In 2004 a community started with the inclusion of playable elites (Sangheili) in Halo 2’s multiplayer, this was an entirely new way of expressing yourself visually and in later years got expanded upon both in game with additional options but also in lore. With the recent news that elites won’t be playable in Halo Infinite at launch I thought I’d elaborate for people that don’t quite get the hype behind them.
Gameplay
Naturally with the general shape of the Sangheili player model there are going to be issues presented by the hitbox and the way it differs from it’s Spartan counterpart, this was a major issue in Halo 3 because the hitbox of the elite didn’t match up to the model which made them frustrating for players in competitive and lead to players choosing to play as elites purely due to the slight advantage it gave over Spartan players. Bungie later rectified this in Halo Reach by changing the way elites played compared to Spartans, in Reach elites could not pick up Health Packs, but had regenerating health over time and had mildly faster movement speed both with and without sprint while also having a significantly larger hitbox than Spartans, this would have been havoc if they were allowed in competitive, but bungie were clever, only allowing them to be accessible during Custom Games and the mode built from the ground up for Elites, Invasion.
Clans and Bloodlines
The Sangheili community has a very elaborate network of clans which all have unique takes on what it means to play as an elite in Halo, from an RP(Roleplay) point of view a lot of clans base their structures off of different ideologies that exist in the Halo Universe, while also having clans that focus on a more competitive scene but strictly Elite vs elite confrontations with some that focus on UNSC vs elite gameplay. The longevity of these groups are why it is so sad to see Elites not be present in Halo Infinite, especially for Bloodlines too, for the unaware, bloodlines are small groups of people that get together and fall under one name, Think Vadam or Chavam, and these are different to clans in the fact that members of a bloodline are a chosen family in a lot of ways, they are a lot more personal and have lengthy history’s within the game space, some having started in the days of Halo 2, and they are stuck on older halo titles because of the lack of support for them since Halo Reach. MCC has done a lot help them but the community craves new halo experiences with the characters they’ve created, not necessarily “A Spartan’s Story”.
But hey there is always hope that they will come post launch and the only way 343 will understand their importance is if we talk about it, whining won’t help and will likely damage the chances of us ever seeing them again. This post is an attempt to educate people on the importance of Sangheili in Halo, and to provide a new perspective for people that just don’t get why people want to play as split jaws so much, cuz it’s a topic not often given much attention if any at all, it’s not to perpetuate the argument that has been made since 2012, there are other threads for that, so I’m curious, did this help? Or any members of the Sangheili community think my statements false or inaccurate? I’d be interested to hear what people think.
