It is 2001. I’m playing Halo’s opening level on Microsoft’s new console, the Xbox. I’m having a good time. It is 2011. I’m playing Halo’s opening level in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition. I’m having a good time. It is 2014. I’m playing Halo’s opening level in the Master Chief Collection. I’m having a good time. It is 2026. I’m playing Halo’s opening level in Halo: Campaign Evolved. I’m trying to have a good time.
Out now via paid early access, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a full remake of the original Halo, which was developed and released by Bungie back in 2001 as a launch game for the original Xbox. Once again, Master Chief and Cortana crash onto a strange alien ring and fight off aliens and an army of parasitic creatures to save the galaxy.
Unlike previous Halo games, Campaign Evolved is built in Unreal Engine. It also doesn’t feature competitive multiplayer. This is just a remake of the original campaign (with a few bonus levels tossed in), and for the first time ever in franchise history, you can play this new Halo game on a PlayStation console. That’s where I played it, and it never stopped feeling weird to hit triangle to switch guns or hit square to reload. Getting a trophy while playing a Halo game felt unnatural. Like dipping grapes into ketchup.
But yeah, this is a weird Halo. And that’s saying something for a franchise that has done spin-offs, RTS games, and mobile titles.
The More Things Change…
Playing through Halo: Campaign Evolved, I had a good time both solo and with a buddy via crossplay. It took me about 6 hours to race through Halo’s campaign by myself on normal. And to my surprise, it felt like classic Halo.
Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) has done what I assumed would be impossible. Somehow, perhaps with magic, the studio and its devs were able to bend and reshape Unreal Engine 5 into something that actually, truly, seriously feels like the original Halo. The floaty jumps, tight gunplay, and wonky physics of the original classic FPS are all here. It seems like Halo Studios has even ripped or recreated death animations from the existing games. I swear Elites crumple and die the same way as they did before.
Honestly, if I didn’t know better, you could tell me I was playing the original Halo with a graphics mod slapped on it, and I’d believe you. It’s impressively accurate. But there are some changes, of course. Some which I like, some which I’m less sold on.
The biggest change is the game’s visuals. Every inch of Campaign Evolved features new textures, models, and effects. A lot of this looks technically impressive. Some areas look so damn close to real it can be uncanny.
But a lot of Halo: Campaign Evolved’s visuals are so detailed and pretty that they look more like real places I’d visit on Earth or a Hollywood movie set, and less like the sparse, otherworldly vistas and canyons featured in the older Xbox original. And some areas look downright ugly and overly designed, like the levels set inside a Covenant cruiser.
On the plus side, all of Campaign Evolved looks better than the terrible “modern” visual option included in Anniversary Edition over a decade ago. That’s nice!
Other changes made to classic Halo are more successful. Halo Studios has added some weapons from later Halo games into the original campaign, including Halo 2’s SMG, the Sentinel laser, and the Needler Rifle. All of these new guns fit perfectly within the OG Halo’s combat sandbox and make sense from a lore perspective. They also don’t show up everywhere, but instead are used carefully to spice up levels or add some new options. Or just to fill in a hole.
It was always odd how some weapons the Covenant used in Halo CE couldn’t be used by Master Chief. Now, players can pick up Energy Swords and Fuel Rod Guns from fallen enemies and use them to great effect. Fun stuff.
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BACK-OF-THE-BOX QUOTE
“I need a weapon. And some PBR textures and 4K rendering.”
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DEVELOPER
Halo Studios
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TYPE OF GAME
First-person sci-fi shooter with co-op options.
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LIKED
Feels like classic Halo, great music, some nice looking areas, remix mode is cool.
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DISLIKED
Some ugly or boring areas, sprint feels out of place, no PVP multiplayer, bonus missions are ehhh.
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PLATFORMS
PS5 (Played on PS5 Pro), Xbox Series X/S, PC
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RELEASE DATE
Paid early access – July 23 | Full release – July 28
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PLAYED
16 hours. Completed main campaign solo and in co-op. Played remixed levels. Did all bonus levels. Found some skulls and terminals.
A change I’m more mixed about is the ability to sprint. While I understand that in 2026 it is almost illegal for a shooter to ship without a sprint button, it still feels out of place in the original Halo.
A lot of levels and combat encounters feel like they weren’t designed with sprint in mind, meaning you can outrun tanks and enemies and cross long distances on foot in a way that doesn’t quite feel balanced. But you don’t have to ever sprint if you don’t want to. In fact, you can find a skull (one of many hidden collectibles that unlock lore and bonuses) that lets you turn off sprint entirely. Which is nice, but seems to indicate that, yeah, Halo: Combat Evolved and the remake weren’t designed to support sprint.
Less Halo For More
Most of what makes Halo: Campaign Evolved work in 2026 is what made the original Halo so great all those years ago on the original Xbox. And Halo Studios smartly sticks as closely as possible to the original game’s level design, combat encounters, and cutscenes. Yes, everything looks more “real” and detailed, and hardcore fans will spot different enemy spawns, but for the most part, well, this is Halo. Again.
You still have that kick-ass opening level; you still get to storm the beach in Silent Cartographer in one of the best FPS missions ever made, and the Master Chief still encounters the Flood in a creepy swamp and has to escape via Warthog jeep in a daring finale. So, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a good game.
And yet, I find myself struggling to enjoy it as much as I feel like I should.
The fact that this is the next big Halo game, a remake of the first one, feels sad. The idea of shipping a Halo game that feels this great to play without competitive multiplayer seems silly. And the three bonus prequel levels included in Campaign Evolved didn’t really help win me over. Yes, it is fun to fight Brutes and use Halo 3 guns like the Spiker, but the writing is off in these bonus ops. Chief and Johnson have far too much banter. “Let’s wrap this up, and we can get back home before dinner,” says Johnson during the first prequel mission. “You’re always hungry,” quips back Chief. Ehhh…pass.
It also feels like a very small package. All that’s here is the campaign, which can be played with buddies, and the ability to replay levels via a remix mode that shakes up what enemies spawn and what weapons you can find. It was cool to replay the opening level of Halo and encounter Brutes and Flood and then kill all of them with a Halo 2 Battle Rifle. But it’s sort of wild that this is the game. The campaign, some collectibles, and an option to remix the levels.
I don’t like to bring up prices in my reviews, but folks: Halo Master Chief Collection (which contains all of the Halo games, including the first game) costs $40. Campaign Evolved, with no PVP online multiplayer or firefight mode, is $50. That doesn’t add up to me.
Halo: Campaign Evolved isn’t a bad game. In fact, when I was playing with someone else and we were fighting our way through the Library, I was having a swell time. It often felt a lot like classic Halo. And outside of some really garish areas, even the newer visuals didn’t ruin the experience completely.
But there’s not much here beyond the campaign. The bonus levels are fine, but not nearly as good as the main OG content, and the price is high. If you’ve never played Halo before and think the original game looks too old, this is a good option. If you want to play Halo with your PlayStation 5 pals, this is, well, the only option. For everyone else, I’d suggest asking yourself how big a Halo fan you are and if you really need to spend more money on replaying the first game again. Again. Again.
