As you play the game, be sure to check out your service record on Bungie.net for some further insights into the various enemy unit classifications and point values.

Score Multipliers
Your overall point total will be greatly increased (or decreased) depending on the following multipliers. Some, like difficulty setting, are fairly obvious. Others, like the “style” multipliers and Skulls are a little more complicated. Unfortunately we’re not all blessed with super-human mathematic skills like Bungie’s Roger Wolfson so we’ll break it down nice and slow…


Risk vs. Reward
Playing the game on Easy will net you far less points than playing it on Legendary. As you crank up the difficulty, you will get rewarded with base multipliers that increase your score potential:

• Easy : 0.25x
  
• Normal : 1.0x
  
• Heroic : 2.0x
  
• Legendary : 4.0x

Let’s look at an example - a standard Brute kill would net you 20 points on Normal difficulty. That same Brute would only be worth 5 points on Easy (20 x .25), 40 points on Heroic and a whopping 80 points on Legendary. This can also work against you though – dying on Legendary will cost you 4x as many points as dying on Normal.

Scoring with Style
It’s not just enough to shoot the bad guys. You have to do it with style to earn the highest possible score. All style-based multipliers will result in a 1.25x increased in the amount of points you get for a kill. Here are a few examples of different killing styles that will earn bonus points during your battle:

• Grenade Stick – Stick an enemy with a plasma or spike grenade to get a 1.25x bonus. So, that Brute we were talking about earlier, who is worth 20 points for killing on Normal difficulty, would actually get you 25 points if you stuck him with a plasma grenade in the same game.

• Headshot – Aim well and you will be rewarded for it. All enemies will give you a higher point value if you kill them with a well placed headshot instead of just unloading a clip into their torso. Headshots will provide a 1.25x base multiplier to the point value for any applicable enemy.

• Stealth Kill – Melee attack an enemy behind to earn a Stealth medal as well as a 1.25x point multiplier for the enemy.

• Road Kill – If you run down an enemy in a vehicle, you will get 1.25x the points you’d normally get for just shooting them.

• Multi-Kill – Killing a few enemies in a row will also create a bonus point multiplier. A multi-kill is defined as killing at least 3 enemies within 1.5 seconds. Successfully doing this will earn you 1.25x the normal baseline points for each enemy unit.

• Needler-Superdetonation- The Needler finally becomes the awesome weapon we always wanted it to be in Halo 3. There’s not much more satisfying than annihilating an opponent with pink needles of death. If you manage to get eight needles into an opponent, you will trigger the “superdetonation” which explodes and sends their corpse flying. Doing so will also get you a 1.25x point multiplier.

• "EMP" – Remember the “noob combo” from Halo 2? This was the term coined to refer to using a plasma pistol overcharge blast to drop someone’s shield and then immediately following up with a BR headshot for instant win. Use can use this technique against the Covenant throughout the campaign and it’s particularly useful against Brute adversaries. If you hit an enemy with a charged plasma bolt and then get the finishing shot off within 3 seconds, you’ll earn a 1.25x point bonus.

• Skulls FTW - The most dramatic way to quickly increase your Campaign Scoring potential is to find and activate the golden skulls. As we mentioned above, these skulls are hidden throughout the campaign and once obtained, they can be toggled on and off in the Campaign Options menu.

The first two rows of nine skulls, the golden ones, can all be used to earn valuable point multipliers to further increase your overall score. These multipliers are applied immediately to everything you kill – just like the style or difficulty bonuses.


Finding these skulls is a fun adventure that we don’t want to spoil for you so we’re not going to get into how/where to find each of these. You’re on your own in that department. What we will do for you is cover how many points you can earn with each golden skull and how it will affect your game experience. The point multiplier received for each skull will vary depending on how “hardcore” the skull is.