How Weapon Compares to Cortana in Halo Infinite
The Halo series has many legendary weapons, scenes, opponents, and even pieces of dialogue, but maybe none more so than Master Chief and Cortana. Every numbered game has them, and Halo Infinite is no exception. Halo Infinite has Cortana, but not in the way many fans imagined. She departed Master Chief’s side after mutinying in Halo 5: Guardians, so he obtains a new AI dubbed Weapon. The weapon fills the vacuum left by Cortana, although not quite as well. As players progress through the campaign, many conscious and unconscious comparisons are made.
Much like both people, Cortana and Weapon have some distinct features that set them apart. Because Master Chief rarely talks, Cortana has a lot of the series’ personality. Now that she’s gone, Weapon appears to remain the franchise’s AI sidekick for the foreseeable future.
Weapon Has Some Big Shoes to Fill
Cortana’s involvement in the Halo franchise may have ended with Halo Infinite. In the game, Master Chief realizes she’s dead and only “dust and echoes” remain. In the game’s last moments, she makes a few brief cameos, although she isn’t actually there, only her AI vestiges. But she does sound suspiciously like Weapon. They both have the same voice actor, but until a key point in the plot, they were unrelated. The weapon is a clone of Cortana before she succumbed to Rampancy.
The weapon is a clone of Cortana, however, they aren’t identical. The weapon is a lot chipper than Cortana, which isn’t to say Cortana wasn’t funny. She often comes across as a younger version of Chief’s AI, which makes sense given that she’s a younger version of Cortana.
Weapon and Cortana are nearly identical in terms of technical capabilities. Both run complex programs that accomplish a vital technical job that Master Chief cannot handle, and they do it efficiently and quickly. With her youthful age, Weapon occasionally gets tripped up by other programs inside the multiple terminals she is wired into during Halo Infinite’s campaign.
One of the great questions Halo Infinite leaves the player with is Weapon’s resemblance to Cortana. Weapon fears that, like a duplicate of Cortana, she’ll follow in her footsteps. Chief promises her that won’t happen, but worries remain regarding Weapon’s ability to adapt. That looks to be handled in the sequel to Halo Infinite, which should continue to develop Weapon as a character, as the prior games did with Cortana.