A few weeks ago, Halo Infinite featured a cat ears cosmetic item that quickly became seen on many players' Spartans. It appears that while designing them, 343 Industries at one point tested them on Master Chief, a new piece of Halo Infinite concept art showing as such.Players knew about the cat ears cosmetic way in advance of its official reveal at the end of December. When the multiplayer beta launched in November, Halo Infinite players were spotting bots wearing the cat ears helmet attachment, the bots being appropriately named "Meowlnir." When the item eventually came to the store, they became very popular as Spartans in practically every game lobby were wearing them. In-game the cat ears are an Epic Helmet Attachment titled "Purrfect Audio," its description simply being "Anthropomjolnir," a doubling down by 343 Industries on the cat puns.A member of the Halo Infinite community has shared concept art revealing an official look of the cat ears attachment on Master Chief. In the image posted by DeltaArchive on Twitter, the typically stoic yet occasionally dry-witted Master Chief can be seen in three shots wearing the Purrfect Audio attachment, referred to as simply the "Cat Ears Accessory" on the page. To the side are examples of the cat ears themselves, unattached to Master Chief, with captions explaining how they will connect to various other helmets, and the usage of familiar shapes already present in Master Chief's armor.
A common practice within game development in the conceptual phase is after nailing a basic design, the artist will model it and see how it looks against other game assets. This is important as the concept art here is exactly that: a collection of renders using Master Chief as a basis for the cat ears.
What gives this away is how the topmost render of Master Chief includes texture work like the gold visor and 117 number on his chest, while the bottom images are all the same green color. There are likely many more pieces like this within the Art of Halo Infinite, the game's official collection of concept materials and art.
Halo Infinite players have been mixed on the cat ears ever since they were discovered. In one hand they are a neat accessory that exemplify the type of cosmetics that belong in the item shop, while in the other, they contradict (for many) what Halo armor should look like artistically. Now that there is artwork out there of Master Chief with cat ears, though, perhaps that will sway the stance on them, for better or for worse.
Halo Infinite is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
