Armor is a recurring element throughout the entire Red vs. Blue franchise, being suits of combat armor almost every single character is outfitted with head-to-toe. While, in the official Halo franchise, the Spartan armor is reserved solely for elite Spartan soldiers, the armor of Red vs. Blue seems to be the equivalent of generic military fatigues as every single soldier is equipped with a suit of it.
The coloring of the armor of each character is, in most cases, the singular thing that physically distinguishes them, and very few characters are ever seen outside of their armor no matter what, maintaining an unbreakable anonymity. As the series constantly switches game engines to film in, armor models also constantly switch, and some characters are outfitted with a special model to illustrate their importance. A running gag is that Caboose is always outfitted with the oldest, Combat Evolved model while everyone else moves on to the newer models.
The durability of the combat armor is inconsistent, though it's generally accepted that the armor can allow wearers to shrug off explosions and falls from massive heights, but gun-shots to the head are instant kills. An example of this is Cronut surviving a direct explosion at his feet while Biff was killed by a wooden pole that miraculously pierced through his armor.
List of armor colors
Reds and Blues
- Sarge - Red
- Simmons - Maroon
- Grif - Orange
- Donut - Pink
- Lopez - Brown
- Church - Cobalt
- Caboose - Blue
- Tucker - Aqua
- Sister - Yellow
- Doc - Purple
Freelancers
- Tex - Black
- Washington - Steel w/ Yellow trim; Cobalt w/ Yellow trim
- Wyoming - White
- South Dakota - Orchid w/ Green trim
- North Dakota - Purple w/ Green trim
- Carolina - Cyan; Cyan w/ Silver trim
- Connecticut - Brown w/ white trim; Brown
- Maine - White; White w/ Brown/Orange trim
- New York - Gold w/ Silver trim
Chorus
- Kimball - Sand w/ Ice trim
- Jensen - Sand w/ Maroon trim
- Palomo - Sand w/ Aqua trim
- Smith - Sand w/ Blue trim
- Bitters - Sand w/ Orange trim
- Doyle - White w/ Gold trim
- Dr. Grey - White w/ Purple trim
Charon Industries
- Locus - Steel w/ Sage trim
- Felix - Steel w/ Orange trim
- Sharkface, Girlie, Demo Man, Resistance Sniper, and Sleeveless Soldier - Black w/ Red trim
List of models
- Mark V - Halo: Combat Evolved model and Caboose's armor throughout the entire series (excluding the Halo 2-filmed episodes and early episodes of Season 11)
- Mark VI - Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4 and Halo 5 model, also worn by all Freelancers besides Tex and Wyoming (who wore the Mark V in their first appearances), Carolina, and the Meta in Season 9 and 10 .
- V Variant - The Meta's armor.
- Rogue - Carolina's and the female Space Pirates' armor.
- Reach - The Epsilon-Doubles' armor in Halo: Reach, used in Season 9 and Season 10.
- ODST - Sarge's, Simmons's, Grif's and Church's armor in The Man, The Myth, The Legend, filmed in Halo: ODST.
- Insurrectionist - The nameless Marine-esque armor the soldiers of Charon Industries wear.
- Air Assault - The New Republic's armor.
- Prefect - The Federal Army of Chorus's armor.
- S Variant - Felix's armor.
- Locus - Locus's armor.
- Enforcer - The male Space Pirates' armor.
Gallery
Trivia
- Although Caboose is written as wearing the older Mark V Halo: Combat Evolved armor starting in Reconstruction, the models used to represent him across all-usable engines typically only wear the Mark V helmet. In Halo 3, the helmet was the only Mark V piece available. Although the full Mark V armor was available to wear in Halo: Reach and Halo 4, Rooster Teeth's standard practice is to swap the standard Blood Gulch soldier armor setup with the Mark V helmet to represent Caboose and simply refer to it as the Mark V armor.
- Before the switch to the Halo 3 engine in Reconstruction, Rooster Teeth experimented with custom armor combinations to create individualized character models for the Blood Gulch Troopers. According to series creator Burnie Burns in the Reconstruction DVD commentary, the idea was dropped because none of the armors felt suitable, opting to leave them in the Mark VI armor.
- In Halo 4, the Mark VI armor was represented using the full Mark VI armor with the torso armor swapped with the Stalker torso armor. According to then-Director Miles Luna in the Season 11 DVD commentary, the Stalker torso was used in place of the Mark VI torso due to a combination of clipping issues involved with the alert-carry pose and the fact it made the characters look "too tough". After the switch to the Halo 5 Guardians engine, the characters now wear complete Mark VI armor.
- Many armor models made specifically for original animated scenes are combinations of armors from different Halo titles, such as the Insurrectionists and certain configurations of the Meta's armor. In some cases, custom armor uses combinations that are not possible within any game, such as the Insurrectionists using shoulder armor as thigh armor.
- The only characters in the entire franchise who don't wear full-body armor are Leonard Church, Aiden Price, Malcolm Hargrove, all characters in the "Club", "Call", "Consequences" trilogy, and Allison.