Halo CE in MCC: The Maw achievement checklist

Halo CE in MCC: The Maw achievement checklist Final-mission spoilers. This covers **The Maw in The Master Chief Collection**, not the standalone Xbox 360 Anniversary game or Campaign Evolved. The Maw is a great finish, but it's also a terrible place to decide halfway through the escape that you're going to collect everything and beat the clock at the same time. The hidden rooms are actual detours. The countdown doesn't stop because you found something interesting. I'd split the sightseeing from the clean escape attempt. It makes the last stretch a lot less frustrating. **Eight targets to keep track of** - **The Maw:** complete the mission. - **This Side Up:** finish the Warthog ride without being forcibly ejected. - **All You Can Eat:** beat the 15-minute full-mission par time. - **Consumption Junction:** beat the 18,000-point par score. - **Kilotons of Fun:** activate terminal ten. - **Skulltaker Halo: CE: Grunt Birthday Party:** collect the skull in remastered mode. - **T-Rex:** find the hidden Rex sign. - **Thirsty Grunt:** hear the hidden Grunt's dialogue about his eating habits. **Never Tell Me the Odds** belongs to Xbox 360 Anniversary: Legendary escape with at least a minute left. It is not an MCC Maw achievement. Don't add its restriction to This Side Up or confuse its escape countdown with the full-mission par timer. **Megg** is on The Pillar of Autumn, not The Maw. Returning to the same ship doesn't make those two missions' Easter eggs interchangeable. **This Side Up: the important words are “forcibly ejected”** You don't need Legendary for this one. A lower difficulty is a sensible way to learn the drive. The achievement isn't a ban on ever getting out of the vehicle. Voluntarily exiting is different from being thrown out, and the normal final approach includes leaving the Warthog. You don't have to squeeze it all the way onto the Longsword to qualify. For the actual drive, straighten up before ramps, avoid clipping an edge with one wheel, and leave yourself room around exploding carrier forms. Charging every turn at maximum speed is not useful if recovering from the crash costs more time than slowing down would have. MCC guides document using **Revert to Last Checkpoint** after an ejection and still unlocking the achievement. That is a retry option, not a guarantee that every checkpoint puts you where you wanted. Don't invent a whole-mission deathless condition here, but don't simply flip the Warthog, carry on from the same failed state, and assume nothing happened either. The Rex detour involves an awkward landing and climbing out. Although a voluntary exit isn't itself the problem, I'd still keep that detour away from the clean-drive attempt. Get comfortable finishing the regular route first. **Thirsty Grunt: don't shoot the one you're here to hear** After the Foehammer bridge encounter, continue into the downhill tunnel and around the next left bend. Look for an opening in the right wall. Enter that narrow passage, then look for another opening on its right side. Get out and follow that small side passage to the Grunt. Approach without attacking and let him talk. The achievement is available on any difficulty; you aren't trying to kill him or bring him an item. This stop happens during the escape. Check your remaining time before wandering around, and don't assume that a run with several detours will still have enough time to finish. Once you have the unlock, it remains its own achievement rather than becoming a requirement for every future escape. **T-Rex: the room under the escape route** Farther along, Cortana warns about a large gap. Instead of aiming only for the ordinary landing, the documented Rex route angles slightly left onto the side platform below. Once safely there, use the Warthog as a step to reach the higher ledge. Follow the ledge toward the burning canister and enter the adjacent small corridor. Find the wall marked REX and look at it. This is a separate hidden-room visit, not the Thirsty Grunt's tunnel. The landing can go wrong, so make it its own attempt if you're still learning it. There is no benefit in pretending a written description makes a tricky vehicle landing automatic. **Terminal and skull** **Kilotons of Fun** is the tenth terminal, earlier in the mission. **Grunt Birthday Party** is the skull during the Warthog section. They have separate unlocks; finishing the campaign doesn't automatically collect either one. If these are the last entries you're missing, they may also finish your broader terminal or skull objectives. Check the actual list afterward. Finding the final mission's collectible is not proof that you found every earlier one. **All You Can Eat: 15 minutes means the whole mission** Any difficulty qualifies, so use Easy for a dedicated time attempt if that's your preference. The par timer covers the mission, not just the final drive. Learn the route through the ship and the reactor-room sequence before trying to recover all your lost time in the Warthog. A rocket launcher from the armory can make destroying the exposed reactor vents more straightforward than trying repeated grenade throws. Still confirm each objective is destroyed before moving on. Leave the hidden rooms and collectible stops out. This checklist gives you the achievement conditions, not a claim that a cautious full-clear route is a speedrun. **Consumption Junction: earn the points before the final rush** The score target is **18,000**. No particular difficulty is demanded by the achievement, but higher difficulty and scoring modifiers change the points available. The driving section is not a reliable place to make up a large shortage. Check your score before committing to the escape and try to have a comfortable margin already. You still need to finish; reaching the target before the elevator is a planning goal, not an automatic unlock. Use a manageable scoring setup, read skull warnings, and avoid stacking unfamiliar modifiers just for a bigger multiplier. Halo Support recommends completing time and score attempts in a single session. On PC, use the normal EAC-enabled game with unmodified files. A clean finish, the discoveries, the time, and the score can all be handled without making every run do everything. That's how I'd close out CE: check what you actually unlocked, then go back for the specific things left over.