I feel like I never get a sufficient answer to this topic
It’s either a gameplay choice, Spartans having giant robot legs, or gravity sleeping on the job in the Halo Universe.
on top of holding oxygen, i’m pretty sure the 2 bulky pieces on the back of spartan armor contain thrusters for propulsion during space operations. i’d hazard to guess they kick in to make spartans floatier as well.
The simplest explanation is that since Spartans, especially Spartan-IIs, are essentially superhuman beings they can jump much higher than the average human can jump even while wearing all of their armor. They can also accelerate extremely quickly and maintain a speed of over 30 miles per hour after all of their augmentation. Certain Spartans may have also used thrusters or other means of propulsion on their armor to further enhance their mobility and jumpiness. Spartan IVs can also jump extremely high even though they are not as physically augmented as Spartan IIs were.
Multiplayer sandbox balance is not equal to lore, this confusion just tends to cause fights. Like how spartans die in water, have fall damage, can get ran over by vehicles, yet survive atmospheric re-entry, but can be stabbed by knives via assasination. Its fun to think up lore resons though.
In lore, you have the combination of:
- Extreme bio augmentation to make Spartans faster and stronger than baseline humans in a way that renders baseline humans comically redundant - Fusion powered, exoskeletal armour that takes the aforementioned bio augmentation, and adds mechanical strength augmentation, alongside improved reflex response by way of the signal processing hardware that bridges from neural socket to armour
I mean. Current, 2021 tech, has exoskeletal augmentation that sees humans lifting many times the weight their own strength would allow.
Give it a few hundred years. High jumps are trivial.
The spartans, after augmentation, could perform physical activities beyond that of normal human limits and abilities. This multiplied even more when putting on Mjolnir!
So, it’s a combination of augmentations and the armor.
As for why jumping doesn’t feel realistic in the game… because this works better for players to be able to react and be mobile.
Their augmentations and how powerful a Mjolnir suit are combined, makes the Spartans leap quite high.
Simple, it is a fun mechanic of the moon
Well, to be honest, this has confused me for a while too, but Spartans do have thruster packs that are used for propulsion in zero-gravity environments, so I reckon that they could be used to keep Spartans in the air longer. Unfortunately, my theory was shut down as I came to the realization that playing as Thel ‘Vadam (The Arbiter) and the Rookie, you still jump and fall loftily. So my guess is so gameplay is easier for fans, so this “Moonjumping” in likely non-canonical. Hope I helped!