Legendary Classic Skulls, or LCS for short, is a new difficulty classification for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. In short, you play on Legendary difficulty, with the 6 returning skulls from previous Halo games. These skulls are: Iron, Mythic, Black Eye, Famine, Fog & Grunt Birthday Party.
Instead of LASO, LCS runs are what we’re interested in posting and keeping records for on Anniversary as a harder-than-Legendary difficulty. It’ll also give the game a new classification of run that is wide open for the taking, where other difficulties already have some very strong runs from the original game to be compared against.
The above video is RC Master’s first successful completion of a level in this mode as an example of the type of gameplay that can come from these settings. He has done the first level – Pillar of Autumn – and presents it as a guide with his commentary giving tips along the way.
Why not LASO?
Since Anniversary is a port of the original game, the developers were restricted a lot in what skulls they could add without having to fundamentally change the game – which would have ruined the point. So they added some entirely new skulls to flesh out the offering. In the process they added some more skulls on the ‘fun’ end of the scale, such as Bandanna and Grunt Funeral.
The problem from a LASO, speed-running perspective, is that infinite ammo makes things significantly easier than they would be otherwise. Apart from infinite pistols, you also get infinite Rockets, Sniper Rifles, and perhaps most importantly, grenades. The optimal strategy in many cases comes down to a heavy application of frags from afar. While it’s still hard, and with no deaths and tough enemies few people could still do it, it isn’t particularly fun to watch and the combat isn’t very complex or interesting.
Grunt Funeral is a pre-order only Skull – not everyone with the game has access to it. So that means not everyone can play LASO, learn from the speed runs, and apply it to their own gameplay – at least not directly.
Why these Skulls?
The question then is, if you take off Bandana and Grunt Funeral from the set you use for a Legendary+ difficulty, what other skulls do you keep? And perhaps more importantly, how do you communicate that rule-set in a concise and memorable way?
We believe Legendary Classic Skulls to be the answer to both those questions.
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