Halo: Reach Video Games Awards Trailer

The Halo: Reach Video Games Awards Trailer originally aired on Spike TV's Video Game Awards on December 12, 2009, and gave the first look at the graphics and characters of Halo: Reach.

The trailer is a modified version of the opening cinematic of the game's first campaign level, Noble Actual.

Transcript

From first-person view: Noble Six stares into the visor of a Mark V[B]helmet, before turning it around and putting it on.

Zoom out to the Troop Transport Warthog Noble Six is riding in, on the surface of Reach, towards an outpost/camp, and two UH-144 Falcons flying in above the Warthog.

Both Falcons land in the camp, and the Warthog pulls to a stop. Noble Six gets out of the Warthog, and moves towards a building. Jun-A266 watches while placing rounds into a magazine. Noble Six reaches the door, and stares at Emile-A239 sharpening a combat knife against his shoulder pauldron, and attempts to enter, before being stopped by Catherine-B320.

• Lieutenant Commander Catherine-B320: (To Carter) "Commander."

Carter-A259, without his helmet, looks up, and Jorge-052, in full gear, turns to look at Noble Six, who takes several steps inside the building.

• Radio: "WINTER CONTINGENCY has been declared, all units are mobilized and ready."

• Chief Warrant Officer Jorge-052: "Didn't think anybody survived Pegasi, sir."

• Commander Carter-A259: "Spartans never die, Jorge. They're just Missing in Action."

Carter starts walking towards the door and puts his helmet on, and all the SPARTANs turn to exit the building.

Cut to the SPARTANs exiting the building, with Noble Six next to Carter, with Kat, Emile (who sheathes his knife), and Jorge walking side by side in front of them, towards the Falcon.

• Carter-A259: "I read your file, Lieutenant. Even the parts ONI didn't want me to."

The SPARTANs reach the activating Falcon, with the other three moving to one offscreen, and Noble Six and Carter getting into the one guarded by Jun.

• Carter-A259: "I'm glad to have your skill set, but you can leave that lone-wolf stuff behind."

• Warrant Officer Jun-A266: "This our new number six?"

• Carter-A259: "Affirmative."

• Jun-A266: "You picked a hell of a day to join up!"

Carter signals for the Falcon to get airborne and the tiltrotors take off, moving into the horizon.

• Kat-B320 (COM): "This is Sierra three-two-zero. Noble Team is airborne and prepped for combat insertion."

As the Falcons move into the distance, a colossal plasma explosion erupts from the sky, revealing the shadow of a Ket-pattern battlecruiser looming in the clouds overhead. A static charge flies across the sky, and the scene whites out, fading in to the Halo: Reach logo floating above the titular planet's glassed surface.

Cut to a dark room, with Human blood on the floor, illuminated by an activating Energy Sword. There is a growl, then the camera turns towards a blue-armored Sangheili who looks up at the screen and snarls, baring its teeth. The Bungie and Microsoft logos then appear with Reach in the background.

Differences from the final game

• The trailer's graphics are slightly higher rendered on some of the surfaces, including helmets, armors, and vehicles. There is also no blurring present, though these changes may have been to accommodate the final game's entire resources.
• Noble Six is wearing a UA attachment and FJ/PARA knees, both of which are not default in the final game.
• Jun has his helmet on while first seen in the seat of the Falcon in the trailer, and his lines in the trailer have been changed on the final game merely to "Welcome to Reach", though the old ones may occasionally appear randomly during gameplay.
• Emile-A239 does not speak in the trailer.
• Kat has lost her line while aboard the Falcon at the end of the trailer and gained a new one in response to Emile.
• Carter's head is shaven in the trailer, has more visible stubble around the jaw, and is lighter in skin tone versus the final game.
• Colonel Urban Holland in the trailer is nowhere to be seen or heard.
• Noble Team's objective in the trailer is implied to be helping out in the main battle, while in the final version, it is to head to the Visegrad Relay in search of Insurrectionist activity.
• Jorge-052 has his helmet on, is standing, and in the final game his brief dialogue with Carter over Six's possible survival from Beta Company's annihilation at Operation: TORPEDO has been removed, likely because canonically Kat too was also a survivor of Beta and neither she nor Six ever took part in TORPEDO.
• Noble Six does not speak in the trailer and is set as male gender.
• Carter's dialogue with Six is slightly shorter than in the final game, and discusses nothing about the rest of Noble Team or of Six's predecessor Thom-293.
• The orbital glassing at the end of the trailer does not occur in Noble Actual, and indeed it is over two months before any glassing will occur at all.
• The trailer's chronology along with the Announcement Trailer is placed just at the beginning of the Fall of Reach, though in Noble Actual, the Fall of Reach has not yet begun.

Trivia

• The number 7 can be seen in the sky near the end of the trailer just as the Ket Battlecruiser is revealed.
• A longer version of the trailer was released in Bungie.net's Halo: Reach Multimedia page after the game was released.
• Kat's final line of the trailer mimics a similar line spoken in the Halo: Reach announcement trailer.