Custom difficulty options seem more and more common as the years go on and accessibility options continue to expand. They allow for greater control over the challenge presented by a game over the broad and flat adjustments provided by difficulty levels. Going from easy to hard mode will make the game more difficult, but that can be boring when it’s solely bloating the health pools of enemies.
That’s what makes the skulls in the Halo series so excellent. They modify specific values of the game; for example, adding increased enemy aggression and evasion, or even wiping the player’s HUD. These skulls have featured in campaigns starting with Halo 3, but were also in Firefight after its release in ODST. By Reach, players were able to customize which skulls turned their Firefight matches into nightmares of difficulty.
10 Custom Skulls
A feature new to Reach are the custom skulls. These can be modified to the player’s choosing and added onto the game’s existing skulls or used in place of them. The difficulty of these is truly up to the player.
These skulls have the same options as the standard gameplay modifications. That means these can be used to temporarily adjust Spartan or enemy settings for a few rounds, or whatever else you can dream up. Sky’s the limit.
9 Cloud/Fog
Cloud, or Fog as it also sometimes appears, only removes the motion tracker off the player’s HUD. This makes things slightly more difficult as enemies can flank you by surprise but it’s easily surmountable, especially in Firefight where holing up with a wall to your back is a common strategy.
Do that or regularly check your six. You’ve only lost your motion tracker, not your senses.
8 Cowbell
Anyone who says that Cowbell isn’t a difficulty skull hasn’t been crushed by a crate launched at them at three times the usual force from a grenade or a Brute chieftain’s gravity hammer. Cowbell’s multiplied physics fills the battlefield with hazards as anything that can be moved becomes a potential deathtrap.
It can work in your favor as well but that happens far less often. Watch out for those traffic cones, man. They’ll take your head clean off.
7 Tilt
Tilt exaggerates each weapon’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, plasma weapons will be more effective on shields but less effective on raw health. The inverse is true for ballistic weapons.
Counter it with specific strategies. Use plasma weapons to tear through shields and finish off enemies with a bullet headshot. That’s already a common strategy but it becomes more integral under the effects of Tilt.
6 Mythic
The Mythic skull makes enemies have twice as much health as normal. For unshielded enemies that can be headshotted, this isn’t a problem. A headshot is a headshot regardless of health. Grunts, Jackals, even Elites and Brutes with their shields down can still be cleaned out.
Hunters and surprisingly Drones are the bigger annoyances. The former don’t have a head to shoot. They last a long time already on higher difficulties and Mythic makes it worse. Drones can be headshot but it is difficult to do reliably, especially when swarmed and assaulted by several of them at once.
5 Famine
Famine makes all dropped weapons’ ammo or battery to be reduced by 50%. Ammo becomes scarce and holding onto power weapons or a powerful combo doesn’t last as long. You have to swap more, which means your game plan regularly changes or you have to leave the defensible position you boarded up in.
It doesn’t affect weapons stored in crates or the Spartan Laser, oddly enough. So have at those.
4 Blind
Another secondary skull that makes its way onto the list. Similar to its brother Cloud, Blind removes aspects of your HUD. Unlike Cloud, Blind removes all of it. No score box, no weapons, no ammo count, anything. You’re entirely blind.
Shooting is still manageable as you get an innate sense of where your reticle is after playing long enough. The problem lies in keeping track of your ammo count, which weapon you’re wielding, swapping weapons and all the other mental gymnastics that your HUD makes plain.
3 Tough Luck
Like the description reads, “Enemies always make every saving through.” In layman’s terms that means enemies are much more adept at dodging grenades, projectiles and vehicles. Grunts are less likely to flee when their leaders are killed and more willing to whip out those two plasma grenades and kamikaze you.
Tough Luck ramps the difficulty by making enemies considerably slippier. Grenades meant to take out a squad simply scatter them. That can be even more troublesome than dealing with more enemies berserking on you.
2 Catch
Catch is terrifying. It makes games absolutely absurd with explosions everywhere, which can be fun with Cowbell turned on and lower difficulties. Higher difficulties turn stages into evolving minefields as growing numbers of Covenant throw too many grenades to track.
When you think you’ve dodged everything, you’ll backpedal into one behind you and get blown up anyway. Even if you don’t die, it’s hard to stay at full shields for long against Catch, which means everything else kills you quicker.
1 Black Eye
Black Eye negates the automatic regeneration of energy shields. Instead, the only way to charge them is through melee attacks or assassinations. Every point of damage matters as it stays with you. Sometimes this is manageable. You can melee your way through a pack of Grunts with enough agility.
Hunters, though? Drones? Good luck punching one of those buggers out of the sky. Better hope you still have health packs around. The most punishing part of Black Eye is how it complicates every other skull. Every minor increase in difficulty becomes more troublesome when you can’t hide and recover your shields to tackle it again.
