WEEKLY CHALLENGE
EXODUS: LASO
Type: Completion
Setting: Campaign
Difficulty: Hard
Time: 90 to 180 minutes
Value: ★★★★
Reward: 15000
Complete Exodus on Legendary with All Skulls On (LASO).
NEW WEEKLY CHALLENGE!
So, while it’s true that the game amps up the difficulty for more players in Co-op mode, you’ll want the three more guns at your side; otherwise, it’ll just be a very long day of level Reloads.
OK then. The mission’s much too long for a detailed walkthrough here, so we’re going to turn the microphone over to the Mythic Master — the jacket-strapped lunatic who invented the SLASO runs, Tyrant himself — and his in-depth guide posted on Halo.Bungie.Org, where the HRD Challenge Report written by Associate Editor Foxman FX appears each day.
Meanwhile, we’ll repeat some of our standard strategies to keep in mind for Legendary difficulty no matter what part of the campaign:
- On Legendary, Reach becomes an almost entirely different game; rather than the run-and-gun, blaze-of-glory style you enjoyed on Normal, Legendary relies much more on strategy than sheer skill. Your kung fu may be strong, but you won’t be able to ninja your way out of a Legendary plasma shitstorm.
- Since the Iron Skull will force the entire team back to a Checkpoint after a single player death, you’ll also need to play even more defensively— stealthy when possible, and get-the-fuck-out when necessary. If you think you’ve just done something that would make an awesome kick-ass clip for your File Share, you’re probably not doing this right.
- In almost every situation, look to bypass encounters entirely. You’re not working toward a Campaign score, so no need to take out every enemy — or, actually, any enemy — if you can skip them. (After all, Reach will get glassed anyway, yeah?)
- To do this, keep an eye out for perimeter runs along the outskirts of hot zones — not only will natural cover help you slip past Covies more easily, but they’ll be shooting only from one or two directions; get caught in a crossfire on Legendary and you might as well go grab a sandwich while your game Restarts.
- When you can’t bypass enemies, keep a distance/headshot weapon handy for taking them out at range. Use the level’s geography to find positions that offer clean lines of sight for precision kills before the enemy AI even figures out where you are.
- Effectively skipping one encounter can even bypass the encounter that comes after it, since enemy and vehicle drops often coincide with combat progress; you might find a subsequent battleground entirely empty, since the Covies will have only begun their landing sequence while you’re already getting the hell out of Dodge.
- If it looks like the designers want you to engage a major battle from an obvious point of attack, DON’T. The obvious attack points are for NORMAL difficulty. You’ll want another way in, or around, taking out an objective from afar or skipping a firefight entirely.
Whew! Quite a lot to keep in mind. To help you out, here’s a video walkthrough — done SOLO, and with the Blind Skull on too — that’s a bit long (almost 45 minutes) but well worth the watch if you get frustrated.
GOOD LUCK!