Halo CE in MCC: The Maw, from the bridge to the final escape

Halo CE in MCC: The Maw, from the bridge to the final escape Mission 10, Combat Evolved Anniversary in The Master Chief Collection. Ending spoilers. The Maw has two jobs that need different approaches. First, you have to get through the ship and destroy the reactors. Then you have to stop treating every enemy as something worth fighting and get out. This is the conventional route, without grenade-jump shortcuts or a promise of a par-time finish. **Bridge → cryo observation room → armory → four reactors → service lift → Warthog run → Longsword.** **Back aboard the Pillar of Autumn** Enter the maintenance passage from the opening area and descend through its floor opening. Check below before dropping. Work through the damaged halls toward the mess hall, collecting a shotgun when you can. There are Flood, Covenant and Sentinels fighting throughout the ship. Use the doorway to inspect the mess hall before crossing it. A Hunter distracted by another enemy gives you an opportunity to aim at exposed flesh, but don't stand in the open waiting for a perfect angle while the rest of the room shoots you. Continue to the bridge and approach the familiar command area to trigger Cortana's attempt to start the self-destruct. The Monitor interrupts it. Deal with the Sentinels after the scene, then head back out toward the cryo section. Don't confuse the story's initial self-destruct sequence with the countdown you'll drive against later. You still have the route to Engineering and the reactor job ahead. **Cryo, terminal and armory** Follow the available passages to Cryo B. Clear enough space to reach its ladder, climb to the observation level, and move into the room overlooking the pods. **This is the terminal stop**, so collect it here if you're doing the completion-and-collectibles route. Continue through the halls and maintenance passages. Watch the floor signs for the armory and Engineering rather than assuming every open door is the objective. Take the armory detour: a rocket launcher makes the reactor work much less fiddly, and a shotgun is useful for enemies closing in. The armory isn't a guaranteed safe shopping room. Cloaked Flood can attack while you're collecting weapons. Listen, check the doorway, and finish loading before moving on. If you're already carrying useful equipment, don't accidentally leave it behind because you held the pickup button next to the wrong gun. **Engineering: four reactors, not three** There are **four** targets. Shooting the machinery from the entrance won't do the job; you must retract the exhaust couplings and put an explosion into the exposed cores. Use the ramps and doors marked for Level 2 and then Level 3 to reach the upper controls. The regular stairs work. You don't need to grenade-jump onto a higher floor. For each target: 1. Reach its control panel and activate it to retract the coupling. 2. Move to an angle where you can see the exposed opening, using the solid beam or ledge rather than jumping into the vent itself. 3. Wait for the opening to expose the bright interior, then send a rocket **into it**, not into the outside casing or the pipe in front of it. 4. Confirm the destruction before going to another control. A fired rocket isn't proof that the shot connected. 5. Return by the ramps as needed and repeat for the remaining targets on both sides of the room. A grenade can also do it, but the explosion has to reach inside. If yours keeps bouncing out, change your position and arc instead of repeatedly throwing from the same bad angle. A rocket's direct path is easier to judge. Back away from nearby surfaces before firing so you don't catch yourself in the blast. Don't try to open everything at once while enemies are crowding you. Work one target at a time, keep an escape from your firing position, and reload behind cover. There are health supplies in Engineering, and you can return to the armory if you run out of explosives. This part isn't the final timed drive yet. After the fourth reactor is destroyed, Cortana directs you to the service lift at the top of Engineering. Clear the Covenant arriving with it, board, and ride up. Use the time before leaving to reload rather than carrying an empty shotgun into the next emergency. **The countdown that matters** At the garage, take a Warthog. The escape countdown is **six minutes on Easy, Normal and Heroic, five on Legendary**. Cortana's earlier estimate of fifteen minutes is not the amount you'll have for the drive. Look at the actual timer on screen. Use a separate attempt for unfamiliar collectibles or Easter eggs. Stopping to work out a jump while the ship is coming apart is a very different problem from collecting an item in a quiet room. **Drive the route, not every fight** Stay moving through the broad chambers and connecting corridors. The biggest avoidable losses are hitting a barrier squarely, overcorrecting into the opposite wall, and stopping to shoot enemies that weren't blocking the route. In the early large chambers, line up with an opening before accelerating through it. Watch for a wall immediately after a ramp or tunnel; the entrance and exit aren't always a perfectly straight lane. Use the side passages around the big central obstacles when they give you a clearer approach, then straighten before rejoining the main route. Later, the columns require steering around them rather than forcing the center line. Start each turn with enough space to finish it. If you're already scraping the wall, backing up a short distance to reset your angle can be faster than holding the accelerator and hoping. If you roll, get out, right the Warthog and keep going. That costs time, but a roll by itself doesn't mean an ordinary completion is lost. The achievement for avoiding forced ejection is a separate matter. **Foehammer's pickup point** When you reach the exposed pickup platform, Cortana tells you to stop. If you wait for the extraction scene, the countdown pauses during that sequence. Foehammer doesn't make it, and the timer resumes with a new destination: the remaining Longsword. Don't wait indefinitely for another Pelican. Continue along the service route once the plan changes. The pause is a scripted part of the scene, not an unlimited break to explore the bridge. This is also where the Grunt Birthday Party detour belongs, if that is what you came to collect. **The last jumps and the run on foot** When Cortana warns about the gap, straighten the vehicle before the ramp and build speed on the approach. Avoid a last-second turn that sends you sideways. Keep control through the following landing and drop instead of celebrating the moment you're airborne. At the final bay, wreckage blocks the Warthog. Stop trying to force it through, get out, and head for the Longsword at the far end. A route beside the central fighting can reduce how much you have to push through, but it isn't invulnerable. Keep moving and deal with enemies only when they're actually preventing you from reaching the ship. The job is to reach the escape trigger before the clock expires, not to clear the hangar. Get aboard and let the ending play. On Legendary, the shorter clock makes clean driving especially valuable. Learn the route before trying to collect extras or chase another achievement. Getting the reactor mechanics right and keeping the Warthog pointed through the next opening will do more for this run than trying to make every section look like a speedrun video.