What you need to know
- Twitch streamer and Halo 2 speedrunner JerValiN has managed to accomplish something that was once believed to be impossible: a deathless run of Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty, with all Skulls on (other than Envy, which gives players an advantage).
- By successfully finishing this challenge, JerValiN has completed the $20,000 bounty issued by popular Twitch streamer MoistCr1TiKaL to beat Halo 2 LASO without dying.
- The run took six hours, 29 minutes, and 44.17 seconds, and involved masterful and methodical gameplay and the incredibly skillful use of skips and glitches.
After weeks of grinding the Halo 2 campaign, Twitch streamer and Halo speedrunner JerValiN has finally managed to achieve something the internet once thought was impossible: a completed run of the game on Legendary difficulty with all Skulls on (except the Envy Skull, which provides Master Chief with an invisibility cloak) without any deaths. No other player has managed to achieve this feat, meaning that JerValiN has officially made gaming history.
The community-wide race to beat Halo 2 LASO without dying began when the popular Twitch streamer MoistCr1TiKaL issued a $5,000 bounty to complete the challenge in late June, which was then raised to $20,000 in July. After attempting the challenge dozens of times, JerValiN finally managed to finish it with expert knowledge of Halo 2’s campaign systems, clever use of glitches and skips, skillful and methodical play, and a touch of luck.
Halo 2 LASO is notorious for being significantly more difficult than any other Halo LASO campaign, largely due to the fact that with all Skulls activated on Legendary difficulty, enemies do insane amounts of damage and the player has barely any health at all. On top of that, the combined effects of all of Halo 2’s skulls severely disadvantage the player by taking away their heads-up display (HUD) and weapon viewmodel, preventing them from recharging their shields without getting melee kills, and reducing the amount of ammo they can carry. Meanwhile, all enemies get an invisibility cloak, a higher rank, an improved fire rate, and the ability to spam grenades with reckless abandon. Halo 2 is also widely considered to be terribly balanced for Legendary difficulty in general (I’m sure you’ve seen the Sniper Jackal memes).
Part of me seriously doubted this challenge would ever be completed, which made watching JerValiN do it live an incredible experience. Halo 2 LASO deathless is arguably the hardest challenge in all of gaming, but in a dazzling display of skill and finesse, one man has proven that it’s not impossible.
The successful run took six hours, 29 minutes, and 44.17 seconds in total. You can watch the full VOD directly from JerValiN’s Twitch channel in the VOD above.