The Real Reason Halo Reach's Emile Was The Only One Worth Saving

Out of all the stories that the "Halo" franchise has explored in its expansive timeline, few are quite as doomed as the one told in "Halo Reach." In this particular entry, Bungie chose to tell a prequel story of a team of Spartans desperately trying to fend off a Covenant invasion, only to be picked off one by one before the encounter's tragic end.

While a small section of fans found the protagonist of "Halo Reach," Noble Six, at least a little annoying, the characters introduced in the game are generally likable. At the very least, seeing them fall in the line of duty is never fun. While the story imbues a certain sense of inevitability to those deaths, it hasn't kept fans like the dedicated glitch trackers in Termacious Trickosity from trying to save everyone they can. Unfortunately, since basically of those deaths are baked into cutscenes, rescuing any of the doomed Spartans has seemed impossible.

However, after more than a decade of effort, Termacious Trickosity have finally managed to figure out how to save a single Spartan, although their target might surprise "Halo" fans. The team focused their efforts on the notoriously surly Emile, although they had a very specific explanation for that choice. Here is the real reason that Emile from "Halo Reach" was the only Spartan that Termacious Trickosity was able to save.

Emile was chosen for a ten-year rescue operation because he is the only member of the team who doesn't explicitly die on-screen in an unalterable cutscene. Aaron Sekela, one of the contributors to Termacious Trickosity, told Kotaku, "Even if we were to save, let's say, Jorge, from blowing up on the Corvette during his cutscene. The game would proceed, delete Jorge from the map after the cutscene, then continue onto the next mission without him."

Essentially, to keep Emile alive past the point that his death occurs in-game, players need to bypass "clean-up triggers," which prompt the game to delete everything it does not need for further progression. This would typically include characters scripted to perish, such as Emile after his run-in with the Elites that should kill him during a normal run.

The YouTube presentation of the endeavor, "Saving Emile," is an entire journey all to itself. The rescue begins with launching a Mongoose off the map while coordinating two separate teams of players to trigger and then bypass scripted sequences. Eventually, Termacious Trickosity has to backtrack and respawn Emile. Once he comes back, however, he cannot move on his own, meaning that players essentially have to throw him to the end of the map.

Anyone ambitious enough to try the feat on their own can give it a shot by following the step-by-step instructions in the video. However, it might take a couple of years to pull off.