Halo Infinite’s release date was finally announced at Gamescom this year, and for many fans the long-anticipated title is coming earlier than expected. Both the campaign and multiplayer will be released on December 8, finally letting fans experience the game’s mysterious story after significant delays.
The marketing materials released for Halo Infinite so far have certainly raised some big questions about that story, however. A key part of the game’s premise has left many fans trying to wrap their heads around the disappearance of a key character, one who, based on previous Halo stories, seems very unlikely to simply get left behind.
Escharum And The Banished
Halo Infinite’s main antagonists will be the Banished, a group of mercenaries formerly aligned with the Covenant. Their leader in Halo Infinite appears to be a Brute named Escharum, who appeared in one of the trailers. Their goal, as in Halo Wars 2, appears to be to capture a Halo Ring, one of the galaxy’s most powerful weapons. The change in leadership, however, struck many Halo fans as strange.
When fans last left Escharum he was only second-in-command of the Banished, having taken the spot after the death of Decimus, another Brute and one of the founders of the group. The ultimate founder and leader of the Banished throughout the story so far has been Atriox.
Compared to Escharum, Atriox has had a far more fleshed out story in the series so far. His mysterious disappearance between the events of Halo Wars 2 and Halo Infinite has yet to be fully addressed, though it seems unlikely that the next Halo game will simply ignore his absence. Atriox’s story doesn’t leave many hints as to where he might be, but it does suggest that he is too important a character for the writers to simply have cut from the series’ overarching narrative.
Atriox’s Story
Atriox is one of the most interesting characters to come out of the era after the original Halo trilogy. As a Brute, he was part of a series of suicide missions, with the Covenant’s religious beliefs decreeing that Brutes could only go on the Great Journey if they died in battle. Atriox was the sole survivor of several of these missions, becoming increasingly embittered at the role he and his people had to play in the Covenant’s war and the Prophets’ view of the universe. In his early military career, Escharum was Atriox’s mentor.
As Atriox’s disillusionment became increasingly clear to the Covenant higher-ups, the missions he was sent on became increasingly dangerous. His ability to survive against impossible odds became legendary, and the Covenant’s leaders began to worry that it wouldn’t be long before more Brutes began seeing the war in a similar way to Atriox.
After one battle, Atriox ranted about his disdain for the Covenant to a dying human marine, and after finishing him off turned around to see another Brute, who attempted to kill him for blasphemy. After killing the Brute, Atriox was sentenced to death. Right when he was about to be executed, however, other Brutes led by Decimus rose up and overthrew Atriox’s Elite captors. They became the first members of the Banished.
The Banished began raiding the UNSC and Covenant alike, and when the Covenant finally collapsed its ranks and armor were bolstered by those left behind, including Elites and other non-Brute species. The Banished became one of the most powerful factions in the Halo universe, and in Halo Wars 2 the UNSC and the Banished battled for control of Installation 00, AKA the Ark, the Forerunner station that controlled the entire Halo array.
The Banished took heavy loses when the UNSC Spirit of Fire showed up to take the Ark from them. Decimus was killed, the Banished’s most powerful ship the Enduring Conviction was destroyed, and their attempts to use the Ark to build a Halo ring and keep it within the Banished’s control were foiled.
The end of Atriox’s story so far happens in the book Halo: Shadows of Reach. The leader of the Banished returned to his people and told them that they would be focusing their efforts on capturing Installation 07, AKA the Zeta Halo, the setting of Halo Infinite. By the time Infinite takes place, however, Escharum is in charge, and 343 might have already given some hints as to why.
Where Is Atriox?
It’s possible that Atriox was killed in the time between Halo Wars 2 and Halo Infinite, but an offscreen death seems like a very anticlimactic end to one of the series’ most interesting recent characters. In the June 2020 Halo Infinite trailer, Escharum delivers the line “We are his will. We are his legacy. We are The Banished.” This word choice does seem to suggest that Atriox is either dead or missing in action. It doesn’t make it sound like he simply left the group to attend to a higher cause – the language is too reverent.
It’s possible that Atriox’s disappearance or death took place between the games in order for Halo Infinite to make Escharum’s arc as Halo Infinite’s villain more self-contained, without requiring players to read any of the books or play Halo Wars 2. In an interview with IGN 343’s Paul Crocker and Chris Lee said that they didn’t “want a game where player have to do homework.”
Hopefully, however, that doesn’t mean that Atriox has simply been unceremoniously killed off. If he has, fans can only hope that his death is expanded upon in Halo Infinite, and isn’t simply glossed over in service of making the new game a more self-contained story. There could at least be another Halo comic or book dealing with what happened to Atriox. If nothing else, the end of Atriox’s story could be the launching point for an interesting new version of the Banished, one which, without his leadership, is looking for vengeance.
Halo Infinite launches December 8 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.