The Halo Concept Vault: The Story of the Kestrel

In 2013-2014, the Halo Mega Bloks design team asked themselves what the UNSC would do with captured alien tech. We figured that UNSC engineers would dissect every bit of Covenant and Forerunner technology that they could get their hands on. To help answer that question, in collaboration with our partners at 343i, REAP-X was created. Within the Halo universe, REAP-X, the Reverse-Engineering and Prototyping-Xenotechnology department of ONI, would effectively design and develop new weapons and vehicles.

The team started sketching a variety of different vehicles. One of them started out as a question: what would the UNSC’s version of a Covenant Ghost look like? Since the UNSC (at the time) did not have anti-gravity tech, the prototype vehicle had fans to propel it. The Light Assault VTOL, as it came to be known, also had dual front mounted guns and an open cockpit.

Some time later, the team at 343i included the vehicle in the Spartan Strike tablet game. Renamed the Kestrel and given a spiffy UNSC green color scheme, the vehicle made the leap into the video game. And to close the loop, Mega released a green version of the toy in 2016. This last set included a proper Spartan War Master, the main hero of the Spartan Strike game.

And that is the story of how REAP-X and the Kestrel came to be part of the Halo universe.