GRD Helmet is an urban legend related to the 2010 first-person shooter game Halo: Reach.
Description
In Halo: Reach multiplayer, players can customise their spartan and elite characters with armor pieces that can be purchased with credits earned through completing matches and challenges. In 2011, marketing began for the upcoming second piece of DLC for the game known as the defiant map pack. Various promotional images were released that showed off the different maps that would be available in the pack and one image in particular caught player’s attention.[1]
An image promoting the upcoming multiplayer map “Condemned” included multiple spartans, including one wearing a helmet that did not currently exist in the game and which players had never seen before. The defiant map pack released in March 2011, however the helmet was nowhere to be found in the armor customisation menu. Rumors began to circulate online both during and well after the release of the map pack that there were secret methods to obtain the helmet in game and that it was only visible in the menu after unlocking it.
The helmet was seen again during a live feed from on Bungie day (July 7th), this time it was in the armory and had the name “GRD” attached to it.
One of the supposed methods to unlock the helmet was to kill all BOB elites in the campaign (a strong variant of the elite enemy which only stick around for a short time after engaging in combat with the player). Some rumors took this a step further and suggested the BOB elites all had to be killed in a specific order. Other theories included jumping into the holes on the multiplayer map “Countdown” in a specific order which could be discovered by looking at the numbers on a radio on the map.[2]
In February 2012, it was confirmed by 343 Industries employee David Ellis that the team was experimenting with adding new armor permutations to the game in the anniversary map pack which was released in November 2011, helmet was planned to be added alongside that DLC, but ultimately it was cut due to time restraints and it was not obtainable in-game.[3]
Trivia
- Following the release of Halo: Reach on PC in 2019 as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, new armor permutations were added to the game, including the GRD helmet as part of the season 5 update in January 2021, nearly ten years after the helmet was first seen in the defiant map pack promotional images.