Despite being Xbox’s biggest franchise, Halo has been in a strange spot for over a decade. Following the disappointment of Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) released Halo Infinite in 2021. Infinite was meant to be a soft reboot for the Halo franchise and was built in the studio’s proprietary Slipspace Engine. However, following a number of broken promises and a slow cadence of updates within Infinite’s first year of availability, the game quickly lost its player base and was ultimately deemed a failure.
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Now, as a way of attempting to reset the series once again, Xbox is returning to the game that started it all, Halo: Combat Evolved, with a new remake crafted in Unreal Engine 5. The resulting remake in the form of Halo: Campaign Evolved is one that is quite enjoyable to return to, even though the game’s existence feels almost entirely unnecessary.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Halo: CE’s campaign is still strong and now looks better than ever | Lack of multiplayer looms large |
| Recreated cutscenes add more context to the game’s story | Very little new content in the overall package |
| Bonus missions provide great variety from the main campaign | Visual upgrades are nice, but feel underwhelming when compared to Infinite |
| 4 player co-op and the inclusion of splitscreen are very appreciated |
Halo: Combat Evolved Is Still a Seminal Shooter 25 Years Later
Even though Halo: Combat Evolved is coming up on its 25th anniversary, the game is still just as fun now as it was in 2001. This introduction to Master Chief, Cortana, and the Covenant in Combat Evolved remains the perfect starting point for any Halo newcomer, and that’s more true than ever with Campaign Evolved.
Outside of its visual and presentational upgrades, Halo: Campaign Evolved makes some core changes to the mechanics of the game that allow it to be better than past versions we’ve received of Combat Evolved. While the original Halo was previously much more mechanically barebones when compared to the likes of Halo 2 and Halo 3, Halo Studios has now folded in many of the gameplay features from later sequels that longtime fans have surely become accustomed to. This means that the ability to hijack vehicles, wield an energy sword, and sprint have all now been folded into Halo: Campaign Evolved, which allows it to feel much less dated.
On a story front, Halo Studios has also completely recreated all of the cutscenes for Halo: Campaign Evolved. This allows its narrative to flow at a much better pace and gives more screen time to characters like Captain Keyes or Sergeant Johnson. Although the story itself remains unchanged, the pivotal moments throughout the campaign often hit harder thanks to these new cutscenes, making Campaign Evolved unquestionably the best way to now experience this chapter in the Halo saga.
Campaign Evolved’s Visual Upgrades Are Equal Parts Impressive and Frustrating
The biggest change with Halo: Campaign Evolved is, obviously, its visuals. Halo Studios has utilized Unreal Engine 5 for the first time to rebuild Combat Evolved from the ground up. This has led to massive improvements not only to the game’s fidelity and performance, but also to its lighting and character/weapon models.
Perhaps my main issue with Campaign Evolved, however, is that it doesn’t feel like a major step forward for the series. While Unreal Engine 5 is clearly going to be the basis of future Halo games, what’s on display in Campaign Evolved often doesn’t look more visually impressive than what was seen in Halo Infinite. That doesn’t mean that Campaign Evolved isn’t a pretty game, but it feels like a step backward in some respects from a graphical standpoint.
There are also some artistic differences made with Halo: Campaign Evolved that don’t give the game the same vibe as the original. The titular Halo, for instance, now looks much more like a mechanical construct instead of a mythical, mysterious object floating in the middle of space. These small tweaks to the designs of various areas throughout Campaign Evolved make the game feel much different than the aesthetic that Bungie was clearly aiming for with the original Halo. Because of this, Halo: Campaign Evolved doesn’t inspire the same sense of awe and intrigue, which is something that was quite noticeable as someone who has been with the franchise since its beginning.
Multiplayer Being Omitted Is Hard to Ignore
Although the campaign of Halo: Campaign Evolved is incredibly fun to play through once again, there isn’t a whole lot else that has been included with this package. The most prominent new addition is three bonus missions that center around Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson, which take place prior to the events of the main game. These missions actually end up being one of the biggest highlights of Campaign Evolved, predominantly because they allow players to wield different weapons and fight enemies not seen in the main campaign.
Co-op is also a big pillar of Halo: Campaign Evolved and has increased the previous number of players from past iterations of the game from two to four. Additionally, splitscreen co-op has been incorporated in Campaign Evolved from the jump, which is a big deal coming off of the controversial moves made with this feature in Halo Infinite. I actually ended up playing much of Campaign Evolved in splitscreen co-op, and I’m thrilled to say that works wonderfully.
The glaring omission at the center of Halo: Campaign Evolved is that of multiplayer. As its name makes very clear, there is no multiplayer mode within Campaign Evolved of any sort. While this is something that many may have already made peace with, it becomes even harder to ignore after booting the game up. Multiplayer is perhaps a larger element of Halo than even that of its campaigns, so to have no ability to dive into PvP matches is difficult to overlook. This remake could have been a home run if it had included multiplayer, but without it, it feels like merely a double at best.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is clearly meant to serve as a basis for what’s to come from Halo in the future, and while the game itself isn’t bad, this remake has made me a bit worried about the franchise long-term. On its own, Campaign Evolved doesn’t do a whole lot to justify yet another remake of Halo: Combat Evolved. Knowing that it will almost certainly be the first in a long string of Halo remakes also is a bit concerning, especially if those future remakes also don’t include multiplayer. As much as I enjoyed another playthrough of Halo with this latest reimagining, I’m left feeling as though Xbox still doesn’t know what to do with its most iconic franchise.
Halo: Campaign Evolved releases on July 28th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. An advance copy of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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