343 Guilty Spark

343 Guilty Spark

"Creep through a swamp to meet the only enemy the Covenant fear."

Information

• Game: Halo: Combat Evolved
  

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Halo: Combat Evolved level navigation

Assault on the Control Room - 343 Guilty Spark - The Library

343 Guilty Spark (often abbreviated 343GS) is the fourth campaign level in Halo: Combat Evolved. See Halopedia for general information.

Halo Runs record page: http://www.haloruns.com/records?lb=106 (click the timestamps for video links)

Video Examples

Examples of every trick mentioned here can be found on either the Individual Records page or Full Game Records page.

Beginning Swamp Area

Fastest Path to Structure

After exiting the dropship, turn immediately left and head straight. This is the fastest route to the structure, and there are two ways to climb the hill blocking your way. On Legendary you can grenade jump up the first hill you encounter on your right, but on Easy it is recommended that you continue straight until you reach the lowest part of the hill. The small rock in front of you gives you enough height to simply jump up to the grassy ledge above.

Inside the Structure

Safe & Fast Elevator Falls

It's possible to hop off both descending elevators in this level very early by exploiting the strange behaviour of elevators. Simply holding W to run left or right off an elevator will allow you to land safely on the ground below, due to the elevator's physics stopping your fall timer slightly in the air.

Reveal Skip

Here is Sligfantry's video on reveal skip. Once you descend down the first elevator, make your way to the left side of the room and line up with the pillar where there is a light fixture on the top. Throw a grenade at the ground and look to the wall to the right of you. Then jump and move to the right. On MCC this is much easier done by just jumping backwards instead of turning to the right. If you jumped too early, your head will hit the ceiling, and if you jumped too late, you'll land on top. If you did it correctly, you should be inside of the ceiling.

Once you do this, walk to the back wall and crouch under and around the left side of the pillar until you reach the wall. Then turn to the left and do a jump such that you bounce off the right side of the wall and land on the invisible part of the wall which you are jumping to. Then look at the hallway and jump forwards, crouching at the end.

To get a checkpoint for the hardest jump which you use the wall to bounce off of, while going down the elevator throw a grenade when the "Loading done..." prompt is on the screen.

There is also another method for reveal skip that is faster, but is primarily an IL strategy, showcased in this video by Sligfantry.

Grenade Jump to Reveal Room

In the large room after the jackals-only room, it is possible to grenade jump off the purple boxes immediately to your right, which will lead you directly to the flood reveal room, saving you the trouble of walking through the crazy marine room. There are a few strats but they all involve throwing a grenade onto the ground, hopping on top of the purple box, then jumping to the ledge above when it explodes. The spacing and timing are a bit different from a standard grenade jump due to the positioning, but it is not difficult with some practice.

Grenade Jump to Dead Marine Room (Legendary Only)

After the reveal room, you must backtrack through the earlier jackal room and on legendary, a locked door forces you to drop down to the floor below. In the next room, you can grenade jump back up to the ledge above directly from the ground. The most common location for this is on the right side wall, as close to the exit door as possible.

This particular grenade jump is very precise and very difficult. As of the time of this writing, this strategy is only used in IL and segmented speedruns.

Camo Jump

In the room with the two active camo powerups and the broken bridge, it is possible to jump to the end of the room without dropping down and going through a side room. When you first enter the room, turn right while staying on the upper platform and look for the thick, angled pillar in front of you. It is possible to jump to this pillar without the use of a grenade. The shape of it is awkward and can cause you to slip, but with practice the jump is reliable enough to do in full game runs.

Shotgun/Healthpack room grenade jump

In one of the final indoor rooms you are intended to turn right and use a box to hop to the upper level, but a grenade jump is possible on the left side of the room. Use one of the angled pillars to gain a bit of extra height by grenade jumping while jumping into the angle.

Final Indoor Room Enemy Skip (Legendary Only)

In the final indoor room with the lightbridge, it is possible to make the room exit significantly safer by doing a jump identical to the earlier Camo Jump. The enemy spawn triggers are tied to activating the lightbridge, so by avoiding the lightbridge you skip spawning most of the enemies.

Ending Swamp Area

Fast Level End

The level end triggers on this level are bizarre and were not well understood until very recently. There exist a few different strategies for getting the fastest ending trigger which vary by difficulty.

Easy

There are two techniques for a fast ending on easy, both of which are trivial to execute.

The first is simple: if your health is at 1 bar remaining and you run a straight line towards the end structure, you will get the fastest possible ending. The best way to drop to 1 health point on Easy difficulty is to grab one of the healthpacks at the top of the elevator inside the structure and then throw a grenade at your feet. This will put you at 1 health every time and can be done while running.

The second method to get the fastest possible ending on Easy is to run a particular path around the final structure. You must run directly towards the structure, and once you reach it, turn left and run around the building in a circle. Once you pass two of the 'arms' of the structure the level should end.

Legendary

Since neither the 1 health strategy or the "specific path" strategy mentioned above work on legendary, we must employ a third strategy.

There is a simple trigger to end the level after an 8 second delay starting immediately after all sentinels in the final area are dead. On Legendary only 2 sentinels spawn, but it can sometimes be difficult to kill them quickly due to their random spawn points and the many nearby flood. Often the flood will help you out and kill a sentinel for you, but other times you will have to do it yourself. This is the fastest known ending for Legendary.