Halo CE in MCC: The Silent Cartographer walkthrough
Mission spoilers. This covers Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary inside The Master Chief Collection, not Campaign Evolved.
There are two different facilities to keep straight on this island. One contains the map you're looking for. The other controls the security system that blocks your way to it. If you remember that, the middle of this mission makes a lot more sense.
I'm using the normal story route here: clear the beach, find the locked entrance, disable security, return for the map, then get back out. You can visit the security station first, but you don't need a shortcut to finish the level. This is a normal completion route, not a timed achievement attempt.
**1. Clear the landing beach**
As soon as you're off the Pelican, start helping the Marines clear the beach. Check your left as well as the enemies directly ahead; leaving a small group firing into your allies can turn an otherwise manageable opening into a bad one.
Keep the pistol. Its range is useful across the sand, and it remains useful against Hunters later. The assault rifle is fine at close range, but you don't need to run across open ground just to bring every enemy within its comfortable range.
If you're attempting Beachhead, this opening has to be completed on **Heroic or Legendary without a Marine casualty**. Ordinary mission completion does not require that. Know which run you're doing before you decide whether a lost Marine means restarting.
Move with the attack and deal with the threats firing into the squad. Grenades can help against a separate enemy group, but watch where your Marines are moving before throwing. Saving them from Covenant fire doesn't help if your own grenade lands among them.
Once the landing area is secure, Foehammer delivers a Warthog. Let a Marine reach its gun before driving away.
**2. Find the map facility and the locked door**
Follow the shoreline in the direction the mission sends you, continuing past the smaller Covenant positions toward the large entrance built into the cliff. Cortana identifies the facility as you approach.
Clear enough of the outside position to enter safely. You can use the Warthog's gunner against exposed enemies, but park where you can get back to the vehicle easily. You don't have to wedge it through every doorway.
Inside, follow the ramps downward to the guarded security door. It closes during the encounter, blocking further progress. That is the normal reason for your next objective, not evidence that you were too slow and ruined the mission.
Don't waste ammunition trying to destroy the door. Return outside, remember this entrance, and take the Warthog farther around the island toward the route inland.
If you happened to disable security before coming here, this detour has already been handled. Don't go searching for a second security switch because this guide describes the locked-door visit first.
**3. Take the inland path to the security station**
Look for the approach near fallen trees and an overturned Warthog. There are dead Marines and supplies on the beach nearby. Deal with the Covenant guarding the path, then follow it up into the island.
For this ordinary route, walking the narrow section is perfectly reasonable. Trying to force the Warthog through the trees can cost more time than it saves if you're still learning the level.
The path reaches an open area with two Hunters and a large circular structure. This is also where the collectible terminal is located, so remember the clearing if you're collecting everything.
Use the pistol against the Hunters' exposed orange flesh. Firing into the shield or blue armor isn't the shot you're trying to make. Give yourself space to sidestep a charge and take the opening behind the Hunter, while keeping track of its partner.
On Heroic and Legendary, don't tunnel-vision on the Hunter you're circling and forget the other one's firing angle. If both can pressure you from different directions, reposition before trying to line up a close shot.
Continue beyond the clearing and through the next Covenant position to the security building. There are overshields near the entrance if you need one. Inside is another Hunter pair, followed by the passage to the security control.
**4. Disable security, then return outside**
Reach the holo-panel and activate it to release the lockdown at the main facility. This panel is a mission objective; it is not the collectible terminal in the outdoor Hunter clearing.
The Bandanna skull is an optional detour at this security facility. If you're collecting it, use the separate location guide before leaving. You do not need that skull or its modifier to complete the mission.
Expect cloaked Elites on the way back out. Move carefully through the room you previously cleared instead of assuming it is still empty. Watch for movement and the shimmer of camouflage, and leave yourself room to back away.
Outside, Cortana reports the downed supply Pelican. Its wreckage on the beach has weapons you can salvage, including a rocket launcher. You can return by the path you used to reach the security station; you don't need to jump off the cliff to continue.
A rocket launcher is useful, but I'd keep the pistol as the other weapon. Check what you're replacing before picking it up. Rockets in narrow rooms also need some care: if a wall, doorway or enemy is close enough, you can hurt yourself with your own explosion.
Head back around the shore to the map facility you visited earlier.
**5. Enter the main shaft**
There is fresh opposition at the main entrance, including Hunters on the normal locked-door route. Clear it, go back down the ramps, and pass through the door you opened from the security station.
The shaft overlook gives you a view of how far the installation extends below you. It is not an instruction to jump down it. This route uses the connected rooms and ramps.
Continue into the first multi-level room. Clear the enemies on your level and check the balcony before moving through. The onward route descends from the lower floor through a doorway and ramps; repeatedly following the upper doors can send you back around the same room.
Farther down, the route passes a curved corridor, a supply area and another Hunter encounter. Continue down the ramps beyond that fight. In the next multi-level section, work toward the floor-level doors and the descending route to the map chamber.
At each of these rooms, take a second to note which ramp brought you down. You'll be climbing back through the same facility. The route is easier to remember as a series of rooms and changes in height than as an undifferentiated collection of identical doors.
**6. Activate the Cartographer**
Clear the defenders near the bottom and use the holo-panel that activates the map. Cortana identifies the location of Halo's control center. That is the objective you came for, but you still need to return to the surface.
**Achievement distinction:** MCC has Pacifist, which restricts attacks, death and restarting throughout the mission. The old Xbox 360 Grenadier challenge is not the MCC requirement. This combat walkthrough is for a standard completion; the separate achievement checklist explains those distinctions.
Before starting back, reload and check your supplies if this is an ordinary run. You're not simply walking through all the rooms you already emptied.
**7. Climb back out**
Retrace the connected ramps and upper walkways. In the larger rooms, look for the ramp onto the catwalk rather than repeatedly checking doors on the lowest floor. You need to keep gaining height until you reach the original entrance level.
Covenant reinforcements now occupy parts of the return route. Use the corners to check ahead, and don't charge upstairs into several enemies because you're impatient to leave.
A sword-wielding gold Elite waits near the previously locked doorway. Give yourself distance to fight it. If you're using a rocket or plasma grenade, attack while it is still away from you, not after it has closed the gap.
There are cloaked Elites near the final exit as well. Getting back to daylight isn't quite the end of the fighting. Clear the approach, reach Foehammer's pickup and board the Pelican to finish.
**What changes on the harder settings?**
On Normal, use the mission to learn the island's two facilities and the underground return route. That knowledge is more useful than trying to copy every shortcut at once.
On Heroic, make better use of the pistol's range and a plasma weapon against shields. Don't spend health forcing a close fight that you could begin from behind cover.
On Legendary, treat each doorway as a new firing angle. Work on the enemies you can isolate, recharge your shield before crossing open areas, and save heavy ammunition for fights where it genuinely makes a difference. An overshield helps, but it isn't permission to stand in concentrated fire.
The route itself doesn't require anything complicated: unlock the facility, reach the map, and follow your way back up. Most avoidable problems come from mixing up the two buildings or rushing the return through rooms that are no longer safe.
Halo CE in MCC: The Silent Cartographer walkthrough
· Games / Halo: Combat Evolved