It took a month of in-game deaths, but YouTuber ATwearkingYoshi has managed to beat Halo 3 on its hardest difficulty using a Guitar Hero controller. Guitar Hero and Rock Band’s instrument-shaped controllers have long been an inviting challenge for those looking to complete games in ridiculous ways, and they’ve been used to complete games such as Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3 in the past.

ATwerkingYoshi, also known as Super Louis 64 on Twitch, is one of those who have completed Dark Souls 3 with the guitar controller. In fact, many of gaming’s strangest, most impressive feats of perseverance and ingenuity come from ATwearkingYoshi. He previously beat Sekiro with Donkey Kong bongos and beat Dark Souls 3’s final boss with a dance pad. He’s even made his own bizarre controller schemes, beating Dark Souls 3 with bananas rigged to different control inputs, only dying 62 times in the banana run.

The inventive YouTuber’s Halo 3 guitar playthrough didn’t go quite as smoothly, though. ATwerkingYoshi posted a highlight of the run, which he completed earlier this year, to Reddit yesterday. He said the playthrough was a month-long grind, and he had the numbers to prove it. According to ATwerkingYoshi, the run resulted in a total of 252 times throughout the Halo 3 campaign. Watching footage of the guitar gameplay makes it clear why there were so many, as moving, aiming, and controlling pretty much every aspect of the game appeared clunky and unruly. ATwerkingYoshi posted the following image of his control layout in the comments, which reveals aiming up and down required him to hold an options button and then toggle the same lever used to move forward and backward.

While the 252 deaths prove it was undoubtedly a challenging run, that number is actually impressively low, considering the clunky layout and the difficulty of the Halo series on Legendary. Microsoft recently announced that Halo Reach is coming to PC as part of the Master Chief Collection PC version on December 3. With the extra mod and customization abilities PC gaming allows, it’s not unlikely that someone like ATwerkingYoshi will come up with a similarly convoluted control scheme for the 2010 shooter - Halo creator Bungie’s last game in the series.

Under developer 343 Industries’ control, the Halo franchise has been in an interesting place. Halo 5: Guardians broke records for Xbox but was met with mixed reception from fans, earning a 6.5 user score on Metacritic. Following Halo 5’s mediocre launch, it will be five years since Microsoft has released a mainline Halo game once Halo Infinite launches in 2020. After a series of top Halo Infinite developers quit, however, the game’s potential quality could be in question.

Next: Another Lead Leaves Halo Infinite Developer 343 Industries

Halo 3 released on September 25, 2007 and is available on Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC.

Source: ATwerkingYoshi/Reddit