassination on an enemy.[1]
Tough Luck[edit]
| “ | Enemies always make every saving throw, always berserk, always dive, never flee... | ” |
Tough Luck skull causes enemies to evade vehicles, dodge grenades and heavy weapon projectiles. Unggoy would be less likely to flee and could easily turn suicidal.[1] Banshees are more likely to perform evasive maneuver when locked on by heavy weapons.
Catch[edit]
| “ | Enemies are grenade happy - 2× as often and 2× as fast. | ” |
The Catch skull causes the frequency in which AI-controlled characters throw grenades to be doubled, while also always dropping two grenades upon death.[1]
Cloud[edit]
| “ | Motion sensor disabled with this setting. | ” |
The Cloud skull is a new skull featured in Halo: Reach, replacing the Fog skull in Halo 3. Just like the Fog skull, the Cloud skull causes the player's motion tracker to be disabled.
Famine[edit]
| “ | Weapons drop 50% less ammo. | ” |
The Famine skull causes all dropped weapons' ammunition or charge to be reduced by 50%. Weapons stored in crates and Spartan Lasers are unaffected.[1]
Thunderstorm[edit]
| “ | Major upgrade to all enemies. | ” |
The Thunderstorm skull causes enemies' ranks to increase. Unggoy and Sangheili are, most if not all, promoted to Ultras, Kig-yar spawn as Majors and Snipers, Skirmishers spawning as Commandos and Champions, Yanme'e much more likely to be Majors or Ultras and Jiralhanae Captain Majors to spawn.
Tilt[edit]
| “ | Damage tables are modified. | ” |
The Tilt skull exaggerates the strengths and weaknesses of weapons. For example, the magnum is only 1/4 as effective against energy shielding, while the plasma pistol is only 2/3 as effective against health.
Mythic[edit]
| “ | Double enemy health. | ” |
The Mythic skull causes enemies to have twice as much health than they normally would.[1]
Secondary skulls[edit]
Blind[edit]
| “ | HUD and first person arms and weapon are hidden. | ” |
The Blind skull causes the player's first person HUD, including the scoring box, weapon and arms, to disappear.[1] The effect can be slightly compensated by pressing the "Back" button on the Xbox 360 controller, which gives a brief summary over the screen of the weapon and armor ability the player currently wields.
Cowbell[edit]
| “ | Acceleration scale from explosion is 3x. | ” |
Purely for comical purposes, the Cowbell skull increases physics effects three-fold. Explosions and melee attacks launch players and NPCs further than normal, but damage is not affected.[1]
Grunt Birthday Party[edit]
| “ | Grunts explode as if they were plasma grenades when they are killed with a headshot. | ” |
The Grunt Birthday Party skull causes headshots on Grunts to explode in a shower of confetti as well as producing a sound clip of children cheering. However, the confetti explosion does no damage, unlike in Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST.[1] The description is most likely a reference to the original Grunt Birthday Party skull in Halo 2, which will produce plasma grenade explosion on the Unggoy upon being shot in the head by the player.
IWHBYD[edit]
| “ | Common combat dialogue becomes less common, and vice versa. | ” |
This IWHBYD (I Would Have Been Your Daddy) skull causes rare and secret dialog to appear throughout the campaign and turns off normal dialog.[1]
Firefight custom skulls[edit]
In Firefight, there are three customizable skulls the player can have: Red, Blue, and Yellow. Each of these skulls has exactly the amount of customization ability as gametype modifications have.
The red skull icon in Firefight.
The blue skull icon in Firefight.
The yellow skull icon in Firefight.
MCC skulls[edit]
Acrophobia[edit]
This skull was made available in Halo: The Master Chief Collection in the Series 9 update.
Bandana[edit]
This skull was made available in Halo: The Master Chief Collection in the Series 9 update. It gives infinite ammo, grenades, and reduces armor abilities cooldown to zero. It also allows the player to board and kill Hunters.
Trivia[edit]
In Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the Cloud skull is renamed Fog to match the other games in the collection. When activated during a Firefight match, the on-screen text says "Fog" though the announcer still says "Cloud".
