The New Halo Remake Won’t Have One of the Best Features from the Original

After plenty of speculation and rumors, the Halo: Combat Evolved remake has finally been confirmed. Halo Studios has officially announced that its remake of the first Halo game is real and set to release in 2026. The game will be called Halo: Campaign Evolved, and it will be the first Halo game to release for the PlayStation alongside Xbox Series X|S and PC. And while fans are excited to see the long-awaited remake confirmed, the announcement comes with a pretty big caveat.

As its title suggests, Halo: Campaign Evolved will focus on adapting the campaign from the original Halo: Combat Evolved. This story introduced the world to Master Chief and spawned a beloved Xbox franchise. However, it wasn’t the only thing that made Halo and its sequels so impactful. The game might have arrived slightly ahead of online multiplayer services like Xbox Live, but the series is still credited with popularizing the kind of massive competitive FPS we know and love today. But Halo: Campaign Evolved is leaving that legacy behind.

Halo: Campaign Evolved Won’t Have Online PvP, And There’s a Clear Reason Why

Halo: Campaign Evolved will bring back the iconic campaign from the first Halo game. As a “faith yet modernized remake,” it will let players experience that original story with modern graphics and gameplay. It will feature HD visuals and updated controls, along with a few more new goodies. The remake may be faithful, but Halo Studios is adding a few new bells and whistles. These include 3 new missions, new weapons in the arsenal, new vehicles, and a few new enemies. But as previous rumors suggested, players won’t be able to use these to battle each other.

The Halo remake will feature multiplayer, but only in the form of up to 4-player online co-op. That means that gamers can experience the campaign together, but they can’t engage in a classic FPS PvP arena. And for the game that popularized the concept, that’s initially a pretty surprising move. Halo was prominently featured as a competitive game at LAN parties pre Xbox Live, and its successor, Halo 2, was the first big online shooter. So, why is Halo: Combat Evolved leaving that behind?

In an interview with Windows Central, some of the team at Halo Studios gave an official reason for this. Halo: Campaign Evolved executive producer Damon Conn reportedly says, “We’re not trying to replace what is a masterpiece in the original,” adding that they want to focus on “a strong sense of community” through co-op. That’s all well and good, but a second project from Halo Studios may be another driving factor behind the decision to skip out on PvP.

Halo: Campaign Evolved May Launch Alongside Live Service Multiplayer Halo Project

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Rumors have long suggested that another Halo project is also slated to arrive in 2026. An Xbox insider has previously shared that Halo Studios is working on a standalone live-service multiplayer title. If that’s the case, it makes sense that Halo: Campaign Evolved wouldn’t also have a PvP area. Instead, Halo Studios will likely focus on making this rumored game the central hub for that traditional multiplayer FPS experience so many of us associate with early Halo games.

If this multiplayer Fortnite and Warzone competitor is slated to arrive around the same time as the remake, it wouldn’t make sense to support online servers for PvP for both games. So, that more than anything may have factored into the decision to focus on campaign and co-op for Halo: Campaign Evolved. For now, all that we know for sure is that Halo: Campaign Evolved will not have an online PvP mode when it arrives in 2026 for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC.

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