No one should dive into a TV adaptation of their favorite game alone. Potential heartbreak and raucous joy should be shared with a friend. As such, my coworker (Damien "Second-Biggest-Halo-Fan" Lykins, as a matter of official record) and I have begun watching Paramount's Halo television series together, and it's been a bumpy Warthog ride so far to say the least. Nevertheless, we can't help but enjoy the various references and easter eggs the showrunners have hidden within each episode.

Some of these pay respect to the original source material while others give a nod different IPs entirely. As the show goes on and we continue to watch the Master Chief take off his🧸 helmet more times than should be Spartanly possible, we'll continue to collect the best hidden references you might have missed your first time watching.

SPOILERS AHEAD! If you've not watched the most recent episode of the series, you may want to avert your unspoiled eyes!

Updated February 16, 2024 by Amanda Hurych & Damien Lykins: Here we are again. We're watching the newest season of the Halo show. Turns out we're gluttons for punishment. But on the bright side, we've (kind of) enjoyed the first two episodes of season 2. And we're always down for more Halo Easter eggs.

14 𝓰 James Ackerson Is A Big Character In The Books

Season 2

This newest season of the Halo show has introduced us to one James Ackerson, who is the new ONI head replacement after both Halsey and Parangosky got ousted from the secretive government agency. Played by Joseph Morgan (an actor most notably known for his role as Klaus in The Vampire Diaries), James Ackerson in the show has thus far presented himself as an antagonist to Chief's protagonist. He takes the time to undermine Chief's mental health, preventing him from going on missions away from Reach.

In the books, there's a lot more to Ackerson than that. Not only does he still play a counterpart to Halsey in ONI, he's also responsible for the creation of the SPARTAN-III program. It remains to be seen if we'll get Spartan IIIs in the show, but Ackerson's inclusion could lead to this plot point (fingers crossed).

13 She'll Hold

Season 1

The final episode sees John and his fellow Spartans hurtling toward the hidden Covenant planet where Makee took the artifact. The trip is quite bumpy for the team's Pelican, with some rather jarring space travel doing some real damage to their ship. Vannak expresses some highly warranted concern about the structural integrity of their hull, to which John calmly states, "She'll hold." Fans of Combat Evolved will recognize this as the same assurances Master Chief gave to Cortana when flying a decaying Banshee onto the crashed Pillar of Autumn.

12 There's Two Of Us In Here

Season 1

The eighth episode was a bit of a tangle of multiple plot threads coming together, but no one can deny that it was super cool to see John and Cortana finally working together in a fight. The show had been teasing his potential strength if the Chief properly utilized C💙ortana, and this episode yielded the result. She assisted his awareness during꧙ the fight and even took control of a nearby Warthog to help him out of a tight spot. And of course she threw out this iconic line during this superb moment of Spartan versus Spartan combat.

11 The Siege Of Mad💮rig𝐆al

Season 1

Madrigal is an important location in the Halo TV show. It's the planet where the show starts and apparently also the location of some secret well that Kwan Ha's family has guarded for generations. But only fans who've read the books will know that Madrigal is also an existing planet in the canon timeline.

And if you want to go even deeper into Halo lore than that, only mega Bungie fans will know that Madrigal is the name of a city from one of Bungie's earlier games, Myth: The Fallen Lords. There is a piece of music from that game called the Siege of Madrigal that has made cameo appearances in many Halo games, and its inclusion in the Halo franchise as a whole is a clear nod to Bungie's early work.

10 ൩ 🔜 Shield Recharge Noise

Season 1

A bit on-the-nose? Maybe, but it's hard not to crack a grin when you hear it. In the thick of the battle for the Madrigal colony during the first episode, Spartan Kai is pinned down by a trio of Covenant Elites and calls out for assistance. The Master Chief obliges, drawing the Elites' fire and soaking up a fair bit of punishment in the process.

He holds out for quite a while before his shields overload — at which point his suit provides a subtle alarm that's sure to be all-too-familiar to any gamer that's played Halo. After the Chief ducks into cover for a precious moment, we're given the equally-familiar beeps and bloops associated with a Spartan's personal shields coming back online.

9 This Cave Is No♌t A Natural Formation

Season 1

Everyone who has played Halo: Combat Evolved can recall the first time they drove into the interior of the ring's structure. After rescuing some marines and hopping into a Warthog, you head toward a large, metallic, rectangular opening in a cliffside, and just as you approach it, Cortana states, "This cave is not a natural formation." Well, no shit.

This line became instantly memeable as gamers reveled in the hilarity of Cortana, super-smart, advanced AI that she is, noting the utterly obvious. The Halo TV show shares the same sense of humor. Spartan Kai, as she and Chief enter an underground area, very clearly says, "This cave network does 🍬not appear to be a natural formation," as the perfect homage.

8 Ad𒁃miral Parangosky

Season 1

If you 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:haven't read the books, you might very well assume that Admiral Parangosky is a brand-new chara🌳cter created🌜 specifically for the show. However, the name of Parangosky has appeared in more than one of the Halo novels. In the books, Margaret Parangosky is in charge of many of the ONI operations the UNSC would rather not know about, responsible for green-lighting some projects of dubious morality.

She's also one of the few people in the Halo universe to properly butt heads with Dr. Halsey and come out on top. How her character turns out in the show still remains a mystery, but we look forward to how the series handles other characters taken straight from the books.

7 ✨ Mass Effect Reference 🐼

Season 1

Fans with especially keen hearing or the foresight to put on captions were delighted to find . After Miranda's failed attempt to get Kwan Ha on her side through a forced video conference call, you can hear someone asking for a "Commander Shepard" to go to a "Skyllian Response Center." In the Mass Effect series, the Skyllian Verge is an area of contested space that humans and Batarians fight over. We highly doubt the Skyllian Blitz is part of the Halo show's lore, but it's a fun little easter egg to find.

6 W𝔍ortꦗ Wort Wort

Season 1

This bit of alien gibberish was first spouted as a sort of battlecry by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the Sangheili in Halo: Combat Evolved. Originally produced by reversing and distorting the original “Go, go, go” line recorded for a particularly familiar and well-loved UNSC marine, it was cultivated into a much-beཧloved meme by Halo’s fanbase over the years — apparently, this wasn’t lost on the showrunners.

At a couple of junctures during the Elites’ assault on the Madrigal insurrectionist compound during the very first🎃 episode of the series, a keen ear can pick out this iconic warbling in the background. Specifically, you can hear it when they first breach the gates, and again shortly after Kwan Ha emerges from the rooftop hatch above the protective vault where the non-combatants are sheltering during the chaos.

5 The Door Chime Of Th✤e Far Future

Season 1

This one’s admittedly a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, but it’s definitely worth a note. Shortly after Chief and Kwan Ha꧂ arrive at Soren’s Asteroid Orphanage for Misfits, Murderers, and Malcontents in the second episode, “Unbound,” they ꧑shuffle down a rather spartan (get it?) hallway and are confronted with a touchpad-operated door leading into the base’s main thoroughfare.

The sound the door makes is lifted straight from the games — a common, elongated “blooop” sound emitted by the doors on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Covenant vessels. Of course, this seems to be a human colony, but who’s counting? It’s a neat bit of app꧙reciable fanser🌊vice all the same.