In January 2016, Halo player Adam Bartels and his wife Rebecca lost their two daughters Trinity (15), and Lena (12) to an electrical fire at their family home in Wisconsin. This awful tragedy was brought to the attention of Halo 5 developer 343, who decided to pay their own small tribute.
The news was communicated to 343 through the Halo community on Reddit. The post asked other gamers to send words of encouragement, or else leave a small donation for Adam and his wife.
343’s response was to create the Spartans Never Walk Alone pack in tribute to Adam’s family and his daughters. The pack contains the True Light emblem, which is named after the first initial of each of Adam’s daughter’s names.
It also happens to be the first animated emblem to come to Halo 5. All players will get the pack as part of this month’s free update.
Halo 5 development chief Josh Holmes said:
As a father, I can only imagine the heartache and pain caused by this loss. In the days following the tragedy, it was inspiring to see the Halo community come together to support Adam and Rebecca in a variety of ways.
343 also included a special feature in the new Arena map, Torque. When players look up to scan the stars, the names Trinity and Lena will be visible in the night sky.
The GoFundMe page for the Bartels can be found here. The highest donor at the moment is Josh Holmes, with $1000.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.