What you need to know
- Twitch streamer and Halo 2 speedrunner JerValiN has managed to accomplish something that was once believed to be impossible: a deathless run of Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty, with all Skulls on (other than Envy, which gives Master Chief the Arbiter's active camouflage instead of a flashlight).
- By successfully finishing this challenge, JerValiN has completed the $20,000 bounty issued by popular Twitch streamer MoistCr1TiKaL to beat Halo 2 LASO without dying.
- The run took six hours, 29 minutes, and 44.17 seconds, and involved masterful and methodical gameplay and the incredibly skillful use of skips and glitches.
After grinding the Halo 2 campaign for weeks, Twitch streamer and Halo speedrunner JerValiN has finally managed to achieve something the internet once thought was impossible: a completed run of the game on Legendary difficulty with all Skulls on (except the Envy Skull, which provides Master Chief with active camouflage) without any deaths. No other player has managed to achieve this feat, meaning that JerValiN has officially made gaming history.
The community-wide race to beat Halo 2 LASO without dying began when the popular Twitch streamer MoistCr1TiKaL issued a $5,000 bounty to complete the challenge in late June, which was then raised to $20,000 in July. After attempting the challenge dozens of times across 40 straight days in a row, JerValiN finally managed to finish it with expert knowledge of Halo 2's campaign systems, clever use of glitches and skips, skillful and methodical play, and a touch of luck.
Notably, victory almost eluded the speedrunner in the game's final moments when a shotgun-wielding Brute managed to dodge two grenade throws from allied Elites (grenades that almost always knock it off the map in these LASO runs) and charge towards JerValiN as he was getting in a Banshee. Thankfully, JerValiN managed to turn the Banshee's armor towards the Brute to protect himself just in time, using the craft's plasma weapons to take care of the threat.
Halo 2 LASO is notorious for being significantly more difficult than any other Halo LASO campaign, largely due to the fact that with all Skulls activated on Legendary difficulty, enemies do insane amounts of damage and have significantly more health, while the player has barely any health at all. On top of that, the combined effects of all of Halo 2's skulls severely disadvantage the player by taking away their heads-up display (HUD) and weapon viewmodel, preventing them from recharging their shields without getting melee kills, and reducing the amount of ammo they can carry. Meanwhile, all enemies get active camouflage, a higher rank, an improved fire rate, and the ability to spam grenades with reckless abandon. Halo 2 is also widely considered to be terribly balanced for Legendary difficulty in general (I'm sure you've seen the Sniper Jackal memes).
Another element of the challenge that makes it so tough is that Halo's AI can often be a little unpredictable, even for masters like JerValiN that possess extensive knowledge of their behavior patterns. This unpredictability is generally seen as a good thing in normal playthroughs since it keeps players on their toes and makes for good moment-to-moment gameplay, but in challenges like this where death is only a few Plasma Rifle shots away, it's terrifying.
Part of me seriously doubted this challenge would ever be completed, which made watching JerValiN do it live absolutely incredible. Halo 2 LASO deathless without the Envy Skull is arguably the hardest feat to accomplish in all of gaming — it hasn't been done for 18 years until now, and the vast majority of people attempting it could barely get past the first few rooms of the game's first level — but in a dazzling display of skill and finesse, one man has proven that it's not impossible.
The successful run took six hours, 29 minutes, and 44.17 seconds in total. You can watch the full VOD directly from JerValiN's Twitch channel in the VOD above.
