There's something funny about that third door…

Posted March 7th 2025

What I describe and elaborate on here is a trick I saw in an old tricks list, 'Halo Tricks, Secrets, and Glitches' version 1.4.4 by Kyle Barr. Beyond that, I don't know its origin. I've taken the liberty of giving it a name though, as I expect to be making multiple uses of it in the future. That's the main thing as far as I'm concerned. It's not just a curiosity, it's useful.

The trick

After going through two doors at the start of the level, you come to the outer door. A few covies will already have already spawned on the other side, namely an Elite and a Jackal, unless you're on Legendary in which case things double up. When you press X at the control panel you'll see brief animation. When it stops, quickly press X again. The door will open, and if you've succeeded with the trick (there's some randomness involved), you'll find that no Grunts have spawned. But also, no covies will spawn beyond either. You have the place to yourself!

Although the Banshee is present and useable, you'll find the first generator absent (there's no light or anything; see later pic), and you have no nav-point for it either. It can't be destroyed and you won't be able to proceed to the rest of the level yet.

Might need retries

Based on my testing, there's actually some randomness involved, so even if your second press comes very fast after the animation stops, you may still fail, while on the other hand even if it comes rather slowly, you may still succeed. So it's a case of at least attempting to be fast, and retrying the procedure if needed. When I did some testing, my own success rate was 44% for example.

In regard to retries, it's handy that there was a checkpoint triggered when you came through the previous door (which you could even delay with jumping until standing at the panel). However, bear in mind that if the first covie group you met (an Elite plus Grunts) has been wiped out, your use of the panel will trigger a fresh checkpoint if the trick fails (though not otherwise). To avoid getting such a checkpoint, which would prevent you being able to revert for a retry, just do some checkpoint delaying action until you can check how things have gone. Doing two jumps will give a long enough delay before enemy threat takes over.

If Grunts spawn, that means you failed; things have instead gone as normal. But actually you don't have to wait to see them. You can check for Grunt presence quicker by firing a weapon and watching your tracker. With Grunts present you'll see a lot of tracker dots in reaction, as opposed to only a few. Another early tell-tale would be if you catch the sound of clip-clopping Grunt footsteps, which sometimes you might.

Resuming normal play

To resume normal play (or relatively normal play), go to the panel and press X again. Grunts will finally spawn near the door. As long as the first covie group (mentioned earlier) has been wiped out, a checkpoint will be triggered with this spawning, and despite the nearby Grunts, you'll be able to get it by hiding behind the nearby stationary shield for example.

If you're on foot, things will typically be close to normal from here on, although some checkpoints may've been triggered already, depending on where you went earlier.

In the Banshee however, which you obviously weren't expected to have, it's possible to initially avoid triggering the generator prompt "Destroy Pulse Generator #1" (which on foot would occur a short way past the door), in which case no further covies will spawn yet. You need that trigger first. To destroy the generator, you'll then also need to get close enough to ground level to trigger that potential. Cortana will say "Good, let's get moving" and a checkpoint will trigger (which in normal play gets triggered by boarding). Of course, that checkpoint may get delayed by enemy threat.

More on the anti-spawn phase

Here's more detail on how things will be after doing the trick, and before normal play has been resumed.

Checkpoints will trigger as normal when you advance and go down the structure. There are three of those, the first being just nearby as you get past the line of purple containers.

Boarding the Banshee does not trigger a checkpoint however (normally it would have), and on Normal and Easy you don't get the annoying interruption for flying instructions (not yet anyway). If you fly up to check out the generator, the usual two checkpoints trigger; one in the entry passage and one as you come back out.

The UNSC supplies are in their usual two places. In the tower there's a sniper rifle, pistol, pistol & shotty ammo, frags and a medkit. Down near the snow there's a rocket launcher, spare rockets and a medkit.

No Cortana lines are triggered, and there's no prompt for destroying the first generator. These things can only come after resuming normal play.

Speed decrease method

Instead of the reactive way of working the panel, in which you do a second press in reaction to the animation stopping, there's an alternative I came up with. In this 'speed decrease method' you repeatedly press X, initially at a rate too high for the door to open at all, but then gradually slowing your rate, so the intervals between presses slowly grow. At some point there's just enough of an interval that the door opens. Maybe you've succeeded (no Grunts), maybe you haven't.

Using this method I measured my success rate as 76%, compared with only 44% when using the reaction method (note: in each case I did the method 50 times). Why so much greater? I assume it's because in opening the door, the interval between the two presses that mattered was generally shorter than if I'd been doing things by reaction. It's like simulating someone with better reaction time than myself.

On the minus side however, the method takes longer per try and you need a bit of care gradually slowing your rate. So I'm not actually inclined to use it. But it could be useful for anyone who has trouble reacting fast enough at all.

Using the trick

Thanks to the lack of spawning, you're free to make some changes before resuming normal play, and that can result in some novel fun. Getting armed with the rocket launcher is one obvious idea there. In normal play you wouldn't have the launcher until near the snow, but now you'll be able to blast your way down with it!

Equally obvious, you could reposition the Banshee, e.g. so that when you get near the bottom it's in a handier place. Of you could even tackle the whole pyramid descent using it.

And then there's the Wraith. You could reposition that (push it with the Banshee), or you could disable it, either by destroying it or merely flipping it over (ram it from behind with the Banshee). Bear in mind that if you disable it, the intended pilot will still spawn, but this time he'll remain on foot. His death will cause the music to fade out.

I expect to use the trick in some future exploits, including elaborations on some of the ideas just listed, so watch out for that!

A few thoughts

It seems odd that the panel reacts to a second press at all, given that the previous panels you used do not. Why would that be?

As for why the second press can cause spawning to be suspended, that too is quite mysterious. If a second press is done right after the first, the door doesn't open at all; so in that case it seems like the second press merely cancels the opening of the door. Was that an intended functionality? The only justification I can think of for that, is that maybe Bungie was allowing you the luxury of changing your mind so you could first go back to take advantage of dropped weapons or grenades. But I doubt it. I suspect that cancellation was unintended, just like the anti-spawn condition was.

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