Halo Reach Trick/Glitch - The Destroyed Science Wing

Hey guys! We’re back with a smashing Halo: Reach trick! The Destroyed Science Wing or the "Red Room" as we called it internally, is a cutscene room used for the “this cave is not a natural formation” cutscene in the middle of "The Package". This trick went through a lot of iterations before we finally got the plan nailed down. The room is surrounded by solid space, which is why this room wasn’t entered when we got down to the Noble Subway Station back in 2011. It is located inside the Abyss and is very close to the Noble Subway Station. This is one of our most complicated tricks ever completed, with many steps and meticulous setups.

To explain the context of this trick, we must first go back to a time before the abyss was even known about. Even though the same room exists on both "Oni Sword Base" and "The Package", they are not located in the same place. Previously, we were able to enter this same room on "Oni Sword Base" by just setting up a simple clip where the game would lead you to believe the room would logically be located at. When we tried the same exact method on The Package, we noticed that the room did not exist there and all that was the same room that was on Oni Sword Base; with the glass intact.This lead us to believe that, like the end mission cutscene on The Covenant and the end mission cutscene on The Package, the destroyed science wing was loaded during the cutscene itself. It was not long however that we realized that this was not the case. Well one thing led to another, and while we were experimenting with clips and the ghost inside the Swordbase itself, we accidentally clipped into the abyss and fall timed to our death. This was the first time we found the abyss and was one of the biggest "what the flying hell?!" moments to this very day. To investigate more deeply, we went into theatre mode, and figured out that this area was not just a black void, but held a huge subway track. We also noticed another room that was separated from the subway station. We knew immediately that this was the Noble Subway Cutscene Room and The Red Room. It finally clicked that the "loading done" that was on the ramp inside Swordbase right before activating the cutscene was the load that loaded the cutscene areas and the mysterious Abyss. At the time, we thought that the chances of getting into the Subway Station and the Red Room were the same. We thought wrong.

When we took a closer look, we found out there were multiple hurdles the Red Room had that were not an issue for the Subway Station. While we were investigating possible ways to get into both cutscene rooms, we noticed something strange about the Red Room that was not applicable to the Subway Station. Every time we tried to get closer to the Red Room with our freecam, our camera would teleport back to our player. This peaked our curiosity even more. We knew generally if the freecam was forced back to the player, it meant that there was a loadzone located there (unlikely in this instance) or that there was a death barrier around the perimeter of the room. So this meant that not only did we have to find a way to actually get to the room, but we had to find a way to get past that death barrier. Another problem was that the room was isolated from the playable space and the subway station. for the subway station, we were already quite close to it when we clip into the abyss via swordbase, specifically above the station.

All we had to do was find a way to survive the descent down. For the red room, it is substantially farther away from the swordbase compared with the subway station, and the only "ground" in the abyss were the floors, walls, and ceilings encompassing the swordbase. However, if we were to get inside the Subway Station, the red room would be very close next to it and importantly, at the same elevation as the subway station. The final hurdle in this mess was checkpoints. We knew that no matter what the final plan ended up being, we had to have a checkpoint. The problem with that was the original idea of getting inside the subway station required the banshee easter-egg to remove the swordbase barriers that would also effect you in the abyss, therefore preventing you from performing the triple headjump to the subway station. Consequentially this meant that checkpoints would be disabled after destroying the two AA guns outside. So, we knew that to be able to do this, we would have to either find a way to trigger checkpoints after activating the banshee easter egg or find a way to bypass or break that sword base/abyss elastic barrier without activating the banshee easter egg.

The components of the final Red Room plan have existed for years, but only recently were we able to piece it all together. To put it more clearly and plainly, the pieces of the puzzle were all found out of order and with huge time lapses between each piece being discovered. We had no idea where the pieces fit, but we knew that the pieces were a part of the Red Room Jigsaw Puzzle. One of those pieces was getting a vehicle in the abyss. We knew that since the red room was so isolated, a simple head jump would not get us where we wanted to be. The only way we thought of to cover that amount of distance was by launching with a ghost. We knew that a ghost was "allowed" to exist in the abyss because when the abyss is loaded, the ghost also remains loaded inside sword base and does not deload. We couldn't just ground pound a ghost directly into the abyss from sword base like we could to players because the ghost would just fall forever, so we knew we would have to place it at a previous point in the mission and try to have the abyss "load around it". We also learned by this point that the abyss was essentially a hollowed-out version of the beginning of the mission, since we could see the base of the sniper towers that exist in the beginning of the mission inside the abyss. So, we tried to place the ghost in a multitude of areas in the beginning of the mission with the hopes that it would not deload and be in a spot that was close enough to the standing portions of the abyss. We could not find that spot, but the next puzzle piece that was found made trying to find a spot to place the ghost close to the standing parts of the abyss moot.

This puzzle piece hits two birds with one stone. A problem with finding a place to keep the ghost was that the only places we could find that the ghost would not deload, were too far away to be able to be grabbed from inside the abyss. We thought that maybe, instead of trying to place the ghost closer to the players, maybe the players just needed to be placed closer to the ghost. This meant that instead of entering the abyss by ground pounding through sword base, maybe there is another location that is closer to the ghosts that we can ground pound at. That location was in the deloaded courtyard. We lucked out that there was a perfect corner to ground pound with, and that the ghosts would not deload when placed in the courtyard. This kills two birds with one stone because we can enter and manipulate the ghosts while still being inside the abyss, and we wouldn't be affected by the sword base/abyss elastic barrier. This ultimately means that activating the banshee egg is no longer required, thus we can still activate checkpoints. however consequently, this meant that we would have no ground to stand on, and would just fall and die, since unlike entering the abyss through sword base, entering the abyss through the courtyard provided no ground for us to land on, thus we would fall forever and die from the fall timer. THAT'S why we needed the ghosts lined up to travel the distance needed, and to avoid just dying to the fall timer.

These were the crucial pieces in the jigsaw puzzle. This is at the point where things clicked, and we knew what we needed to do. We placed the ghosts in a few different areas to figure out where they stayed. When we found out there was a corner we could ground pound into the abyss from in that same spot from outside the swordbase in the deloaded courtyard, without any effects from the swordbase elastic barrier, the ghost jump idea came to fruition. When we finally got the jump, we knew how to get the ghost into the tram. The revert grab technique came in handy, so we could have 2 concussion rifles down on the tram. One Concussion rifle to get the ghost into the tram, and the other for the ghost launch to the cutscene room. Avoiding activating the banshee easter egg gave us the crucial checkpoints we needed to not only launch the ghosts, but to revert grab the concussion rifles. Also for clarities sake, the swordbase elastic barrier I am talking about that effects you in the abyss is the same exact barrier that we break in the courtyard area with the revenant and ghost.

The final piece to the puzzle was realizing that the death barrier around the Red Room wasn't a death barrier, but suprisingly solid space. Previously, we believed that a death barrier was all around the room. But ultimately, we realized that it was actually solid space that surrounded the room. You are probably asking "wait solid space?!?! If it is solid space than why can you walk through it?" Well we don't know why we can walk through it, but there are numerous examples of walk-through solid space in Reach.  Imagine that as you are entering the "death barrier" inside the abyss, you are technically entering inside solid space and thus, map geometry, which is why we believe it is solid space and kills you. So if we were to go along this line of thought, than this means that it would have the same properties and effects as every other place that has solid space in Halo 3 and Reach, no matter if you can walk through it or not. That means that if someone tried to spawn on the player while he was inside this space, the game will force him into the closest place that has livable space (This is essentially the cage idea here). Additionally, this means that if a player exited a vehicle in this position, the game would try to spit him out in the closest place that has livable space. (a la The Cave cutscene room on LNOS and the Floodgate Cutscene Rooms) For this trick, we exited the vehicle, and that ultimately spit us out inside the Red Room.

We knew we could get the player in the ghost fast enough and close enough to the cutscene room that he could hop out into the room. When you’re in a vehicle and get out in solid space, the game tries to place the player into the closest safe space it can; in this case the Destroyed Science Wing.

Hey I kwno you guys ! Defenetly the best Halo tricks channel, will always remember you when you find a way to drive the space banshee of Halo Reach

Anyway, again a great video, described very well, with an epic music and of course a very good and interesting trick gg !