Hack 42. Give Yourself Infinite Camouflage

Play any Master Chief level with unlimited Active Camouflage.

This is probably one of the most useful glitches that has been discovered for the Halo 2 campaign. The irony is that this glitch is enabled by an Easter egg. Hopefully, the Program Managers at Bungie recognize that the skulls are really cool and won't get too down on Easter eggs because of this glitch.

This hack allows you to play any Master Chief level with unlimited Active Camouflage (AC). Not only does this allow you to simply walk through much of the campaign, but it is also extremely useful when doing things like collecting skulls, exploring maps, or making movies of allies and enemies fighting (without winding up in the middle of the fight). However, infinite AC is probably most useful for players trying to get the IWHBYD skull [Hack #9], as the activation fight for that skull is daunting.

To reproduce the glitch, collect the Envy skull [Hack #13] (see Figure 5-10) and go through any checkpoint while in AC mode.

This means that you must turn on your AC (using the white button) before you reach the checkpoint. When the checkpoint notification appears, you must already be invisible (see Figure 5-11).

Figure 5-10. Retrieving the Envy skull

Figure 5-11. Crossing a checkpoint while cloaked

To be safe, use the "Revert to Last Checkpoint" option and make sure that did it correctly. If you have the AC activated when you revert, then you know that you have done it right. Next, you should save your game and quit. Turning off your Xbox will remove the Envy mode. However, when you reload the same profile, you will find yourself with unlimited AC (see Figure 5-12).

Regardless of whether you turn off your Xbox again, you will have infinite AC for that profile. However, there are some limitations. The glitch is limited to the current level when the next map loads, you lose the unlimited AC. This means that you'll have to repeat these steps for each level that you want to play with infinite AC. In addition, the Envy skull only works for the Master Chief, so the Arbiter cannot use unlimited AC.

Note that enemies will not be able to see you, but if you get too close (especially on Legendary) they will shoot towards your general location.

To remove the infinite AC, you can start a new map, beat the map you're on, or select the "Restart level" option.

Figure 5-12. Now you see me…no wait, you don't