Spartan Locke was a character introduced to the Halo series in Halo 5: Guardians as a second playable protagonist, a contrast to Master Chief in many ways. To showcase his personality and skill set, multiple sources of media were created specifically for Locke’s character.
Related: Halo Reach: All Armor Abilities, Ranked
While fans might not have approved of the direction that the developers were trying to go in with making Locke the new protagonist, 343 Industries at least created an interesting character. Despite being a large focus of the fifth entry in the franchise, there is still a lot fans need to learn about the former assassin turned Spartan warrior.
10 Code Name
Locke goes by many names: Jameson Locke, Spartan Locke, Agent Locke. Each of these sounds pretty cool and mysterious, which matches up well with his character, or at least what 343 Industries was trying to go for with the character. It seems that they were looking for the right name for the character for a while. Production notes on the character seem to have different names for the character, as well as characters calling Locke by different monikers like his first name. A name that Locke had in development was Marlowe.
9 Two Actors Play His Character
It’s fairly well known that the actor who lends his likeness to Agent Locke in Halo 5: Guardians and portrayed the character in the Halo live-action TV series Halo: Nightfall was Mike Colter. Colter is most well known for portraying Luke Cage on the Marvel Netflix TV series by the same name, as well as in the series The Defenders. Colter provided the voice work for Locke in the character’s appearance in Halo 2 but due to scheduling conflicts, while filming Luke Cage, the Voice for Locke in Halo 5 was provided by Ike Amadi.
8 Unique Attributes Within The Game
Something that Halo: 5 tried to do, with some level of success was to build the game’s campaign around the four-player co-op that had been available since Halo 3. Among many problems that the fanbase had with this, one of them being that there was no split-screen co-op option, was that each different member of each squad had attributes that would tweak how they played. Locke’s attributes gave him the ability to carry one extra frag grenade, faster thrust recharge and a slower stabilizer descent.
7 Appearances In Halo 2 Anniversary
Like we mentioned a few entries ago, Agent Locke made appearances in Halo 2: Anniversary. Locke appeared to set up his appearance in Halo 5 Guardians, appearing in terminals, prologues and epilogue of Halo 2: Anniversary and show us that he was always in the world of Halo, we just hadn’t seen him yet.
6 His Childhood After A Covenant Glassing
Locke was born on the planet of Jericho VII on March 15, 2529. Locke didn’t get to enjoy much of his childhood as the Covenant invaded his homeworld in 2535, with Locke being the only member of his family to make it out of the planet, minutes before its glassing.
Related: 5 Things Halo Gets Right About Space (& 5 It Gets Wrong)
Locke was placed in a state orphanage with other children in a similar situation and grew up resentful at the UNSC’s inability to help protect the planet, rather than toward the Covenant themselves like his fellow orphans.
5 Becoming An Assassin
After ageing out of the orphanage, many of his compatriots joined the UNSC in search of revenge for what happened to them, but due to his anger at the UNSC, Locke took a different route. Locke became a freelance tracker and assassin. Locke’s effectiveness, behavior and lack of allegiance led to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) recruiting Locke and training him for a specific role within the organization. After joining ONI, Locke became one of the organization’s top field operatives.
4 Planned To Kill The Arbiter
If you played through the campaign of Halo 5: Guardians than you should already have an idea about this, but it goes a lot deeper than what they talked about in the game. In the game, this idea was just used as a throwaway line to create some tension but this plot goes pretty deep. Locke didn’t just target the Arbiter, he came up with a plan and dossier on the target which detailed the Arbiter’s history, his first time encountering the UNSC and his involvement with the glassing of Reach. Ultimately Arbiter defected from the Covenant before his mission could be carried out.
3 The Path To Becoming A Spartan
After the events of the Halo: Nightfall that had Locke working with the UNSC that he hated so much, he was selected to receive the Spartan-IV augmentations. Locke was in charge of leading dangerous and sensitive missions on the outer rim worlds.
Related: Halo: 5 Video Game Villains Master Chief Could Defeat (& 5 He Would Lose To)
Locke generally received jobs that were less than possible for the UNSC from a legal standpoint, where the less of a trail leading back to them, the better. Despite his ability to keep a low profile, all of his success garnered Locke an impressive career and some renown.
2 Joining Fire Team Osiris
All this success eventually had Agent Locke become an official part of the UNSC and lead the group of Spartan IVs known as Fire Team Osiris, comprised of Buck from Halo: ODST, Olympia Vale and Holly Tanaka. The team continued the tradition of Locke’s work, that being more classified operations that were too complicated for the UNSC to take on directly. This usually leads to Fire Team Osiris’ missions receiving the highest level of secrecy possible and is highly classified.
1 Likely Return In Halo Infinite
Locke was introduced in Halo 5: Guardians in an attempt by 343 Industries to make their own protagonist for the series, probably in an attempt to move Master Chief out of the spotlight. As anyone could have told them this did not go over well with fans of the series. It came off as someone trying to completely change something just for the sake of making their own mark. Clearly they have gone back on that for Halo: Infinite but sources state that the character of Locke is likely to make a return in some capacity in the upcoming title.
Next: Halo: Ranking The 10 Strongest Spartans (That Aren’t Master Chief)