Rampant online hate against Halo: Campaign Evolved is overblown, according to Marcus Lehto, the series' co-creator and father of Master Chief himself, who's having a real good time with the new remake despite a few wrinkles here and there.
Halo: Campaign Evolved launched late last month, and it's since been subject to some pretty mindless discourse on social media. For a gorgeous remake of an already iconic game, you might not expect to see so many posts complaining about everything from recycled reload animations to a literal rainbow lens flare, because that obviously does irreparable harm to a game.
Halo's former art and creative director, Marcus Lehto, who was at Bungie for decades, has now shared his thoughts on Campaign Evolved. And, yep, he likes it.
"Been slowly playing through Campaign Evolved on Heroic (the diff we designed the game for 25 years ago). Overall, I really love the upgrades - movement, cinematics, visuals - damn the lighting is brilliant. Do I have gripes? A few, but they are taking a back seat to the fun," he tweets.
As for the hate you might see online, Lehto acknowledges that social media sites in general aren't indicative of how your everyday player might feel about games: "This platform fosters that hate. Get us all in a room - in f***ing person - and I bet we would all eventually have a pretty damn good time playing the game together."
Elsewhere, Lehto is pretty generous with his thoughts on the remake of his classic shooter. He says the levels featuring the zombified Flood enemies "looked great," and he's also really impressed by the alien Covenant weapons, which feel "much more brutal with a solid punch."
Not everything's a total home run, including the overhauled cutscenes. "I like many of the liberties taken and additions with the cinematics, but a few are absolutely cringe," he writes.
While many fans might look to Lehto as a definitive authority on the subject, he hopes his comments don't "shut anything down." In fact, he wants his opinions to add "comment to the conversation" since "this is passionate and often polarized community."
Here's hoping the heavily teased Halo 2 remake goes down a bit smoother.
