A dataminer has discovered some of the emblems that will appear in the upcoming Halo Infinite are takes on slightly older, popular memes. They’ve discovered a bunch of other things too, but honestly, the memes are the major thing worth talking about because … I mean, it’s Master Chief in memes. I honestly don’t think there would be anything better to talk about even if the entire campaign leaked.
The dataminer in question, Reddit user marcopolo444, discovered a wealth of details that they subsequently posted on the Halo Leaks subreddit. These include a few details about armor and death FX. Most of it looks pretty standard — nothing earth-shattering, but cool if you’re a Halo fan. You can view some of the more interesting stuff on this Reddit post.
Some of the emblems reference some memes so familiar and ingrained in the popular zeitgeist that you don’t even need to be a consumer of meme culture in order to recognize them. For example, there are Halo-fied versions of memes such as “This is fine,” “Brent Rambo,” and the “Aliens” guy. These are fairly old memes, at least as far as the usual lifespan of these things goes. There’s even Master Chief that in that outfit the Rock was wearing with the fanny pack, an image I honestly wish I could sear right off my eyeballs.
It’s good to see that the developers were able to have a little fun while they were working on the game — I can’t begrudge them their little humorous touches. And while most of the emblems are just Meme + Spartan Armor, the latter is so weird in mundane situations that it makes all of them ten times better. I do have my limits though, and I swear, if the game releases and there’s a Distracted Boyfriend version of Master Chief, I’m pitching my Series X straight into the Rio Grande.