Halo 3 in MCC: Crow's Nest achievements without chasing the wrong targets

Halo 3 in MCC: Crow's Nest achievements without chasing the wrong targets *Mission spoilers. The Master Chief Collection version.* Crow's Nest sends you through the same base more than once, but it doesn't ask you to do the same thing each time. You're defending it, helping evacuate it, then going back to make sure the Covenant doesn't get to keep it. That matters for an achievement run. Knowing which visit you're on saves more time than running blindly through a familiar corridor. It also helps keep a skull hunt separate from the final escape. **The five fixed achievements** - **Holdout:** complete Crow's Nest. Easy is eligible in MCC. - **Time Shift:** beat the **20-minute** par time, on any difficulty. - **King of the Crows:** beat the **19,000-point** MCC par score. - **Skulltaker Halo 3: Black Eye:** collect the skull above the opening operations room on Normal or harder. - **Skulltaker Halo 3: Grunt Birthday Party:** collect the skull in the hidden passage beneath the later shaft ledge on Normal or harder. There is no terminal in Crow's Nest. There also isn't a mission-specific achievement for saving every Marine, getting through without damage or hearing the password conversation. Those may be things you want to do, but they aren't missing boxes on this mission's achievement list. **First pass: finish the mission and get the skulls** Start from **Mission Start on Normal** for a straightforward combined run. That gets you the correct skull setup without turning every fight into a Legendary encounter. Get **Black Eye** before leaving the operations room. Use the equipment rack and the narrower support to reach the large overhead pipe, then follow it to the pickup. Don't confuse finding it with activating Black Eye's shield-recharge restriction in the menu. You only need to claim the object. For **Grunt Birthday Party**, stop before dropping all the way down the later shaft on the approach to the barracks. The concealed passage is beneath the lip you are standing on. Catch the shelf with a controlled drop back toward that wall, rather than jumping outward. The separate skull guide covers the approach and the portable gravity-lift alternative. Once both are collected, concentrate on finishing the objectives. **Holdout** is awarded for completing the mission, not merely reaching the bomb. After rearming it, you still need to escape through the caves toward the hangar and use the service elevator. The original Xbox 360 Holdout requires Normal or higher. MCC's version accepts Easy. That's useful if you want a simple completion or time run later, but Easy isn't the setup for these two skull pickups. **Time Shift: know where the return trips go** The target is under **20 minutes**. Easy, optional skulls off and the timer displayed are a sensible place to start. Do the collectibles separately. Black Eye isn't far out of the way, but a failed climb—or several attempts to catch the other skull's shelf—can eat into a perfectly good run for no benefit once you've collected them. The route through the mission has a few easy places to lose time: - During the first hangar defense, finish the enemies holding up the encounter instead of heading back before the objective advances. - On the barracks route, deal with threats around the Marines and continue toward their evacuation rather than retracing the first hangar trip from memory. - When ordered back to the bomb, return to the operations center. Don't assume the earlier arming sequence finished that job permanently. - After rearming it, the exit is the **service elevator in the hangar**. It isn't another Pelican pickup, and the mission isn't finished just because the alarm is sounding. Keep a weapon suited to the next fight instead of carrying something awkward solely because it helped earlier. A turret can be useful against the Drone swarm, but hauling it through every corridor isn't automatically faster than switching back to your ordinary weapons. You don't need an out-of-bounds route for the basic time target. Learn the doors and objective changes first. Save the difficult shortcuts for a separate speedrunning attempt if you actually want to pursue them. **King of the Crows: use 19,000, not an old guide's number** The current MCC target is **19,000 points**. The original 360 score award was **Demon**, with a 15,000-point target. Some launch-era MCC solutions still discuss 25,000. Neither old number should replace the current one on your checklist. Use the scoring display and plan around a clean run. Normal with a small number of scoring modifiers you can handle is a reasonable option; Heroic is another if you're comfortable with the fights. Legendary isn't a requirement. A battle rifle and plasma pistol are useful against the Brutes: strip protection with plasma, then switch to the precision weapon for the exposed target. Against Drones, prioritize a clear line of fire without standing where the whole swarm can shoot you. Use the hangar's guns when they help, but don't let a fixed position become a reason to stay exposed after your shields are gone. The barracks also puts allies close to enemies. Aim explosives carefully rather than treating every crowded room as a grenade opportunity. Staying alive and keeping the run moving is more valuable than taking an elaborate risk for one extra kill. I wouldn't start by enabling Iron just because an old solution includes it. Restarting a solo mission after a mistake is a substantial penalty, not free score. Choose modifiers for fights you already understand, and check their warnings before launching. You can kill plenty of enemies while keeping a good pace. You don't have to rush past everything as though this were a pure time run, and you shouldn't assume a score shown partway through is protected from later penalties. Finish the mission and check the recorded result. **The password Marine is worth hearing—but isn't an achievement** On your first trip through the long curved corridor, continue to the far end instead of immediately taking the route toward the hangar. A Marine is trying to get someone behind a locked door to let him in without knowing the password. The conversation changes with difficulty and uses Red vs. Blue performers. It's a good little detour when you aren't racing the clock. You don't have to open the door, attack the Marine or wait indefinitely for an unlock notification. In particular, **Sounds Familiar** is a different Easter egg on the multiplayer map **High Ground**. The missing-person poster for **Milk Carton** is also elsewhere, in the area shared by The Storm and Floodgate. Neither belongs on a Crow's Nest hunt. **Optional dialogue progress** If you haven't earned **Can't Keep Him Down**, this mission is another opportunity to fight alongside and hear Chips Dubbo. Stay with the Marines and let their dialogue play. Don't injure allies trying to force the award, and don't treat it as a guaranteed mission-completion bonus. **Flipyap** is another possible pickup, but it is random dialogue rather than a fixed Crow's Nest collectible. It uses IWHBYD and a surviving Grunt reacting to another Grunt's death. Keep that as a separate attempt if necessary; waiting on a random line is a poor addition to a time or score run. Five fixed targets, two optional dialogue opportunities, and one conversation you can enjoy without earning anything. That's a much more useful checklist than searching every room for an achievement that belongs to another level.