In this Halo 4 walkthrough for Mission 1: “Dawn,” you can watch and read along as we wake up aboard the Forward Unto Dawn, fight the Covenants forces off of the wrecked ship, and get a closer look at the Forerunner planet the Dawn has been orbiting.
If this is the first time you’ve played “Dawn,” this walkthrough will show you how to unlock at least two achievements: “Digging up the Past” and “Dawn.” If this is the first mission you play co-op with Heroic or Legendary difficulty, you will also unlock the Halo 4 “Bropacolypse” Achievement.
Since “Dawn” is the shortest mission in Halo 4, it’s useful for a couple other things as well. You may not want to do this on your first playthrough, but you can also use this mission for the Halo 4 “Skullduggery” Achievement. If you are trying to complete Halo 4 challenges, “Dawn” is an excellent mission for the weekly campaign challenges that 343 puts out each Monday.
*Note: There are no terminals in Mission 1.
Digging up the Past
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When Cortana wakes you up, look up and hold the action button (that’s X on the default control scheme) to open your chamber. Cortana talks to you for a moment, and then you are free to start exploring the ship. *Important* Before you leave the room, pick up a Magnum.
Immediately out of the door, there is a staircase to the left. Go down the staircase and turn 180 degrees to find a terminal carrying Master Chief’s service record. Hold the action button on this terminal to unlock the Halo 4 Digging up the Past Achievement.
“Somebody should have found us by now…”
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After reviewing Master Chief’s record, head back up the stairs and through the hallway. Walk towards the hologram of the Forward Unto Dawn. You can use the terminal to hear the status of various systems in the ship, but this is not necessary. Head to the right and go up the stairs. Turn left at the top of the stairs and go through the hallway.
Go through the door at the end of the hallway and turn left to go up a small flight of stairs. Turn around and continue through the door in front of you. Turn and go through the door on your left towards another hologram. As you enter the room, Chief comments, “Somebody should have found us by now.” At that moment there is a loud noise and a bright orange line of light coming towards you. Don’t worry; it won’t hurt you. After it goes by, Cortana tells you it’s a high-intensity sensor scan.
After it goes by, head through the door that opens at the end of the room. Turn right into the hallway. Walk to the room at the end of the hallway and to the door at the end of the room. Hold the action button to open the door, then tap the action button to force it open.
The door opens to an unpressurized area of the ship, and the force of the pressurized air escaping (and the debris) knock Master Chief out the door. Chief grabs onto a wall, and you have to climb up to get to the observation deck. Use the Left Stick to climb up. Push up to climb up the wall 4 rungs. Before some debris falls down, Chief glances to the left. Move the Left Stick to the left to jump to the side to prevent being hit by the debris. Go up one more rung and the use the Left Stick to jump to the right. Go up and jump to the right again. Climb up some more and then jump back to the left, and then pull yourself up through the open door.
An Elite carrying an Energy Sword comes stomping at you through the mist. Press the Right Bumper to kill him. The cutscene shows Master Chief throw him out the door to his death, so unfortunately you can’t pick up his Energy Sword.
After you kill the Elite, turn left and head onto the observation deck. There is a stair case directly in front of you as you enter. If you run up quietly, you can assassinate the Elite in front of you before he notices you’re there (in this video I chose to throw a grenade and shoot him to death, but the assassination is more efficient). Then kill the Grunts that are scattered around the deck.
It’s your choice how you deal with the Grunts, but the easiest way is with a headshot. This is why you grabbed the Magnum in the first room. One shot from a Magnum in a Grunt’s head is all you need. If you did not get the Magnum in the first room, just look in the room underneath the platform where you killed the first Elite on the observation deck. There are some mounted on the wall.
When all the grunts are dead, go back up the stairs to the controls where you killed the first Elite in this room and hold the action button to activate them. The blast shield opens, revealing a Covenant fleet and the Forerunner planet that the Dawn is orbiting.
Two Covenant ships pull up along either side of the observation deck, each dropping off some troops: an Elite and some grunts on each side. Kill the Covenant forces.
Weapon Update: This is a good chance to pick up the Plasma Pistol. It’s not very useful against Grunts since they drop with a headshot anyway. Elites, on the other hand, have shields. That means your headshot won’t reach their head until their shield is down. This is where the Plasma Pistol works its magic. When you have the Plasma Pistol equipped, hold the Right Trigger (RT) to charge the pistol. When it’s glowing and shaking, you can release RT to shoot a plasma blast that drops Elites’ shields, leaving them wide open for that lovely headshot.
Afterward you kill the Covenant troops on the observation deck, Cortana tells you to head to the elevator. Go back through to the room that you entered from and go to the elevator on your left.
When the elevator doors open, go out and to your left. At the end of that hallway, a door on your left opens. There are two Grunts and an Elite in this room. Kill them and go down the hallway to the right. A door at the end of that hallway reveals another Elite and some more Grunts. Kill them and head to the right. Go down the stairs and proceed through the hallway. When you kill the Elite and Grunts in this area, a checkpoint should trigger.
Weapon Update: The Plasma Pistol is powerful, but it has a distinct downside — it runs out of juice pretty fast. To remedy this, it’s a good idea to grab a fresh Plasma Pistol whenever you can. One nice aspect of Halo 4 is that when you have the Plasma Pistol equipped, you will only be prompted to pick up other Plasma Pistols if they have more energy remaining than the one you’re holding.
Head through the door at the end of the room. Go down the stairs, and to your left you can find some UNSC guns and ammunition. Once you’ve gotten what you need, proceed down the hallway.
On the other side of some crates there is group of Covenants waiting for you — an Elite, some Grunts, and some Jackals. Be careful here because these guys are more prone to throw grenades than the ones you’ve met so far.
Once you’ve killed all the Covenant troops here, grab whatever guns or ammo you need from this room before you move on because once you go through the door, it shuts and cannot be re-opened. When you have what you need, head through the door they were guarding.
“How far to the missile…”
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Turn left and walk down the hallway. It opens up into a circular hallway that surrounds a room in the middle. If you imagine this room to be a clock, pretend you are entering at 6 o’clock. There are Jackals in the hallway at about 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock, and there are some Elites at approximately 11 and 1 o’clock. The middle room is full of Grunts.
Tactical Update: Dealing with large groups of enemies can be challenging. If you don’t handle these situations strategically, you will quickly find yourself outnumbered, outgunned, and dead. To avoid this result, I recommend taking out the smaller guys first. They aren’t hard to face in small numbers, but in droves they are deadly. Use cover to your advantage to stay hidden from the larger enemies and pick off one or two smaller enemies at a time. If your shield gets too low, hide for a moment to let it recharge. Once you’ve killed the smaller enemies, you can focus on the bigger ones without being so outnumbered.
Weapon Update: If you are out of ammo for your Magnum (or other precision weapon), you might face some difficulty when confronting Elites or other shielded or armored enemies. For Elites specifically, the Needler can also be an effective weapon. Pick one up off the Jackals before approaching the Elites in this room. When you fire a series of needles into an Elite, they will explode and the Elite will die. Very useful in a pinch.
After you kill the enemies in this room, head through the doorway at 12 o’clock. Turn left when you enter the room and approach the airlock door in front of you. Enter the airlock when you can. The door behind you will shut, and the door in front of you will open.
You might be distracted by this large, stunning open area, but you must focus. There is a Battle Rifle floating directly outside the airlock door. Grab it before it floats away. The Battle Rifle is another precision weapon, but it has a much greater range than the Magnum.
As you come out of the airlock, don’t go straight into the opening. Turn left and follow the wall around the side. There is a Jackal by the alcove ahead of you. Kill him first. When you get a chance, pick up the Covenant Carbine he drops if you need it, then kill the other Jackals and Elites beyond the alcove. There are some Jackals with Beam Rifles as well as more Elites on the elevated path in front of you, so be sure to use cover to protect yourself. There are also many Grunts in the area below you to your right.
The sniper Jackals can be killed easily with headshots from the Battle Rifle or Covenant Carbine. The Elites can also be killed with the Battle Rifle, but if their shields are still up, it wastes a lot of ammo (as the video demonstrates). The Plasma Pistol + headshot technique is still the best process. If you didn’t save a Plasma Pistol from the previous rooms, you can get one from the Grunts in the open area below you. But be careful not to run out at them and expect to live. There are several Grunts, Jackals, and Elites gunning for you here.
Your objective is marked by a blue, diamond-shaped beacon. Continue on the left side of the open area, up the ramps, killing enemies as you go until you get there. Hold the action button when you get to the control panel to launch the missile.
“Great, the blast door’s jammed…”
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Before the missile can fire, you have to clear the blast door. If you hesitate here, a Covenant drop ship will come deploy a bunch of troops to hinder your path from the control room to the blast door. *Important* You do not have to wait for the Covenant to show up before you go clear the blast door! As soon as you activate the control panel, you can jump down and run towards the blast door and clear it before the Covenant drop ship arrives. This will save you a lot of time, which comes in handy particularly when you are using “Dawn” to complete the weekly campaign challenge.
If you don’t get there before the Covenant drop ship arrives, it’s not a big deal. Just use your group-fighting tactics to destroy your enemies and clear the blast door when you can. Hold the action button when you get to the jam, and a brief cutscene shows the Forerunner planet below you do another scan and open its “gravity well.”
To escape from your impending doom, turn around and run towards the beacon Cortana places for you on the airlock. Go up the ramp and into the airlock. When the doors shut and open to let you through, run straight and turn left when you reach the hallway. Go forward a few steps and then turn right into another hallway. Run to the end of that hallway and turn right. The floor in the room in front of you falls through. Whether you fall with it or walk around the side, continue through the door on the opposite side of the room. Pass through the curved hallway and go through the next room. The only door here is on the bottom level. Go through the door and jump over the hole in the floor. A stunned Elite is walking in the hallway in front of you. Kill him if you like, but there is no danger in ignoring him. Turn right and run to the end of the hallway. When you reach the end, turn left. Run to the door in front of you, and the cutscene will start.
Welcome to Halo 4.