Originally posted by Official Xbox Magazine

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The Buzz: This image, taken from the Halo 3 announcement trailer and available as one of the backgrounds in the Halo 3 Dashboard Theme on Xbox Live Marketplace, shows Master Cheif's face through the visor of his MJOLNIR armor helmet, revealing our hero to be a ghostly white soldier with a scar on his cheek. That, or it's simply a reflection of out-of-frame ships in the distance. The Halo fan world is ablaze with theories as to which it is.

Our Take: We, of course, went right to Bungie to try and set the record straight. They told us, "Bungie's official comment on this one is, 'No comment.'" This leaves us to guess for ourselves. We're inclined to believe that this image is indeed Spartan 117 in the flesh, for three reasons:

1. The Xbox 360 is fully capable of rendering real-time reflections on the Cheif's visor (as proven in the trailer). Who's to say that the surface can't also be translucent?



2. If you look closely at the image, the alleged face and head sit right where they should inside the helmet.



3. Master cheif is described in the Halo novels - paperbacks written under the strict "Halo Bible" laws handed down by Bungie - as having skin that "hadn't been exposed to the sun for a long tiem and was white, too white, like something that lived in the deep recesses of a cave" (Halo: The Flood, page 91).

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Originally posted by FX

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Ya, that's what, I believe GI, said when they analyzed the Halo 3 trailer. On a similar note, someone sent in a letter saying that maybe the Spartan in the trailer isn't Master Cheirf, that maybe it is a different Spartan, which would accound for the different armor, and the battle rifle.

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Originally posted by Elara

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Spartan, knock off the flaming. I don't care if you know him in real life, there is no excuse for calling him a fucktard. I'd have thought that you would have learned that by now.

If they do show the face, that would be kinda cool. However I think it might just be a reflection.

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Originally posted by OXM

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No doubt you've already received a flurry of letters about Ryan McCaffrey's article in OXM #62 regarding the alleged snapshot of Master Chief's face, but I thought I'd weigh in as a longtime 3D artist.
If you watch the high-def footage even casually, you can see the elements of the scenery reflected clearly in the faceplate as the Chief approaches the edge of the cliff. His so-called "eye" is actually the swirling vortex in the clouds above the whatever-it-is rising up from the ground, while his supposed "scar" is a product of the beveled edge of the faceplate. As the Chief turns his head in the close-up view, these parts of the face don't rotate as facial features would; they maintain their position in accordance with the angle of the camera's perspective. While everything happens to line up nicely in the Dashboard snapshot you printed, a frame-by-frame analysis reveals that this alignment is only a coincidence (much like the infamous "Face on Mars").
Blame the misunderstanding on Bungie for making the Chief such a compelling and mysterious character, and for making the Halo universe such a great playground.
~Edward W. Swan

Plenty of readers shared your opinion in response to our face expose, Edward, so maybe you have a point. Still, we're not totally convinced that the screenshot doesn't suggest what lies beneath the Chief's mask - or that we won't see his Casper-white visage at some point during Halo 3. Of course, we'd love to be wrong: as we're said in previous Halo articles, we hope what lies beneath that armored helmet stands unrevealed by the game's end. the Chief's way cooler as an unknown mystery figure.

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