The end of a benign bug.
The 20-year-old FPS game Halo has four difficulties in most of the single-player battles, and the highest one is "Legendary Difficulty". All enemies' health and weapon power are increased at this level, making it especially difficult to clear levels.
Some hardcore players have proposed a more challenging "LASO" (Legendary All Skull On) difficulty, also known as "Mythic" difficulty.
Since Halo 2, the game has introduced a hidden skull collection, each with its own effects. Most skulls make campaigns more challenging, such as doubling enemy health, enhancing AI, halving drop ammo replenishment, or turning off the "Breathe Back Blood" feature, where the Sergeant Major must kill enemies with melee attacks to restore the shield.
A remake of Halo: Master Chief Collection can be directly opened to skulls
LASO means completing the legendary difficulty while collecting and unlocking all the skulls. 343 Studios officially recognized LASO in Halo 4, and since then, from Halo: Master Chief Collection to Halo: Infinity, released late last year, there have been trophies and achievements specially prepared for players who have passed LASO.
LASO achievement of Halo: Infinity
For now, halo: infinity's legendary and LASO difficulty is probably the simplest of all halo series, thanks in large part to a secret weapon: the Scorpion Gun.
In the third mission before officially entering the open world, the player can find this Scorpion Cannon, and as long as the Scorpion Cannon is not replaced with other weapons to cause it to disappear, they can take it through all subsequent processes.
Source B station @ feeding dog group - building seat
The reason why it is called "Scorpion Gun" is because it is a "portable" version of the main gun of the Human "Scorpion" tank. The Portable Scorpion Cannon is still heavy, affecting the sergeant major's ability to run and jump, but has the considerable lethality of bombarding the stragglers with one cannon and destroying most enemy vehicles with two cannons on legendary difficulty, as well as unlimited ammunition.
The appearance of the Scorpion Cannon is invisible, and its shells are fired from a place where the normal perspective is a little lower, so it is also "affectionately" called "crotch cannon" by some Chinese players.
Players once thought that the Scorpion Cannon was a tribute to the "Scarab Gun" Easter egg left by Bungie Studios in Halo 2. The Scarab is the vehicle of the main enemy, the Star Alliance, and the Scarab Gun has the same firepower and unlimited ammunition as the Main Gun of the Scarab.
The appearance of the Scarab Gun is the same as the ubiquitous plasma rifle, but the appearance is deceptive
However, human technology is rarely better than that of aliens: explosions caused by the Scarab Gun will hurt themselves, while the Scorpion Cannon will not. The sergeant major's "crotch cannon" can be aimed at his feet and fired, and in the end only the enemy will fall.
And because the Scorpion Cannon doesn't affect the acquisition of any achievements, it's not hard to imagine how convenient it is for players who want difficult levels or quick-pass results.
Studio 343 also came forward to clarify that the Scorpion Cannon is not an Easter egg that pays tribute to the former owner, but is just a simple loophole (Glitch).
In February, IGN organized an interview with Studio 343 to ask developers for feedback on the Halo: Infinity campaign crashpass video, in which the speedpass players unsurprisingly picked up the Scorpion Cannon. Game designer Caleb confirmed that the Scorpion Cannon was a weapon that could be picked up during the game's prototype development to simulate "orbital strikes", and due to their negligence, the Scorpion Cannon was forgotten in that corner and inadvertently created history.
Caleb: "It's really fun to watch everyone use the Scorpion Cannon"
However, 343's attitude towards Easter eggs and loopholes is very different. The Scarab Gun, as an Easter egg, remains in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and there are achievements to find it, and presumably it will continue to exist in the future.
The Scorpion Cannon, which can be used as a bug, is about to be "fixed" and removed from the game.
On April 16, John Junyszek, senior community manager at 343 Studios, suddenly sent a tweet: "Alert Speedpass players and achievement hunters: Tank gun bugs in the campaign will be fixed in the second season." ”
If 343 doesn't jump tickets, the second season of Halo: Infinity will go live on May 3, setting aside a dozen days for players who haven't experienced Scorpio yet.
However, 343 did not decide to remove a well-known benign bug until 6 months after the release of the Halo: Infinity campaign, and most fans of the Halo series had already completed the battle of only 8 hours of process for an unknown number of times, not to mention that some players were inspired by the Scorpion Bug to pass the multi-week and difficult battles.
As a result, players who are puzzled by 343's decision have retained Scorpion cannons on official forums, Twitter, Reddit and other social media.
Players speculated that 343 wanted to increase the gold content of the difficulty level of achievements and trophies, so they came up with various arguments to prove that the Scorpion Cannon was not the only means of skipping class in the high-difficulty battle.
Halo: Infinity's unique skull "bandana" gives the sergeant major unlimited ammo, and it is also an idea to use weapons such as rocket launchers and grenades to bombard enemies without relying on scorpion cannons. Although the explosion of these weapons can hurt themselves, their output performance is not necessarily inferior to that of the Scorpion Cannon, and does not affect the sergeant major's ability to evade enemy attacks.
"Compared to the turban skull, the Scorpion Cannon pales in comparison"
They also made several suggestions for the authorities to keep the Scorpion Cannon, for example, to design an achievement for players who don't use the Scorpion Cannon to clear LASO, or to make the Scorpion Cannon a separate skull collection. The Halo: Infinity Express community has used the Scorpion Cannon as the criterion for dividing the SpeedPass project, with a unique achievement reward, which can also be used to restrain ordinary players who pursue achievements.
This self-created achievement is also a tribute to the previous game
343 officially did not disclose the reason for the removal of the Scorpion Cannon, and the removal of the Scorpion Cannon may be the biggest change in the campaign mode when the second season of Halo: Infinity arrives. Previously, 343 promised to add the multiplayer online campaign mode in the second season, and jumped to the "late season of the second season", so the possibility that the Scorpion Cannon loophole would adversely affect the multiplayer mode could not be ruled out.
It's just that Halo: Infinity is facing the same dilemma as Battlefield 2042, and its Steam online numbers are almost the same as the previous game Halo: Master Chief Collection. Players are probably more happy to see new content than to remove existing content.
Image source SteamDB website