Halo Infinite ending explained: Final campaign mission & post-credits details
If you've finished the main campaign, here's the Halo Infinite ending explained.
The Halo Infinite campaign release date is firmly in the rearview mirror now, so chances are that many players have completed the game's main campaign and are now looking to have the Halo Infinite ending explained in more detail than the game itself provides.
Regardless of how much side content you've completed in the open-world area of Zeta Halo, the credits will roll on Halo Infinite as soon as you conclude the final main mission and watch a few cut scenes.
That concluding chapter of the story is called Silent Auditorium, but it's worth noting that you'll be on a one-way path to the Halo Infinite ending once you're in the mission Nexus, which is actually a few missions before that one. Once you hit Nexus, you're past the point of no return, and you won't be able to access the open-world again until you've finished the game.
If you have finished the game, or you just want to know what happens, keep on reading for our guide to the Halo Infinite ending!
Halo Infinite ending explained
The final mission in Halo Infinite starts off fairly simply. Your pilot pal Echo-216 has been kidnapped by The Banished, and you're heading to rescue him. Along the way, you'll be trying to stop The Banished and their evil ally Harbinger from turning the game's main Halo Ring into a weapon of mass destruction.
To start with, things play out the way you might expect. You battle your way to the location where Echo-216 is being held, and you succeed in rescuing him. You have a final fight with The Banished's current leader, Escharum, who dies in Master Chief's arms after a surprisingly touching final chat.
This is when things start to go off the rails, though. It turns out that Zeta Halo is also home to The Endless, an ancient species who were imprisoned here by The Forerunners way back in the Halo franchise's distant history. Harbinger, the mysterious character that The Banished have been working with, seems to believe she has succeeded in freeing The Endless, even though we don't see any of them appear.
You succeed in defeating Harbinger in battle, but the war doesn't seem to be over. In fact, your conflict is only just staring with the mysterious Endless. This race, which Harbinger seems to be a member of, are likely being set up as a major adversary we'll have to face in a future Halo Infinite story expansion. This game will be getting a lot of future updates, after all, so this ending is really just a new beginning.
As your trusty AI pal The Weapon realises during the game's final mission, The Silent Auditorium is also important for another reason. As well as being the location on Zeta Halo where the final mission takes place, this is the site where Cortana, your AI companion from the previous games, was taken to be destroyed after she went evil.
You see more flashes and echoes of Cortana's life while you're here, learning that it was Cortana that destroyed the Ring at the start of the game in order to save The Weapon. It seems that Cortana had a change of heart and wanted to help the Master Chief learn from her mistakes. Cortana seems to have turned back from the darkness, just in time to be destroyed.
In doing so, Cortana redeemed herself to an extent, and she also ensured that the Master Chief would eventually be paired up with a new AI. That other AI would be The Weapon, a different model in the Cortana series of artificial intelligences, who the Chief has gradually been learning to trust throughout this game.
After the final echo of the original Cortana disappears, The Silent Auditorium begins to crumble. The Master Chief leaps through a portal of unknown origin to escape the destruction, before finding himself at a totally different location on Zeta Halo. The portal seems to have played with time, too, sending Master Chief and The Weapon three days into the future.
The Master Chief assures The Weapon that he's not scared of the new threat that could be unleashed in the form of The Endless, and he also tells Echo-216 that his next move will be to "finish this fight" with The Banished, who still have a lot of troops stationed across Zeta Halo.
In the very final moment before the credits roll, Echo-216 reveals that his real name is Fernando Esparza, and he asks The Weapon what everyone should call her going forward. The Chief tells The Weapon that she can choose her own name, prompting her to say that she knows the perfect moniker to opt for. This implies that The Weapon will be taking up the name Cortana, picking up the mantle from the AI that started it all. Roll credits.
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Does Halo Infinite have a post-credits scene?
Yes, Halo Infinite does have a post-credits scene, so it's worth sticking around once the credits start to roll. Don't close your game yet!
Once the credits are done, you'll see a mysterious corridor. An ominous figure interacts with a device, causing ancient tablets and an array of glowing yellow artefacts to spin about the place.
The camera pulls back to show us that this figure is none other than Atriox, the previous leader of The Banished who bested the Chief in combat way back in the game's first scene. Atriox had been presumed dead throughout much of the game, but here he is, alive and kicking and messing around with ancient tech.
Our reading of this scene is this: Atriox has been in hiding for some time, assembling every piece of Forerunner and Endless tech that he could find, and now he's ready to return to active duty with some new learnings from history to aid him.
Just as the Chief is trying to finish one fight, the next one is gearing up to begin, and we'd wager that he'll be fighting both Atriox and The Endless in the next batch of Halo Infinite content. The Chief, Fernando and the new Cortana are going to be busy!
Read more on Halo:
- Halo Infinite campaign review - a masterful return for the Chief
- How long is the Halo Infinite campaign?
- Halo Infinite achievements list - how to unlock them all
- Halo Infinite multiplayer - all the essential details
- How to fix Halo Infinite blue screen crashes
- All the Halo games in story order - how many have you played?
- Halo Infinite collectibles - the ultimate guide
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Authors
Rob Leane is the Gaming Editor at Radio Times, overseeing our coverage of the biggest games on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, mobile and VR. Rob works across our website, social media accounts and video channels, as well as producing our weekly gaming newsletter. He has previously worked at Den of Geek, Stealth Optional and Dennis Publishing.
