Halo Infinite trailer reveals secret audio clip, possible second Cortana

Halo Infinite
Halo Infinite (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

What you need to know

  • A new secret has been discovered within Halo Infinite's "Discover Hope" trailer.
  • The secret is a QR code that leads to a special audio clip.
  • The audio clip is of Cortana, and it implies there will be a "second" Cortana of some sort in the game.

Halo Infinite's Discover Hope trailer is ripe with tons of secrets that hint toward what the game's story will be about. We managed to find several of them back when the trailer first released during Microsoft's E3 2019 conference, but there has been a secret that nobody has found since then...until now.

Twitter user @Xepyal, upon studying the trailer closely, realized that some of the bright red lights on Master Chief's visor that flashed as he awoke formed a functional QR code when combined into one image. When you scan the QR code, it takes you to this webpage, which plays a 40-second long audio message of heavy footsteps, followed by the sound of someone interfacing with a terminal and the AI Cortana speaking a few lines of cryptic dialogue.

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Here's what Cortana says exactly:

This...This is part of me. I don't know why...I don't know how...but it is me.

It's unclear what all of this is supposed to mean exactly, but this clip of audio does seem to imply that there's some sort of "second" Cortana, or at least a fragment of her that has split off and become its own separate entity. In addition, the heavy footsteps and terminal interfacing sounds that play before Cortana speaks makes me think that Master Chief is present as she says this, which would mean that she's speaking to him. One possibility is that the AI chip Chief was holding in the trailer contained another "version" of Cortana at one point, and that in this audio clip, he uses it to interface with the Cortana we know from Halo 5: Guardians at a terminal. She may have detected the "other" Cortana's presence.

It will be interesting to see what Halo Infinite has in store for us in terms of narrative, and I'm looking forward to seeing what 343 Industries is hard-at-work creating. Let me know if you are, too, and if you can't wait until Halo Infinite's Holiday 2020 release date to get in on some Halo action, make sure to check out the Master Chief Collection on Xbox One. It's coming to PC in the near future, too!

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Brendan Lowry

Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he's been an avid fan since childhood. You'll find him doing reviews, editorials, and general coverage on everything Xbox and PC. Follow him on Twitter.