Halo Season 2: 12 Easter Eggs, References, And Clues From Episodes 1-3

The Paramount+ TV series based on the Halo video games occasionally departs from the source material, as well as adding some cool Easter eggs for fans. We've seen what Season 1 has to offer--including numerous Easter egg pieces--so it's time to look at the next chapter in the Halo series.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 2, Episodes 1-3 of Halo. If you have yet to watch these episodes, you may want to wait before diving in.

Halo Season 2 is currently streaming on Paramount_--with new episodes dropping weekly. And while Season 2 might not be as in-your-face about its game references, there are still plenty to be found. Thankfully, we're here to help you track down the moments you missed and explain what they all mean.

Whether it's the weapons, the lore, or some moments that had us scratching our heads, here are 13 moments you may have missed from the first three episodes of Halo Season 2.

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A few minutes into the first episode of the new season, there is a very quick, almost POV shot, of a Spartan looking into the scope of their rifle. There is a green glow coming from the scope. This is Night Vision mode, which is accessible in the games.

How do you scale a rock cliff without actually climbing? Obviously, you use a grappling device, much like you'd see in Tim Burton's Batman. Considering that the Spartans have this in Season 2 is pretty interesting because that game mechanic first appears in Halo Infinite, far into the video game series.

Eagle-eyed Halo fans noticed something different while Master Chief was fighting one of The Elites. After the battle was over, and the Elite was dead, the alien's blood looked red. That's a bit different than the video games, as the Elites tend to bleed dark blue or purple.

Much like G.I. Joe or random military action figures exist in our world, Spartan toys exist in the world of Halo. Who wouldn't want to play as Master Chief or Riz? You can walk around, shoot the Covenant, and figure out your KDR--more on that later.

Toward the end of Episode 1, Cortana is brought up. It is referred to as "the Cortana system." The AI helps Master Chief along his way in the video games. However, Cortana's name wasn't chosen for her. She named herself. Additionally, Cortana isn't supposed to be a name used by other AI, which is a big difference from the TV show to the video game.

One of the cool things about the Spartans (Master Chief mainly) is that their suits give them the power to enhance their jumping ability. However, within the context of this scene, a little more than 20 minutes into the episode, their jumping prowess is very, very enhanced. It's a little bit of a liberty the show is taking, and that continues throughout this sequence.

Riz is at the top of the cliff, hanging from the edge. She loses her grip and falls. In the image above, it's a bit hard to see her, but she's to the left of the smaller waterfall. Regardless, she falls hundreds of feet and lands on a rock. It basically just knocks the breath out of her. If this happened in the video games, she'd very much be dead.

This isn't so much an Easter egg as it is a, "Why did you say that?" moment. While having dinner, Antonio turns to Master Chief and asks him what his KDR is--kill-to-death ratio is. At first, we were all confused. How can you die in real life and just respawn? Then, reality clicks in, as Antonio was referring to that statistic for the game Spartan Attack. In the real world, there is no Spartan Attack, but there is Spartan Assault.

Released in 2013, the top-down perspective game featured Spartans killing the Covenant. The game was released on Windows, Xbox One, Xbox 360, iOS, and Windows phones. Anyways, we hope your KDR is 0:0.

Look, Master Chief may be part of the military and a one-man-army--who occasionally needs help from other soldiers--but he does occasionally disobey orders, like not handing Cortana to Captain Del Rio in Halo 4. In fact, he does it a lot of other times in the games. During this moment in Episode 3, Chief is told to stand down, and he blatantly disobeys this order. We'll probably see a lot more of this in future episodes.

Master Chief is having some issues, as he has visions of dead people, and it's becoming hard to draw the line between reality and these surreal moments he has. This can be seen in the Halo video game series as Chief has visions, which show up in Halo 3, and continue into future entries. However, most of these visions are of Cortana.

There's a little bit of military discrepancy here. During the latter half of Episode 3, Keyes refers to a group of combatants that died as soldiers. However, these soldiers fall under the ONI banner, which stands for the Office of Naval Intelligence, so technically, these combatants are sailors.

In Halo, it's revealed later in the games that the center of the Covenant is a fanatical religious order. You should probably get that from the name alone. The scene where we hear the speech from Var 'Gatanai reveals a bit more about the religious fanaticism that this group revolves around. Also, John gets called "Demon" during this. Check out the full quote below.

"I bring you blessings. People of Reach. Know that I've come without mercy. Without pity. Know that I am the instrument of your extinction. I bring this planet forth as a burnt offering. Upon this altar, I place the head of the Demon. May his blood mark the way to the Sacred Ring and consecrate the Great Journey of my people. Know that I am Var 'Gatanai. Know that I am Death."