Escharum takes the spotlight in Halo Infinite’s The Banished Rise trailer

Just one day after the release of Halo Infinite’s Campaign Overview trailer, developer 343 has dropped yet another trailer for one of this year’s most anticipated FPS titles. This time, however, it’s Escharum who takes the spotlight.

Halo Infinite’s The Banished Rise trailer dropped today via the official Halo YouTube channel. But fans weren’t treated to another clip of gameplay. This time around, the trailer is full CGI and acts as the flip side of July 2020’s Become – Step Inside trailer. Instead of commentary from Jen Taylor’s Cortana over footage of the Master Chief’s Mjolnir armor being assembled, the game’s antagonist, Escharum, attempts to dissuade humanity from relying on hope in a truly villainous speech.

Though the trailer has a shorter runtime of 1:21, it successfully rounds out Escharum as a proper foil to the Master Chief and everything he stands for. The description below the video reads as follows, “Escharum, leader of the Banished, declares humanity’s destruction to be imminent, starting with its heroes. Master Chief faces his greatest challenge yet.”

Escharum’s CGI appearance from this trailer briefly appeared at the end of yesterday’s Campaign Overview, causing confusion among many viewers who thought the footage showed his in-game model. It seems that brief appearance was somewhat of a teaser for today’s trailer, after all — something that Halo community manager John Junyszek hinted at on Twitter at the time.