Sandworm

This article is based on canon information, but the article's title is conjectural and/or uses descriptions as the title, as there is currently no official name for the subject.

Sandworm
Sociocultural information
Homeworld:	Meridian

The sandworm is a massive creature living underneath the surface of the human outer colony of Meridian. The sandworm seemingly survived the Covenant's glassing of Meridian in 2551. Despite Free Frontier Education's The History of Meridian claiming the Battle of Meridian killed all life on the moon, the animal was known to be simulated aboard the UNSC Infinity for War Games.

Easter egg walkthrough

The sandworm is only visible as an Easter egg on the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer map The Rig. To activate the Easter egg, a player needs to ground pound a platform above the hole in the middle of the map, which will cause two canisters to come out of silos. When the canisters are shot, a sandworm will come screeching out of the sand and swallow a distant rig.

Production notes

The sandworm is a reference to the science fiction series Dune, specifically the sandworms which roam the desert planet Arrakis and are known to devour mobile mining rigs whole.

The Sandworm was implemented by The Rig level designer Adrian Bedoya and artist Shon Mitchell. The easter egg was concieved of by Bedoya due to his personal hobby of sculpting creatures in Zbrush, leading to him wanting to put a creature in-game somehow. Bedoya spent a few evenings out-of-work sculpting the Sandworm in his own time, before handing it to Mitchell who handled the animations, VFX, and in-game implementation.

Gallery

• 

  The sandworm devouring a rig

• 

  The worm displays its massive size

• 

  A render of the raw high-poly sculpt of the worm.

• 

  A render of the raw high-poly sculpt of the worm.

• 

  Model render of the sandworm

List of appearances

• Halo 5: Guardians (First appearance)