I saw this brought up in an old thread about the elites we saw in early gameplay of halo infinite. The elites were in traditional blue covenant armor and had y’know halo 2A or halo 2 covenant era look to them. But what is confusing is in halo wars 2 we clearly saw the elites in banished style red, grey, white, and black spiked armor. Now the brutes and the vehicles match the banished aesthetic just not the elites this is a small nitpick for me at least I’m sure its probably an oversight. What does everyone else think? Should the elites match banished aesthetic or the halo 2 blue armor look?
The game isn’t even out yet. How do you know there won’t be any red elites? I’m pretty sure some concept art for infinite shown some elites that fit this aesthetic.
I’m pretty sure that any enemy that’s not in black/red armor that we’ve seen on characters like Jega, Escharum, Hyperius, Tovarus, the ‘mule’ grunt, etc… are allied with the banished but are actually a splinter faction like the ones mentioned in shadows of reach that wore blue and gold armor. The elites we’ve seen in non-banished armor are, in fact, mercenaries. So they’re wearing their own stuff because they’re being paid by the banished… but are not banished themselves. Much like the shipmaster and his elites in halo wars 2 (The ones wearing red and white armor)
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> The game isn’t even out yet. How do you know there won’t be any red elites? I’m pretty sure some concept art for infinite shown some elites that fit this aesthetic.
We’ve seen red Elites in the initial campaign gameplay trailer. With that being said, I think the traditional Covenant colors are being used for player familiarity. I’m less bugged by that than I am with the fact that half of the Banished weapons are still purple, lol.
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> > The game isn’t even out yet. How do you know there won’t be any red elites? I’m pretty sure some concept art for infinite shown some elites that fit this aesthetic.
>
> We’ve seen red Elites in the initial campaign gameplay trailer. With that being said, I think the traditional Covenant colors are being used for player familiarity. I’m less bugged by that than I am with the fact that half of the Banished weapons are still purple, lol.
Wait which banished weapons lol
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> > > 2533274847704400;2:
> > > The game isn’t even out yet. How do you know there won’t be any red elites? I’m pretty sure some concept art for infinite shown some elites that fit this aesthetic.
> >
> > We’ve seen red Elites in the initial campaign gameplay trailer. With that being said, I think the traditional Covenant colors are being used for player familiarity. I’m less bugged by that than I am with the fact that half of the Banished weapons are still purple, lol.
>
> Wait which banished weapons lol
Pulse Carbine and the Plasma Pistol are half the weapons to him. There’s also the Skewer, Ravager, Mangler, Hammer, Shock Rifle, Stalker Rifle, and more yet to be revealed that aren’t purple.
Obviously there’s a mercenary group sporting the old look and old style of weapons within the Banished from what we can see. This isn’t Atriox’s men, it’s Esharum’s. Guess he’s not as formal but laid back with armor and design.
I mean, the banished are scavangers and are full of mercenaries. They are going to use any armor they can and generaly wont always put the effort to redesign them for just anyone. From a gameplay perspective, the colors of blue, red, yellow etc are easy indicators of rank. Having everyone red makes no sense from a design perspective. We also know there are elites (or at least one) sporting a more banished design. Its apparent they are going to limit the more hard core banished designs of non brute species to the higher ranks
Easy identification of enemies is probably the answer. Having enemies with different colors to designate different ranks is a staple in halo, and is directly tied to their damage resistance, damage output and tactics. This wasn’t a concern for Halo wars 2 since its a completely different type of game and thus didn’t need to easily differentiate between enemy ranks, but is important for FPS halo.
So we have blue/red/white/gold elites back. We have some orange and blue grunts. And even brutes with blue armor again as seen on live Fire. Different colors for different ranks.
If you want a story reason, the banished are primarily scavengers and are made up of various different groups. While they have their own aesthetic and are fully capable of making their own armor by the time of infinite, they aren’t above using old stuff if it works well. And because they are made up of a bunch of different clans, mercenary groups and other factions, those individual groups are using what they have rather than being told what they have to use.
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> Easy identification of enemies is probably the answer. Having enemies with different colors to designate different ranks is a staple in halo, and is directly tied to their damage resistance, damage output and tactics. This wasn’t a concern for Halo wars 2 since its a completely different type of game and thus didn’t need to easily differentiate between enemy ranks, but is important for FPS halo.
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> So we have blue/red/white/gold elites back. We have some orange and blue grunts. And even brutes with blue armor again as seen on live Fire. Different colors for different ranks.
>
> If you want a story reason, the banished are primarily scavengers and are made up of various different groups. While they have their own aesthetic and are fully capable of making their own armor by the time of infinite, they aren’t above using old stuff if it works well. And because they are made up of a bunch of different clans, mercenary groups and other factions, those individual groups are using what they have rather than being told what they have to use.
Your answers make the most sense out of everyone else’s for lore and gameplay wise it would still be nice to see a red and black elite all spiked up though 
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> Wait which banished weapons lol
The plasma pistol, needler, and pulse carbine are still purple, despite the rest of the Banished weapons being red. I guess it’s to accommodate for player familiarity, but I guess I just like consistency better, lol.
So I saw in a lore video that there is a couple of different factions within the banished including a few who still believe in the “great journey”. I believe that these ones who have never changed their beliefs would never change their armor especially to the banish colors since I think they believe in just flat out power or just to never be subjugated. Of course there are elites who fight for the banished so I believe the deeper we go in the story we will start to see more banished elites that wear the signature red and grey colors. This is just speculation and should not be taken seriously however the first sentence is a fact.
to me it seems like only those of higher rank are equipped with banished armor, the rest of the banished probably use refurbished covenant era armors.
I believe the Banished aesthetic will primarily be used on the leader characters. I’m pretty sure Halo Wars 2 worked like this too, as most Banished units were just wearing Covenant gear, while the main faction leaders were the ones decked out in a Banished aesthetic.
Which makes sense. Considering most of their gear is stolen from the Covenant. So more effort was put towards upgrading vehicles than personal gear.
It’s also why we see them using standard covenant-style Plasma Pistols, Pulse Carbines, Swords, and Needlers.
But all seriousness it’s probably for the Higher Ranks we do have that one Elite that was revealed last year Sporting a Banished themed Armor
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> > > > 2533274847704400;2:
> > > > The game isn’t even out yet. How do you know there won’t be any red elites? I’m pretty sure some concept art for infinite shown some elites that fit this aesthetic.
> > >
> > > We’ve seen red Elites in the initial campaign gameplay trailer. With that being said, I think the traditional Covenant colors are being used for player familiarity. I’m less bugged by that than I am with the fact that half of the Banished weapons are still purple, lol.
> >
> > Wait which banished weapons lol
>
> Pulse Carbine and the Plasma Pistol are half the weapons to him. There’s also the Skewer, Ravager, Mangler, Hammer, Shock Rifle, Stalker Rifle, and more yet to be revealed that aren’t purple.
>
> Obviously there’s a mercenary group sporting the old look and old style of weapons within the Banished from what we can see. This isn’t Atriox’s men, it’s Esharum’s. Guess he’s not as formal but laid back with armor and design.
Ok that makes sense lol, I saw half purple, and was like uhh the plasma pistol and the carbine are just leftovers???
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> > 2535447887837444;5:
> > Wait which banished weapons lol
>
> The plasma pistol, needler, and pulse carbine are still purple, despite the rest of the Banished weapons being red. I guess it’s to accommodate for player familiarity, but I guess I just like consistency better, lol.
Ehh just the three is whatever for me, probably going to be given mainly to elites grunts and jackels