As the darkest Halo game of all time, Reach has yards of moments that will haunt your nightmares long after you've completed the campaign.
- You haven't seen a Hunter in action until you've seen a pair use those damn Assault Cannons (essentially semi-auto high-explosive rocket launchers with Bottomless Magazines) to wipe out more than 15 friendly Marines in less than 10 seconds during "Tip of the Spear" in Halo: Reach note . You duck behind a rock, reload your assault rifle, and when you come back into action, every last Marine which just got dropped from that Pelican is gone in a horrible subversion of The Cavalry.
- Picture yourself having survived long enough during "Tip of the Spear" that you manage to be a part of the retreat after Noble Team successfully deactivated the shielding protecting one of the Covenant's spires. You hear the news of the UNSC Grafton approaching in lower atmosphere and witness the frigate fire its MAC gun, completely decimating the spire. Just as you and your squad begin to celebrate a hard fought victory, the bridge of the Grafton is instantly vaporized and the rest of it comes crashing down. Its then you see a massive Covenant Supercarrier note emerge from invisibility and you realize the invasion is far from over.
- This game introduces a new piece of wildlife called the Gúta that could give the Flood a run for its money. Think of a Deathclaw but with elongated features. They are actually capable of killing entire squads of Elites, which are still feared at this point. The kicker? You encounter these things at night.
- The entire Covenant invasion on Reach. You're just sitting in your house watching TV or scrolling through a TV Tropes page when suddenly, you start hearing random explosions outside your house. You go to open your door and you see a Wraith launching plasma mortars at you! Anyone who has played Halo: Combat Evolved doesn't need to play Halo Reach to know what the Covenant are really capable of, but you never actually know the full extent of the invasion until you play Halo Reach, which shows just how cruel and genocidal the Covenant really are. There are also very few comical moments in the campaign, so you're practically playing one of the most depressing halo games of the entire franchise.
- The Lone Wolf campaign mission makes the invasion even more terrifying seeing as the player's character gets attacked by nearly every covenant within the vicinity. Not only that, but Noble Six never really lives to see the outcome of his/her selflessness.
- Look closely at the background during the mission where you're flying around New Alexandria's skyscrapers rescuing people and destroying signal jammers. While you're desperately trying to reestablish a link to command and save the few people remaining, the Covenant is systematically glassing the entire city around you. Every couple of minutes the ships overhead fire their main guns, and more and more of the city is reduced to melted, burning ruins. By the end of the mission almost the entire horizon is glowing a fierce red. In the next mission, and for the rest of the game, the once-beautiful, vibrant planet is an ashen hellscape utterly devoid of living plants or animal life.
- The level "The Package", a Remixed Level of "ONI Sword Base", is set in the Covenant-occupied Sword Base and the vicinity. It's now an ash-choked landscape seemingly stuck in a perpetual twilight, utterly deserted by the UNSC, and the vast air force base you could see off in the distance in the previous level is now a molten field of lava.
- Nightfall
, especially the first part with the Drone of Dread. The second part sounds a lot like Resident Evil music. - The Covenant. The Grunts are still cowardly who run, the Brutes are still savages, the Elites are still sword-wielding samurai aliens, and the Jackals are still moving cover, but there's something about the redesign with the Covenant species that makes you seem...puny. It's almost like you're finally realizing that the Covenant are more than just bumbling comical armies. Hell, the Elite that roars at Six in WINTER CONTINGENCY; the Elites did not have those menacing teeth at Alpha Halo or the Ark!
- (long beat) Slipspace Rupture Detected. Slipspace Rupture Detected. Slipspace Rupture Detected. Slipspace Rupture Detected. Slipspace Rupture Detected. Slipspace Rupture Detected. Slipspace Rupture Detected... The Covenant Fleet of Particular Justice, some ''60'' ships strong, has arrived.
- Imagine Noble Six's last stand from the perspective of the Covenant for a moment. The game's version of events is variable, and it's difficult to last all that long without exploits, but the novel makes it more explicit that Noble Six did not go quiet. Envision one man going up against an army of thousands, complete with tank and airship support bombarding his position, and despite those unrelenting odds the single soldier keeps the enemy at bay for hours. Even when Noble Six is finally cornered and overrun, he fights ferociously like a lion, killing or critically injuring multiple Elites that fight him at close range. Some of the Spartan's punches flat out demolish the energy shields of his foes, and right before the final blow is delivered (the cutscene pans away before we see the energy sword hit Noble Six) a grounded Noble lands a punch on an Elite that kills the alien outright. All of that bloodshed over a strategically unimportant outpost, and they only had to waste an army to conquer it. Listening to the Covenant high command try to make sense of how the hell one soldier did that much damage is a fly on the wall moment if there ever was one. It's hard to imagine that Noble 6 wouldn't be the stuff of the Covenant's nightmares, and his final resistance against them would serve as a grim reminder of why the Covenant call the Spartans "demons".note
- Venturing off into speculation a bit, notice how during the final scene of the Lone Wolf mission, there's only a handful of Covenant troops in the immediate area. If the battle was really as epic as the novel implies, then where are all the aliens that should be in view? Is it perhaps that Noble Six had killed so many of them, that the aliens that finally cornered and killed him were all that was left? Or perhaps the Covenant forces nearby were afraid of Noble Six, and were keeping their distance from him, with the Elites that cornered him being the only ones brave enough to get in close. Keep in mind that Elites are promoted for how high their kill count is, meaning that only the most experienced reach the equivlanet of General... and sure enough the Elites who corner Noble Six are all high ranked. This of course makes it all the more impressive that one man managed to put up so much resistance, and make them fight tooth and nail for their kill.
