The game features strong violence towards human and animal characters, by melee contact, explosives, vehicles and various firearms. The majority of the campaign is concerned with dispatching enemy alien characters, but – though not the aim – human and animal NPCs can be attacked.

Shooting is often accompanied by blood effects, which either spray from characters or pool around their bodies, which fall lifelessly to the floor after several blows and remain in situ.

In one scene in Halo 4, a huge beam vaporises a group of scientists, who burn up, layer by layer. A close up of a woman screaming is shown, as her skin, then muscle and then skeleton are burned to nothing.