**Halo 3 in MCC: The Ark achievements and the Legendary foot-only run**

**Halo 3 in MCC: The Ark achievements and the Legendary foot-only run** *Mission spoilers.* The Ark hands you a tank and then has an achievement for refusing it. That is the run to plan separately. The regular completion, collectibles and scoring targets are much less restrictive. **The mission checklist** - **Refuge:** finish The Ark. - **Waypoint:** finish below **20:00**. - **Ranger:** beat **25,000 points** in MCC. - **Skulltaker Halo 3: Famine** and **Skulltaker Halo 3: Cowbell:** collect the two skulls on Normal or harder from Mission Start. - **Rising Waters**, **Inundation**, **Before the Fire:** activate terminals 1, 2 and 3 respectively. - **Who Needs Them?:** complete the level on **Legendary without entering a vehicle**. The original Xbox 360 Ranger target is 50,000. MCC's is 25,000. Original armor rewards and original achievement values aren't a substitute for the collection's list. **Who Needs Them?: decide before leaving the opening** Start a clean Legendary run from the beginning. Stay out of driver, passenger and gunner positions. Do not hijack or mount a Wraith to destroy it. Treat vehicle-seat interactions as off limits, even if you're only trying to move a Marine out of the way. The scripted arrival is not a reason to abandon the attempt: the challenge concerns the vehicle interactions you choose during play. Boarding a Scarab by walking or jumping onto its geometry is different from entering a driveable vehicle seat. Co-op is a practical option. Community guides document a partner using the vehicles while the account pursuing the achievement stays on foot. That lets one person supply anti-armor fire while the other advances through the normal route. It is not a reason for the person seeking the achievement to briefly borrow a passenger seat. Solo, preserve useful Marines and give them heavy weapons when it makes sense. Keep a precision weapon for dangerous infantry, collect rockets or fuel-rod ammunition along the route and fight vehicles from cover. The open desert is where patience matters: running at a Wraith with no plan is much worse than taking time to get a shot from a protected angle. At the light bridge, extend it normally. During the Scarab encounter, use allied fire and available heavy weapons to bring it down, then climb aboard on foot and destroy its core. You still need to escape the blast. After the Scarab, the remaining interior route is already designed around infantry combat, but the final Chieftain remains dangerous on Legendary. If you accidentally enter a vehicle, don't assume a normal checkpoint reload definitely erased the violation. A clean restart is the least ambiguous recovery. Historical unlock problems exist, but that doesn't justify adding invented restrictions such as completing the whole level without dying. **Waypoint: take the vehicles** For the time achievement, use Easy if you want a forgiving practice attempt. Leave the skull jumps and terminal reading for another run. There is no foot-only requirement here. Know the three pauses that actually matter: clear the landing area so the Dawn can arrive, activate the bridge inside the wall, and destroy the Scarab so you can continue to the Cartographer route. Wandering back through a cleared desert basin won't advance any of them. After activating the Cartographer, keep going. The cutscene is not the mission finish; you still have the return encounters and extraction. Leave time for that part rather than celebrating a nineteen-minute map activation. **Ranger: keep the tank alive** The mission's vehicles provide good scoring opportunities. A steady Normal or Heroic run with the scoring display enabled is more useful than adding a brutal skull setup you can't finish efficiently. Use the Scorpion's range, prioritize threats carrying anti-vehicle weapons and avoid friendly casualties. Don't stop at 25,000 and quit. Complete the mission, preserve enough margin for penalties and check the final result. The fastest route and highest-scoring route are not necessarily identical, so replaying for one target at a time is perfectly reasonable. For collectibles, remember the carry-over item: take a gravity lift from the central Scarab-arena structure for Cowbell inside. Missing that is the easiest way to turn a normal collection pass into a frustrating extra trip.