My theory as to why SWAT is called Tactical Slayer is because it’s a reference to real world violence and could be considered “politically incorrect” or “controversial”.
If you guys are familiar with CoD you’ll know that some of their recent installments have changed team names to be “my team” and “enemy team” to avoid using terms like Nazis and Allies. Basically that’s what I think 343 have done with changing SWAT to Tactical Slayer; they don’t want to upset people. It’s also why we likely won’t get the playlist changed back to SWAT.
3 Likes
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/tin-foil-hat-time-for-tactical-slayer/472661/9
2 Likes
Ah well, there ya go. Not sure how changing the name prevents that problem though…
1 Like
It’s not to upset people. They decided to add more variants of it with different weapons. This game mode was created by the community in custom games on the OG Xbox back in Halo 2. For awhile it was either called swat or tactical slayer and that depended on the lobby you were in. But pretty soon everyone called it swat and they made a playlist for it ever since.
It was always BR only except for Reach (DMR) & H5 (pistol) now that’s changed and will continue to evolve.
2 Likes
I remember back when Halo 3 first came out the name SWAT was change to Tactical Slayer and people complained about it to the point it was changed later on.
Personally I don’t mind it being called Tactical Slayer as long as they change it up from the normal SWAT experience to something more with all Tactical weapons being on the map and other gametypes are being used to.
1 Like
It was called Tactical Slayer in Infinite even before they added the variants and it was just BRs.
Honestly, who cares what it’s called? (It’ll always be SWAT to me.)
It’s funny to me that people who are against political correctness get offended by it in the way they claim politically correct people get offended by the opposite.
I’m not claiming OP is offended either way. I’ve just never heard anyone complain about the name SWAT being offensive, but I’ve read tons of comments from people upset by the name Tactical Slayer and blaming political correctness.
Can’t hurt feeeeeeeeeelings.
1 Like
I prefer it this way. Sounds a little cooler and detaches it from police. Also honestly, the idea of sending out the message, “Yes, this is what SWAT teams do - aerate heads if they see even the slightest flinch” - may not be uh, the message Halo wants to convey.
I grew up on SWAT, so it will always be SWAT to me.
In fact, why is it called swat? Is it referencing some hidden halo lore about a CS styled event that occured somewhere on earth?
3 Likes
Probably not the purpose, but a nice side-effect; the term “swat” has been appropriated by internet culture as a dangerous act to take on streamers.
Distancing yourself from that in a universe that does not even have SWAT teams is fine. Also IRL, I do not think SWAT teams “aim for the head” while under fire. It is just a name that was cool at the time and now is not.
Several likely reasons:
- Having the word “Slayer” in the playlist helps new players identify the game mode as a “kill enemy mode”
- SWAT could be a volatile word to yell out over comms
- 343 wants to change things for the sake of changing things
Which is the real reason is up for you to decide.
I prefer SWAT because it’s 1 syllable and easier to type.
It’s probably got something to do with SOE (Search Engine Optimization), though I’m no expert in that field.
I do know that there was a while where googling “Halo swat” would return a bunch of news articles and videos about all the H5 swatting incidents that went on back in like 2016 ish.
Not really what you want search engines returning when new players might just be searching for info on a game mode, ya know?
Why is this even a problem. People act like ALL police are bad yet when they get attacked or robbed who do they call first?! Stop blaming the police for your insecurities.
2 Likes
For what it’s worth SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics.
1 Like