The Vidmaster Challenges are a series of fourteen (7 in Bungie games) achievements available for Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Spartan Assault and Halo: Spartan Strike, four in Halo 3, three in Halo 3: ODST, two in Halo: Spartan Assault and five in Halo: Spartan Strike. Three of the Vidmaster Challenges on Halo 3 do not reward the player with gamerpoints, but if all Vidmaster Challenges are completed, then the player will be rewarded with Recon armor for Multiplayer use. The Vidmaster Challenges for Halo 3 did not ship with the original game, but became unlockable with the Title Update 2. The achievements are widely considered very difficult aside from Lightswitch, Brainpan and Seven on Seventh. Thus rendering Recon armor to still be difficult to acquire. As part of the final transition between Bungie and 343 Industries, Recon armor was given out to all Halo 3 players on March 29, 2012.
List of Vidmaster Achievements[]
Road to Recon[]
Before 343 Industries gave the armour to everyone, the only way to unlock Recon Armor in Halo 3, aside from being gifted it by Bungie, was to complete all 7 of the Vidmaster Challenges in Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST. Once someone had completed all of the Vidmaster Challenges, they had the ability to unlock the armour by logging in to their Halo 3 Service Record on Bungie.net and pressing the button marked "unlock my recon."
Halo 3[]
- Vidmaster Challenge: Lightswitch: "Get the rank of Lieutenant in any playlist in the new EXP progression system."
- Vidmaster Challenge: Annual: "After 9/25/08, complete Halo (Final level) on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts."
- Vidmaster Challenge: 7 on 7: "Enter into a ranked or social playlist with 7 EXP on the 7th of the month."
- Vidmaster Challenge: Brainpan: "Find all the hidden skulls on the Mythic maps."
Halo 3: ODST[]
- Vidmaster Challenge: Endure: "In Firefight, on any mission, pass the 4th set on 4-player Heroic LIVE co-op."
- Vidmaster Challenge: Deja Vu: "Complete Coastal Highway on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with the Iron skull on and without using Warthogs or Scorpion Tanks."
- Vidmaster Challenge: Classic: "Finish any Campaign level on Legendary solo without shooting or throwing a grenade (Power sliding and honking the horn on vehicles will be counted as shooting/grenade throwing)."
Halo: Spartan Assault[]
The Halo: Spartan Assault Vidmaster Challenges do not contribute to the Road to Recon, but instead they award the player with gamerscore when unlocked.
- Vidmaster Challenge: "Complete Operation E, Mission 1 with the Hollow and Black Eye Skulls active."
- Vidmaster Challenge 2.0: "Complete Operation F, Mission 4 with Blind and Thunderstorm Skulls active."
Halo: Spartan Strike[]
Similar to those in Halo: Spartan Assault, the Vidmaster Challenges in Halo: Spartan Strike simply grant gamerscore, rather than unlocking anything in the game.
- Vidmaster Challenge A
- Vidmaster Challenge B
- Vidmaster Challenge C
- Vidmaster Challenge D
- Vidmaster Challenge E
Trivia[]
- There are 7 Vidmaster Challenges in Bungie games, which is another 7 reference in Halo.
- The "Annual" achievement started on 09/25/08 because that was the one-year anniversary of Halo 3's launch. Annual could have actually been completed before 9/25/08, as some players did it the day before due to time zone differences.
- The Vidmaster Challenges concept spawns from Bungie's Marathon series, where players who wished to prove they were the absolute best had to complete insane challenges such as playing through the game without the use of any health items, using no weapons except fists, or beating it on the highest difficulty setting. Those that succeeded made videos to mark their achievement, thus spawning the term "Vidmaster."
- A mere week after ODST's release, over 60,000 people gained Recon Armor from completing the challenges.[1]
- These particular achievements, if hacked, will not allow players to unlock Recon Armor. The only way to get Recon Armor through these achievements is to unlock them the proper way.
- The Vidmaster Challenges are no longer required to unlock Recon Armor because 343 Industries gave it out to everyone.
Sources[]
- ā Bungie Weekly Update 10/02/09