Halo is ostensibly a series about using guns to shoot aliens and defeat organized religion. But the coolest weapon in the series isn’t a gun. It’s a sword — specifically, it’s the energy sword.
You may have encountered an energy sword for the first time in 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved. Certain classes of Elites would wield what looked, at the time, like a cyan lightsaber drawn in Microsoft Paint. You’d quickly discover that these iridescent color splotches in fact killed you in one hit, tearing through the Master Chief’s super future space armor like paper. Those feelings of frustration were likely followed by feelings of “Gimme that,” but sadly, developer Bungie did not allow players to use the energy sword in Halo: Combat Evolved.
Bungie came to its senses in 2004’s Halo 2, allowing you to actually use the thing — at which point the energy sword instantly became the coolest weapon in Halo, an honor it’s held onto for more than 20 years.
Since then, while many Halo weapons have undergone notable cosmetic and functional changes, the energy sword has largely remained the same. (Why change perfection?) It has a horizontal hilt; two streams of blueish plasma pour out of each end, forming mirror scythe shapes that coalesce into a sharp pointy end. When you attack an enemy, you lunge toward them, and will usually kill them in one hit. To balance this out, you can use the energy sword about ten times before it runs out of battery — enough to give you an edge but not so much to make you invincible.
In the multiplayer mode for Halo Infinite, the most recent Halo game, the energy sword is known as a “power weapon,” or one that respawns on long intervals and is considered the type of weapon that can turn the tide of a match. There are plenty of uses for the energy sword in Infinite’s multiplayer — none of which are inherently evil, by the way, no matter what people might tell you. They are as follows:
Of course, the best players have found even more creative ways to use the energy sword. Top Halo pro Tommy “Lucid” Wilson notably pairs the energy sword with a long-range rifle to bait opponents into headshots. In the original multiplayer trailer for Halo Infinite, you can see one player using the explosion from a plasma grenade to launch an energy sword off an isolated platform before grabbing it midair and killing an opponent. (If you somehow pull this off in an actual match, you’ll get the Combat Evolved medal. Hearing longtime Halo announcer Jeff Steitzer say “combat evolved” never gets old.) The energy sword became so overbearing in Halo Infinite that, in December 2022, a year after the game’s release, developer 343 Industries nerfed it.
But that hasn’t done anything to suppress its cool factor, as the energy sword is now no longer relegated to the Halo games (or covers of tie-in novels). Etsy is rife with hundreds of energy sword trinkets. Check out your local renaissance faire; you’ll likely see a wall of wood-carved energy swords at the “blacksmith.” Anecdotally, a solid half of all Halo tattoos feature the energy sword. It has fully broken containment. Can the battle rifle say that? Can the gravity hammer?
Screw the gravity hammer.
