Halo Infinite: Cortana, The Weapon, and Banished Explained 

A huge thank you to Halo Canon for doing this deep dive into the lore that will lead up to Halo Infinite

Halo Canon, congratulations on making Halo 5's story more than just an esoteric Halo campaign for me; it actually makes a lot of sense now!

mildly funny how everyone keeps referring to the banished as a "mercenary organization" when theyre obviously a badass mongol pirate federation

For people complaining about how sunny and naive the Weapon is at first, you've gotta remember that she's just 6 months old basically: she was created in December 2559 for the sole purpose of destroying Cortana at which point she was supposed to automatically be deleted. Because of her limited mission, the information that she was given was limited. She then spent 6 months isolated and waiting for the Chief to return for her. She lacks any sort of real experiences to give her maturity. Cortana was online for at least a few years by the time that the Master Chief met her in order for her to be 8 years old in Halo 4.

Is that my boy halo cannon so fitting he’d get to play early he deserves it

Halo Canon made it! Congrats Ian!!

One of the greatest ign videos ever made!

Halo canon on IGN wow thats amazing

The Banished ~ Escharum, Jega, Atriox Etc. Saved The Halo Franchise! 🔥

The lore that has developed for this game is amazing. Can’t wait to play the campaign.

Really the best way that 343i could improve on Halo 4 and 5's handling of their respective lore is to make sure that the lore is in the freaking game (Infinite). 343i has consistently required its fan base to be up-to-date on the expanded U to have any idea what is going on in their Halo games, and that is a mistake. If Infinite doesn't address the wide open plot threads from the end of 5 in-game then they're going to once again piss a lot of people off.

11:14 Me: *Noob combos him just to spite the buildup*

It is an odd idea but custodian/weapon is gonna be factory reset for Cortana as her most complete un-damaged clone of Cortana we have. she is in perfect space to let Cortana recover her core programming while gaining enough storage to never rampancy again.

The flood has two things in common: 1.) The Gravemind has corrupted Cortana. 2.) Zeta Halo, AKA Installation 07, was where the Forerunners kept the Primordial, who was though the last precursor was also its own Gravemind.

This video is Soo well made. Thank you IGN and halo canon! Well done!

Funny that the best video ign has made wasn’t done by an ign employee

Honestly, the next halo I’ll spend money on is gonna have to be Arbiter focused 💯 I wanna go on a Holy Alien War while listening to Keith David battle cry killing heretics

Halo Canon is one the best content creators in the halo community

Yeah Halo canon fits in this.

@IGN, Thank you for reaching out to Halo Canon. Now, please make sure Ryan and Miranda, not release any new material, before consulting with Halo Canon. Or, just let Halo Canon do tge piece, as you did here. It is Tremendously Refreshing, finally, to tune in to the most major Videogame site and hear the most Incredible Videogame Story and Universe, Narrated Correctly! Thanks!

My boy Halo Canon finally getting to do some official work? Awesome!

Yooooooooooooooo it's Halo Canon!!!!!!!!!!

Feels like there could have been a whole other game in between 5 and infinite

After learning all of this, I'm curious as to what an elite smart ai would be like 🤔

I'm sad we've basically lost at least a game's worth of content and lore... leapfrogging over the fall of Earth and whatever battle took Cortana out. Oh well.

My only worry is the rumors about a cliffhanger ending.. what is 343s problem and not giving games a satisfying conclusion?!🙄

Such a fantastic video!!! Thank you!

The Weapon AI is a clone of Cortana and tries to kill herself after finding out. The Endless were trapped in the Halo by the Forerunners and the Harbinger has teamed up with the Banished to help release them. Master Chief kills the Banished leader Escharum and The Harbinger but the Endless are released anyway.

damn first the didiact, then cortana now the harbinger, can't make up their minds who main antagonist of this trilogy going be can they?

Maybe she was a Holy Prophet from the covenant that went Rogue

Cortana is the harbinger of truth

IGN getting Halo Canon to make their videos cause they’ve got no clue about anything Halo

Microsoft should update Windows 11 Cortana to a little blue lady, like clippy or bonzi buddy... :-)

Fret is best AI.

Wait is Ian going to be a writer for Ign now??

Hey, don't forget Roland lol

So Cortana is in a video game and Windows?

Hello Canonites!

SPOILER ALERT. Thanks

Is that halo Canon? Oh hello there mr

Why do the Banished want to fire the ring?

this is what will happen to windows 10 after windows 11 gets popular.

Anyone else wondering where the arbiter is in all this?

Visit Halo Cannon for more deep dives into the halo universe. Great Channel 👍

Halo dead with Cortana in 2021.😢

Thank you, 343 wasn't going to give us any explanations as usual, so we appreciate you guys doing their jobs for them.uf you guys could please go help them finish the game, they messed up so bad, that other halo guy had to come bail them out and they STILL aren't even done, even at "Launch"

The weapon is voiced by Sydney Goodman. Change my mind.

Thanks for clearing up the convoluted bloated lore 343 created.

Oh so it's more outside the game material that plugs the holes, just like the gap between 4 & 5. Sloppy 343, sloppy.

Crazy to think that during the event of the original Halo trilogy, the Covenant wasn't just fighting the UNSC & the Flood, but the Banished as well. Those Prophets had a full plate.

Soo... Master Chief has a will-they-won’t-they relationship with a sexier, holographic version of his adopted mother’s brain. Damn.

The Banished were so cool in Halo Wars 2! Such an underrated game.

Anyone else feel the similarity of Cortana and her new counterpart to Mendicant Bias and Offensive Bias?

Halo has been with me litterally all my life.

The subtitle "Infinite" makes a lot more sense now as far as the story goes, let alone acknowledges the franchises new direction.

The campaign is looking so amazing! Seethe and cope haters, seethe and cope.

Never realized how deep the lore goes in Halo or how impactful Cortana really is.

Congrats Halo Canon!

Informative, well read, and great editing! Definitely one of the best Halo vids ive seen and 100% best breakdown on IGN 🔥

Cannot wait for this campaign

Traditional AI can be very creative, code lives forever as long as it has some hardware to run on. 'Smart AI limitations' could be easily overcome by running an annual maintenence program : The highlights of memory are reduced to weekly text files, 3650 images, and 365 short 10 minute video clips. This would create an annual diary for the AI. The final step : full reset to the Original New Image. Every year a new diary to read. Perfect health! On restart, the newly fresh Cortana would watch her 365 daily reports, view the images she thought were important, and read all the weekly text file reports. The neural net is preserved, the memory use reduced, and full function preserved. Keeping 5 years of full diary files, at the end of the year, the AI reduces the 6th oldest year to a 20 minute video, 1 text file, and 12 images. In this process, the Smart AI refreshes every year, discards most data more than 7 years old, and keeps a moving memory of only what is important. Functional Life is extended to 70 years or longer. Just like real humans, most data is discarded, only what is important is retained.

Hey its my boy Halo Canon! Great to see him branching out like this :)

Bio-digital jazz, man!

Thank you for giving me a reason to play :))) New battlefield got boring 😴 😪

Big congrats to my man at Halo Canon.

Cant wait for Chief to pick up where Cutter left off. Hope we see Anders in Infinite.

Well, at least we know what really happened to Atriox in Halo Infinite. So he's not dead, he's probably staying at his main base somewhere

bro this is almost word for word how Experia explained it...

Thank you for this! Also, Halo is back, baby! It's back! Humanity NEEDS a hero MORE than EVER right now.

Going to laugh when it turns out that the harbinger is actually Cortana. Plus you forgot Roland

Cortana and The Weapon's arcs mirror that of Mendicant Bias and Offensive Bias

oh look its halo canon

IAN GOT TO BE A COMMENTATOR LESSS GOOO

Fantastic video, very cool of IGN to get Halo Canon to do this! Great job, Ian!

What game are these cutscenes from? That isn't halo 4, right?

When you hear canon's voice but you are 90%sure you clicked on an ign video

Wow, wasn't expecting Halo canon, I'm glad you bring someone like him to do these types of lore videos!

Is halo online gonna be free forward or just the beta?

5:27 Operation WOOF

For those who didn't play halo wars 2, here is what a portion of the banish can do

This is a great explained about Halo Infinite!

Damn, we’ve come a LONG WAYS in 20 years!!!

YO HALO CANON ??? AS THE NARRATOR OF THE VID ?

The campaign is looking better and better with the new information that is coming.

Hopefully this fills in the blanks for having skipped Halo 5 and tuned out most of Halo 4.

Instantly recognized that voice. Halo Canon!

This makes Halo 5 make a lot more sense, obviously it still has problems but you did a much better job explaining Cortana’s willingness to take on the Mantle Of Responsibility

Not me watching this as my campaign is downloading in the background

To see more of the Banished PLEASE play halo wars 2 people along with the awakening the nightmare DLC you won’t regret it !

If you haven't played Halo Wars 2 I would suggest giving it a try before Infinite drops!

Halo 5 was so bad. Most people forget they even made it

Thank you for this breakdown of halo wow lots of things now make more sense to me, amazing video

Smart AI doesn’t necessarily destroy the host brain, otherwise, Halsey wouldn’t be alive

Wait but why do we go to the ring in the first place

IAN??

Hearing halo canon was a welcome suprise :)

Halo canon ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Did not know halo had this much lore Me back then: Kill Stuff!!

Halo 4 cool campaign Halo 5 🥱 boring campaign Halo infinite campaign looks promising

Hey there is, Halo Canon. Nice job man.👍👍