Halo's greatest strength is simplicity. Super-soldier protagonist Master Chief is an immovable object, the Covenant's alien invaders an unstoppable force, and hitting them together like action figures has created 25 years of entertaining FPS hijinks. Returning to the first game via Halo: Campaign Evolved, little has changed – even when it has.

The remake features a prologue from developer Halo Studios, with three all-new missions that see Chief tear through a Covenant ship before the events of the original game. The prologue is Halo Studios' first original creation since the studio's rebrand from 343 Industries in 2024, which means we're effectively getting a glimpse into the series' future while fresher players are given the perfect introduction to Master Chief and Halo's setting.

Shipping it

Aboard the Covenant's vessel, you're thrown straight into the carnage. It's an excellent setting for an FPS, particularly one of Halo's straightforwardness. Squeezed into the ship are cramped service corridors, grand halls, and even a domed Earth-like desert biome – all unmistakably alien, but designed with perfunctory violence. Ornate balconies can be a vantage point for Jackal snipers or a haven for Chief to blast Brutes from a distance, and every door is a potential entry-point for more aliens – and just about the only place you can create a chokepoint, if you're quick enough to frag a gaggle of Grunts before they can disperse. Even in a linear shooting gallery like this, I always feel moments away from being overrun on all sides.

The developer also recognizes the importance of Master Chief's momentum, which is something I clocked while playing the original game's remade levels. Standing still is a surefire way of being pelted with grenades, leaving you to push forward as your only option – if only to pluck a plasma rifle from a dead brute, as limited ammo makes every weapon a disposable tool. I'm pinballed from gun to gun, drawn further out of position until I look back and realize I've completed most of the prologue this way. The original Halo campaigns were defined by their breathlessness, and it's bracing to see Halo Studios lean into the same dynamic so effectively.

As someone who has lapsed from the series since the Xbox 360 days, the new prologue also serves as a nice way into Halo at its simplest. A Star Wars-style crawl establishes humanity's war against the Covenant, while Master Chief is endearingly portrayed as both stoic hero and tongue-in-cheek action film caricature. "Chief – you ever get tired of being the strong, almost-silent type?", he's asked during a lull between shootouts. Long pause. "No."

By remaking the first Halo after a major development overhaul, Halo Studios seems to be looking back to find its way forward. Its originality in the prologue shows the developer certainly has the shooter chops to carry Halo forward – five minutes with the CE Magnum is enough to confirm that – but the bigger question is how this action will be framed going forward. Does the prologue's claustrophobic structure mean we'll see more traditional shooter levels in future Halo games, or will they build upon Halo Infinite's open-world experimentation?

Whatever the answer, I just hope the next game from Halo Studios is wholly original. After all: what's Halo if not moving forward?

Not sure where to start? Here's how to play the Halo games in order

If you're looking to play the Halo games in order, I've brought together this handy guide to break it all down for you.

Here, you can find all of the major Halo games and some off-shoots compiled below in two different orders. Starting with the release date order first, you can find a list that gives you an overview of the series as it originally launched, from its beginnings in 2001, right up to the latest new game in 2026 with the arrival of the remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved (which you can find out more about in our Halo: Campaign Evolved review).

For those of you looking to explore the series in narrative order, I've also detailed how to play the Halo games chronologically, with overviews of where each entry sits in the Halo timeline and if or how the events of the games connect story wise. Of course, alternatively, you can also explore the series by checking out our ranking of the best Halo games if you're after the highlights, too. But for an overview of how to play the Halo games in order, read on.

How to play the Halo games in release order

If you want to play the Halo games in release order, you can find a helpful list breaking down all of the games (including some major spin-offs) below, with the original launch years they came out in.

• Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
• Halo 2 (2004)
• Halo 3 (2007)
• Halo Wars (2009)
• Halo 3: ODST (2009)
• Halo Reach (2010)
• Halo 4 (2012)
• Halo: Spartan Assault (2013)
• Halo: Spartan Strike (2015)
• Halo 5: Guardians (2015)
• Halo Wars 2 (2017)
• Halo Infinite (2021)
• Halo: Campaign Evolved (2026)

How to play the Halo games in chronological order

If you're instead looking to play the Halo games in chronological order, the list looks quite different. While, for example, Halo: Combat Evolved was technically the very first Halo game to release, later Halo games take you to earlier points in the Halo timeline of events. So, if you're looking to experience the narrative of the series chronologically, I'll break it down for you here.

With both a list so you can see the order at a glance, as well as a more detailed overview of the timeframes and how it ties into the overall narrative, you'll also find current platforms listed where you can still play these today.

• Halo Wars
• Halo: Campaign Evolved (prologue missions)
• Halo: Reach
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Halo 2
• Halo 3: ODST
• Halo 3
• Halo: Spartan Assault
• Halo 4
• Halo Spartan: Strike
• Halo 5: Guardians
• Halo Wars 2
• Halo Infinite

1. Halo Wars (2531)

Halo Wars is the first real-time strategy game set in the Halo universe, and it's also technically the first game in the series narratively speaking. With the events of Halo Wars taking place some 21 years before Halo: Combat Evolved (and, of course, its remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved).

Taking place in the year 2531 during the tail-end of the Harvest campaign – which revolved around trying to reclaim the colonist world of Harvest that's been ravaged by the alien Covenant empire (who are determined to destroy humanity). You play as one of various leaders and take command of either UNSC military units who are part of the Red Team, or the Covenant, and get thrown into the conflict. The parasitic threat known as The Flood also factors into the campaign.

2. Halo: Campaign Evolved (2551 - Prologue missions)

For the most part, Halo: Campaign Evolved serves as a shiny new remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, but there are some new bonus prequel missions introduced that place it earlier in the timeline narratively.

Taking place a year before the main story of Campaign Evolved (and Combat Evolved) and prior to Halo: Reach, these Operation Meteorite missions explore a self-contained story featuring Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson teaming up to infiltrate and investigate a Covenant research vessel above the colony of Promise. It mostly establishes that Chief and Johnson were best pals before the events of Halo 1, but also introduces a new Prophet character, who may be more important in the inevitable Halo 2 remake.

So, if you do want to play the Halo games in order, it could be worth tucking into Campaign Evolved over Combat Evolved, or play it before you play the original if you're keen to try both. However, you won't be missing much by skipping these prequel missions and going straight to the next game.

3. Halo: Reach (2552)

Halo: Reach brings forward the Halo timeline from Wars, but is still a precursor to Halo: Combat Evolved. And rather than being an RTS like Wars, it's an FPS like the majority of the series.

Taking place a few weeks before the events of Combat Evolved in the year 2552, the game explores the Fall of Reach, a key human colony planet that served as one of the last bastions of military strength against the Covenant.

The campaign sees you playing as super solider Spartan B312 (aka Noble Six), a member of the elite Noble Team, who are sent to look into a distress beacon on the planet. It soon becomes apparent that the Covenant are on Reach and you'll get swept up in countless battles against the alien invaders as they continue their devastation from the Harvest campaign. Reach's ending then almost immediately leads into the start of Halo: Combat Evolved.

4. Halo: Combat Evolved (2552)

The FPS that kicked off the Halo Series, Combat Evolved (and its 2026 remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved), bring the events forward from Halo: Reach some weeks later. Still set within the same year of 2552, Combat Evolved follows Spartan John-117, better known as Master Chief, who begins the game in cryo sleep aboard the UNSC ship Pillar of Autumn after the Fall of Reach.

The Pillar of Autumn is quickly overrun by the pursuing Covenant, and Captain Jacob Keyes charges Master Chief with protecting the ship's AI Cortana from falling into the hands of alien forces. But after you crash onto an ancient, mysterious ringworld (aka a Halo) known as Installation 04, you'll soon find yourself fighting back against the Covenant forces that revere it and uncovering its true purpose.

5. Halo 2 (2552)

Also taking place in the year 2552, Halo 2 unfolds following the events of Combat Evolved. But rather than solely focusing on Master Chief, Halo 2 also explores a Sangheili warrior called Thel 'Vadam who holds the title of The Arbiter.

Playing as both characters at different points in the narrative (before their plotlines eventually converge), the game sees the Human-Covenant war escalate, with the aliens now invading Earth. Master Chief starts the fight aboard Cairo Station before eventually battling through the city of New Mombasa, which sets up what's to come in Halo 3: ODST. Meanwhile, the Arbiter contends with The Flood on another Halo known as Installation 05.

6. Halo 3: ODST (2552)

Halo 3: ODST actually takes place during Halo 2 and acts as a prequel of sorts to Halo 3. Taking on the role of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper called Rookie, you set out to find out the motivations behind the Covenant's attack and invasion of the city of New Mombasa on Earth.

Shaking up the combat, ODST introduces some stealth as you try to survive against the overwhelming enemy forces. Structurally, it's also quite different to other games, featuring some open world exploration as you explore the ruined streets of New Mombasa at night looking for clues as to where your missing squad mates are, which lead into more linear missions that show the chaos of the Covenant's invasion. Overall, it builds up a more complete picture of the Battle for Earth prior to the events of Halo 3.

7. Halo 3 (2552)

Halo 3 then sees out the year 2552 with the return of Master Chief, who's back in the leading role. The Arbiter also makes another appearance, although now he's only playable in co-op multiplayer. Set a few weeks after the events of Halo 2, the third entry follows on from ODST to bring the original Halo trilogy to a close.

After crash landing into an African jungle, Master Chief sets out to finally finish the long fight against the Covenant. As you battle against enemy forces, you also work to uncover a secret that could turn the tide of the fight. But along the way, you'll also have to contend with the threat of The Flood, too. With Halo 3 officially wrapping up the Human-Covenant War, the game ends with Master Chief entering cryo sleep on the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn ship – which is left adrift in space – to await rescue.

8. Halo: Spartan Assault (2554)

Set between the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4 in the year 2554, Halo: Spartan Assault is an off-shoot entry in the series that plays as a twin-stick, top-down arcade-y shooter rather than the mainstay FPS format of the core trilogy. Originally released on PC and mobile before coming to Xbox 360 and Xbox One, it features over 30 campaign missions.

Its concept revolves around a training simulation tool for Spartans. As you try to progress your career as a prospective Spartan, you'll be drawn into key battles that take place within the timeline. As the games go, this is one of those off-shoot you don't really need to play to follow the overarching narrative of the main series.

9. Halo 4 (2557)

Picking up where Halo 3 left off, Halo 4 takes place less than a handful of years later, and follows Master Chief as he's awakened by Cortana on the Forward Unto Dawn ship – which is still adrift. Cortana, now several years old, is starting to suffer from rampancy, making her unstable.

The duo eventually find themselves on the Forerunner world known as Requiem, where soon enough, he finds himself facing the Covenant and another threat in the Forerunners (another advanced alien species) with the mighty Didact as their commander.

10. Halo Spartan: Strike (2557)

Just like Halo Spartan: Assault, Halo Spartan: Strike is another off-shoot twin-stick shooter set in the Halo universe. Narratively speaking, it does jump a little in terms of the timeline, with it including events that took place in 2552, but it's technically set in the year 2557. As another smaller experience that doesn't hold as much weight as the mainline games, this is another one you could miss without much trouble.

But if you want to experience it, this is where it sits within the timeline of events, and it kind of mirrors the concept of Assault in that it's another series of missions centered around a tactical simulation training tool that was originally developed for mobile.

11. Halo 5: Guardians (2558)

Halo 5: Guardians takes place in the year 2558 after the events of Halo 4, and puts you in the role of both Spartan Jameson Locke, who's a part of ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence), and Master Chief. When series hero Master Chief goes AWOL after going after Cortana with his Blue Team Spartan allies, you as Locke set out to bring him back with Fireteam Osiris.

Playing as both characters at different points throughout the campaign, our original Halo 5: Guardians review picked at its story, which doesn't feel as cohesive or impactful as its predecessor, with much of its events feeling more inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

12. Halo Wars 2 (2559)

Just like the first Halo Wars game, Halo Wars 2 takes the series back to the realms of strategy and sees the Spartan Red Team awaken from cryo sleep 28 years after the events of the first Wars game. Set in the year 2559, it takes place in the timeline following the events of Halo 5 and sees you play as a leader of your choice as you command your own army and take on a new threat in the Banished, a Brute-led faction born out of the Covenant.

With the option to play as either humanity, or the Banished in the story, you build up bases, take charge of troops and vehicles, and navigate battles in missions centered around the Ark – a Forerunner installation first seen in Halo 3

13. Halo Infinite (2560)

As the most recent game to release in the Halo series (outside of the Campaign Evolved Remake), Halo Infinite is also the latest entry in the timeline, with events unfolding in the year 2560. Taking place roughly 18 months after the events of Halo 5: Guardians, Infinite sees you assume the role of Master Chief as the war against the alien Banished faction has effectively been lost.

With Halo Infinite being set on a Halo ring known as Installation 07 (Zeta Halo) which is coming back online and poses another threat, Master Chief works to shut down the Halo. Cortana's actions from Halo 5 are largely glossed over and, while she features in the story, Master Chief instead finds himself paired with a new AI known as The Weapon. If you want a more in-depth explanation of the storyline, you can check out our Halo Infinite story explainer.

Looking for more recommendations? Check out our pick of the best FPS games.

The Halo Campaign Evolved Terminals can all be obtained with some thorough searching, but plenty of them are very easy to miss – and don't think your knowledge of the Terminal locations in Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary will help, as they're in completely different places now.

Unlike the Skulls, Terminals don't make any noise besides some bleeps and bloops that are only audible when you're very close. Also unlike the Skulls, there are only 13 of them – that's one per Halo Campaign Evolved level – so finding and activating them all for some unlockable lore entries isn’t too much of a chore. To help you find every Terminal in Halo Campaign Evolved, I've laid out all 13 locations below.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, when going through the upper cryo room with the cracked windows.

This is the room where Cortana says, "it looks like the Covenant wanted to catch you napping". Proceed through the next door, then immediately turn left to find another open door leading into a small room with red lights and lots of screens everywhere. The Pillar of Autumn Terminal in Halo Campaign Evolved is at the far end, which unlocks the Approach entry.

Halo Campaign Evolved Halo Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, as you drive into the "this cave is not a natural formation" Forerunner tunnel.

Drive through the tunnel until you reach the straight section with two small bumps in the road and a large window on your right. Hop out your Warthog, then jump through the window and carefully drop down to the ledge directly below. You'll find the Halo Terminal, Forgotten, down there.

Halo Campaign Evolved Truth and Reconciliation Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, as you make your way to the brig to find Captain Keyes after clearing out the ship's command room.

After navigating several corridors after the command room, you'll eventually arrive at a large room with several doors around the perimeter. Go through the one immediately on the right as you enter and you'll find yourself in one of the prison rooms. Use the central console to deactivate the forcefields and then head inside the cell almost opposite the console to find the Truth and Reconciliation Terminal and get the Inquisitor lore entry.

Halo Campaign Evolved Silent Cartographer Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, just after you shut down the security system.

From the security system console, turn around and head to the outer walkway of this area and look for the extended platform. The Status Update Terminal is behind a small Forerunner structure with two pointy bits.

Halo Campaign Evolved Assault on the Control Room Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, after you've gone up the ice cave.

When you emerge into the canyon from the ice cave, follow the path to the right, then go through the doorway in the central rock formation on your left.

Head through the door and follow the corridor until you reach a large, empty central rooms. From here, go up the ramp that leads onto a balcony, then look to your right once you get onto the balcony. You'll find the Terminal for Assault on the Control Room, Tangent 1, tucked in the corner.

Halo Campaign Evolved 343 Guilty Spark Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, after backtracking partway through the Forerunner facility while fighting the Flood.

You'll eventually reach a point on your journey through this facility where you have to go through a door with two large, pale symbols on either side.

Head through and turn left to find a cluster of dead marines and all their gear. From here take the next right to go down a dark corridor where you'll find the Halo Campaign Evolved 343 Guilty Spark Terminal – Tangent 2, which carries on from the last one.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Library Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, after 343 Guilty Spark opens a large door and you're presented with two consoles, with a prompt directing you to the one on the right.

Ignore the objective and activate the console on the left to open a doorway on the left.

Head through and then go through the small hole in the Flood-infested wall. This will lead you into a small room featuring a dead marine and the Library Terminal, which rounds out the Tangent series into a trilogy.

Halo Campaign Evolved Two Betrayals Terminal

From Rally Point Alpha, right after destroying all the attacking Sentinels.

Rather than heading out the door straight ahead, head right and run around the ring walkway instead. You'll run into the Two Betrayals Terminal here, unlocking the Alone entry.

Halo Campaign Evolved Keyes Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, when trying to ascend to a higher deck in the shuttle bay.

After dropping off to the ground floor of the shuttle bay, follow the objective marker through the door then right and up the inclined corridor – there are always Flood enemies and two Hunters in here. When you get to the first junction halfway up the corridor, turn left then left again to find the Terminal for Keyes in Halo Campaign Evolved.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Maw Terminal

From Rally Point Alpha, after clearing out the mess hall room.

From the entrance to the mess hall, bear right and you'll find the Arrival Terminal in a nook on top of some UNSC boxes.

Halo Campaign Evolved Boarding Action Terminal

From Rally Point Delta, after you've taken the gravity lift upwards to head for the Triumph of Tolerance's upper decks.

This grav lift will put you right in front of the corridor and doorway you’re meant to go through for the final combat encounter of the mission, but the terminal is behind you. Turn to face the opposite direction and then go through the door on the right to find the Heavy Burden Terminal.

Halo Campaign Evolved The Most Dangerous Game Terminal

Rally Point Charlie, after rescuing the marines from the brig.

Fight through the rest of the ship following the objective markers until you reach a room with several windows on the left that let you see many sarcophagus-like devices in a large room. Instead of going through the next door, head through the one on the right and you'll find a storage room full of UNSC gear, including the Halo Campaign Evolved Terminal for this mission, Penitent Report.

Halo Campaign Evolved Heavy Burden Terminal

From Rally Point Bravo, immediately after the cutscene where Chief and Johnson get the starholo data.

At the start of this Rally Point, you'll be facing a pair of doors on the far side of this room on the ground floor. Go through either of them to reach another pair of doors. Go through either of those doors to get inside a Covenant armory, then go through the next door to reach a relatively small storage room. The Terminal for Heavy Burden is hidden behind the Covenant equipment on the left.

These Terminals are just one of the many Halo Campaign Evolved changes compared to the original. Bear in mind that finding them all is also going to add a fairly significant amount of time to how long it takes you to beat Halo Campaign Evolved too.

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Remember Craig? The ugly alien brute from Halo Infinite who immediately became subject to droves of online ridicule before eventually becoming a loveable internet meme? Halo: Campaign Evolved has now canonized the horrid internet icon, and perhaps even explained why he looks like that.

There are many hulking brutes stomping around the Halo games, but some fans are now convinced that they've had found Craig himself hidden in the newly-released Halo: Campaign Evolved because A) most brutes aren't completely bald and B) not all brutes are that unmistakably fugly.

In one of the remake's new prequel missions, Master Chief can stumble upon liquid-filled pods containing various brutes who have likely been experimented on by their Covenant overlords. Zoom in closely and you'll see that one of them looks very much like our poor old Craig, sad frown and all.

There you have it, then - Craig isn't ugly because Halo Infinite's first gameplay demo wasn't really ready to be shown off. Craig's ugly because he's the victim of genetic alteration and who knows what else? You bully. How he got out of that pod, survived the entire Covenant-UNSC-Flood war, and eventually became a Banished trooper getting whacked in the face by Chief on a faraway ringworld is still a mystery, however. Perhaps we'll need to wait for another Halo remake, which is looking increasingly likely, to find out the full story.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is still available in early access to owners of the Premium Edition only. The full game launches July 28, so be sure to check out what time Halo: Campaign releases in your region. You can also find information on how to pre-load Halo: Campaign Evolved with our handy guide.

Here's all the Halo Campaign Evolved changes and new features compared to the original Combat Evolved.

The Halo Campaign Evolved Skulls and Terminal found in the first level, The Pillar of Autumn, aren't too difficult to find, for the most part. The main issue is that a couple of Skulls are found so early in the game that you'll no doubt run right past them the first time you play. So, to help you find them quickly, I've explained exactly where to find the Terminal and all Skulls in the first level of Halo Campaign Evolved below.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 1

From Rally Point Alpha, the start of the level.

At the very start of the level as soon as soon as you have control over Master Chief, turn around and head over to the two large, round containers towards the left side of the back of the room. Climb on top of these containers, then jump across to the nearby upper walkway. Walk to the other end and you'll find the Speed Limit Skull.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 2

From Rally Point Alpha, as soon as the marine says Cortana needs you at the bridge.

The next room the marine will lead you into is an armory, and the Magnified Skull is on top of the central weapon rack near the middle of the room.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Skull 3

From Rally Point Bravo, after the cutscene where Master Chief meets Keyes at the bridge.

After this cutscene finishes, turn around and head back into the bridge. Go to the main control area with the glass canopy and the two pilots in their chairs and drop down into the floorspace below them. This is where you'll find the Perspective Skull, and there's a ladder you can use to get out.

Halo Campaign Evolved Pillar of Autumn Terminal

From Rally Point Charlie, when going through the upper cryo room with the cracked windows.

You'll know you're in the right room if Cortana says, "it looks like the Covenant wanted to catch you napping". From here, carry on through the next door, then immediately turn left to find another open door leading into another room with red lights and lots of screens. The Approach Terminal is at the far end.

Finding all these collectibles also takes a while, so expect it to add a few hours to how long it takes to beat Halo Campaign Evolved. If you've played Halo CE in The Master Chief Collection, you will have noticed that all the Skulls are in completely different places to that, which is one of the many Halo Campaign Evolved changes.

This Halo 1 remake is out now in early access but the full Halo Campaign Evolved release time is still to come. In the meantime, make sure you've got your Halo Campaign Evolved pre-load sorted.

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Halo: Campaign Evolved might be a remake of one of the best shooters to ever do it, but that doesn't mean it's entirely bullet proof. On Steam, the remake has debuted to an average 'Mixed' rating thanks to player complaints of crashes and server login issues that temporarily stopped people from playing the campaign-only game.

For context, Halo: Campaign Evolved launches in full on July 28, but owners of the $70/£70 Premium Edition get to skip the queue and jump in five days early. Despite paying extra, those fans have maybe been given the short end of the stick if user reviews are anything to go by.

At the time of writing, about 32% of Campaign Evolved's 1,666 Steam user reviews give it the thumbs down, with many reviews citing semi-frequent crashes and problems even connecting to the game's servers in the first place.

"Yes the game just came out, but it shouldn't be a trend for a game to always come out severely broken," one player writes. "Call me a boomer, but I miss when games came out in a playable state without patches needed."

"Login failed," another states. "Cannot play the single-player game as servers are overloaded. Screw your DRM." Halo Studios actually responded to that user review by promising that login issues should now be fixed, and judging by the almost 20 hours the fan has on record, it seems server issues are a non-issue for now.

Still, some other fans took issue with the fact that Halo: Campaign Evolved requires a login and a connection at all. The game is playable start-to-finish in online co-op, but there's no real reason why Spartans who prefer to go in solo should have to connect their Microsoft accounts before even reaching the main menu.

Technical issues and a bumpy launch aside, players who aren't being interrupted by crashes seem otherwise happy with the classic game's second remake.

"Finished the prequel missions. Barely any problems whatsoever, and so far it's been refreshing playing a "new" Halo game again," one fans says of the new three-mission arc.

"Well – it's Halo 1's campaign, but with a new coat of paint on top and some interesting and fun tweaks to mix up the gameplay, with the most comprehensive set of skulls the series has ever seen that offer tons of replay value," a second player explains. "Really, that's all I think needs to be said to justify the recommendation here."

GamesRadar's Halo: Campaign Evolved review had similarly good things to say about the remake, even if the package as a whole also felt like "a wasted opportunity for Halo Studios to put its own spin on a classic."

Want more? A secret Halo: Campaign Evolved ending strongly hints that another Halo 2 remake is in the works – "See you in the sequel."

The list of Halo Campaign Evolved changes is quite extensive, ranging from things like completely new missions and weapons that weren't in the original to smart-link aiming, sprinting, and accessibility options. While there are a lot of changes, many of them are quite minor and might not be so obvious if you've not played Halo Combat Evolved that much. So, if you're curious to know exactly what's new and what's different from the original, here are all the changes I've been able to find in Halo Campaign Evolved.

New Halo Campaign Evolved features

Halo Campaign Evolved includes several major gameplay features that aren't available in the original game or the Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary remaster in The Master Chief Collection:

• Operation Meteorite bonus missions: On top of the remade campaign, this remake features three new prequel missions that tell the story of Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson during Operation Meteorite, adding a few more hours to how long it takes to beat Halo Campaign Evolved. Taking place one year before the events of the campaign, this operation sees the duo infiltrate and investigate a Covenant research vessel. Brutes make an exclusive appearance in these missions, wielding Spikers and Brute Plasma Rifles.
• Campaign Remix: Campaign Remix is a new mode that lets you replay missions with randomized elements, including available weapons, enemy factions, and active Skulls. It is unlocked after you collect any three Skulls.
• Four-player online co-op: Halo Campaign Evolved is the only way you can officially play some form of Halo 1 with three other players in online co-op. The game also supports crossplay and cross-progression, so you can play with anyone on any platform and even play on any platform without losing progress. You can also play Campaign Evolved in two-player split-screen on consoles only.
• Difficulty and accessibility settings: The usual Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary difficulty options are still there, but you can also create difficulty presets that adjust things like friendly fire, damage resistance, and shield recharge rate – this is all on top of Skulls too! As for accessibility, there are plenty of changes you can make to the aiming crosshair, HUD, subtitles, input rebinding, and lots more.

New Halo Campaign Evolved weapons, vehicles, and enemies

The Halo Combat Evolved sandbox of weapons and vehicles, as well as the array of enemies you'll face, have been considerably expanded for this remake:

• Expanded weapon sandbox: The Energy Sword, Sentinel Beam, Fuel Rod Gun, SMG, and Needle Rifle have all been added to the main campaign. The Battle Rifle, Brute Plasma Rifle, and Spiker are exclusive to the new bonus missions, and the Needle Rifle is significantly more common in them too.
• You can drive Wraiths now: The Covenant Wraith tank is now pilotable in some levels, such as Assault on the Control Room. Most vehicles can also be hijacked now, but note that this works both ways, so the Covenant can hijack you right back!
• Equipment can be stored and used whenever you like: Unlike in the original where Overshields and Active Camo would activate as soon as you pick them up, Campaign Evolved treats them like Halo 3-style equipment pieces that must be deployed with a button press.
• Jackal snipers have been added (oh god): Jackal snipers are an infamously lethal foe in practically every Halo game except for the first one. Campaign Evolved rectifies this, adding them into plenty of missions.
• Flood Tank Forms join the fight: The large Tank Form Flood, first seen in Halo 3, appear in Campaign Evolved. They're rare and pose quite a serious threat, similar to a Covenant Hunter.

Halo Campaign Evolved gameplay changes

Halo Campaign Evolved also introduces some key gameplay change over the original that mostly serve to modernize the game:

• Sprint: As in Halo Studios' previous games, Master Chief has a dedicated sprint button in Campaign Evolved, letting him get around the ring a bit faster on foot.
• Smart-link aiming: While weapons like the Magnum and Sniper Rifle all had scopes in the original game, now Halo Campaign Evolved weapons benefit from some form of aiming thanks to the smart-link system that Halo 5 Guardians introduced. It essentially amounts to a small amount of zoom (usually 1.4x) that helps you more accurately shoot enemies that are slightly further away than is ideal.
• No health kits: Master Chief's health now regenerates like his shields. The original game's health kits that were necessary for healing Chief are therefore absent in Halo Campaign Evolved.
• Improved waypoints and objective tracking: Objectives and their markers are now almost always visible on screen, helping you stay on mission and navigate levels more easily. You can adjust how these appear if you find them getting in the way.
• Slightly redesigned levels: The Library has received the most significant changes to make it easier to navigate and more varied, with new areas and light bridge mechanics. Otherwise, most levels remain almost entirely the same in terms of layout, with some receiving small tweaks. As an example, the Forerunner cave that you drive the Warthog through in Halo no longer has that weird ramp section and is now just one continuous path.
• Skulls and Terminals: Collectible Skull modifiers and lore-based Terminals weren't in the original game but got added for the Combat Evolved Anniversary remaster. For Campaign Evolved there are even more of them to collect, with 42 Skulls (three per level for a total of 39 plus three Campaign Remix ones) and 13 Terminals (one per level). They're also all in different places compared to the Anniversary remaster, so your memories of those won't help.
• No PvP multiplayer: As the Campaign Evolved subtitle suggests, this game features only the campaign – no arena multiplayer.

Halo Campaign Evolved visual and audio changes

The most obvious change of all over the original is the visual overhaul, but there are plenty of other changes to things like dialogue and cutscenes that might go over your head:

• Updated graphics: Halo Campaign Evolved is a complete remake of the original Combat Evolved in Unreal Engine 5, so it benefits from the advanced graphical technology of that engine for stunningly rendered photorealistic textures and lighting. But, as I note in my Halo Campaign Evolved review, it does lead to some typical UE5 performance issues.
• New and altered dialogue and cutscenes: Narratively, Halo Campaign Evolved is the same as the original, but Halo Studios has added and adjusted plenty of dialogue and cutscenes. The new lines are mostly tutorials and explanation from Cortana and other NPCs. Some lines, such as "I don't keep it loaded, son, you'll have to find ammo as you go" from Keyes, and Cortana telling 343 Guilty Spark to "sod off", have been cut, however.
• The original Chief and Cortana voice actors are back…: Steve Downes and Jen Taylor, who voice Master Chief and Cortana respectively, have re-recorded their lines, including some new ones as mentioned above.
• …But Captain Keyes and Sergeant Johnson have been recast: Keith Silverstein, who you may know as Torbjorn from Overwatch, now plays Keyes, while Keston John, who stars in Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and 7 and Yakuza 0 Director's Cut, voices Sergeant Johnson.
• The Covenant now speak English: Elites have various combat barks in human languages that let you know how fervently they fight for the Prophets and the Covenant. It also sounds like Grunt dialogue from Halo 2 and 3 has been repurposed. Overall, there's a lot less "wort, wort, wort".

This Combat Evolved remake is out now in early access but the full Halo Campaign Evolved release time is still to come. In the meantime, make sure you've got your Halo Campaign Evolved pre-load sorted.

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Halo: Campaign Evolved strongly hints that another Halo remake could be on the way.

Rumors have been swirling for a while that Halo Studios is planning to remake Master Chief's entire original trilogy – Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 – in the same style as its newly-released revamp, Halo: Campaign Evolved. That means yes to sprint, no to multiplayer, and sweeping changes to the rest of the game (new levels, weapons, updated visuals, etc.)

For anyone crossing their fingers for Halo 2 and Halo 3 to get the same treatment, good news! Halo: Campaign Evolved rather explicitly pours fuel over the fire of those rumors in its secret ending, unlocked by completing the game on Legendary difficulty. (Don't worry, there's no hard spoilers here.)

Finishing the fight on the game's toughest difficulty rewards you with an alternative ending that's surprisingly different to Bungie's 2001 shooter. The part that's important here is a line uttered by our good old Sergeant Avery Johnson, who caps off the entire game with: "See you in the sequel!"

While that's not hard confirmation of a Halo 2 remake in itself, the implication is crystal clear since an inevitable Halo 7 isn't exactly a sequel to Halo: Campaign Evolved, and I doubt HD Johnson is telling folks to go back and play the original Halo 2 after the series' latest remake.

Halo 2 has also actually been remade once before in Halo 2 Anniversary, which came bundled with The Master Chief Collection, but that was the case with the series' first game too, so it's not exactly a deal breaker for Xbox Game Studios.

The iconic Xbox sequel was also infamously a victim of a turbulent development cycle that left tons of content on the cutting room floor. The "finishing this fight" line became so recognizable in the first place because Master Chief did not, in fact, finish the fight until an entire game later when Halo 2's cliffhanger ending was finally resolved.

My point is, Halo 2 perhaps stands to benefit more than its older sibling should it get another, more comprehensive remake. It's also worth nothing that Halo 2 Anniversary was beholden to the source material's exact level layout since you could switch between both graphical options on the fly – a Campaign Evolved-style remake would presumably allow for more dramatic changes.

Our Halo: Campaign Evolved review calls it a "faithful remake of the 2001 classic that highlights exactly why the original Halo holds up so well 25 years later," even though Halo Studios could've done more to put its own spin on the classic game.

Halo 3's final mission could have been a flying banshee scene inspired by Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

The length of Halo Campaign Evolved isn't really all that different to the original 2001 game, clocking in at roughly 10 hours. However, this remake packs in a few extras – namely a three-mission bonus prequel campaign and over 50 collectibles in the form of Skulls and Terminals – that will extend how long it takes you to complete the game, depending on what your definition of 'complete' is. With that in mind, here are some estimations for how long Halo Campaign Evolved is based on how you play.

How long is Halo Campaign Evolved?

The average playthrough for Halo Campaign Evolved is about 10 hours, but with things like difficulty, prior knowledge from the original, and collectibles to find, your completion time is affected by many factors:

• Main campaign: 8-12 hours
• Main campaign + bonus missions: 10-14 hours
• 100% completion: 20+ hours

As mentioned, the core campaign – that's the 10 main missions from The Pillar of Autumn to The Maw – should take you 10 hours, give or take a couple. If you're charging through each mission on Easy difficulty or have played the classic Halo Combat Evolved already, you may even be able to get through it much faster. Conversely if you're committing to a Heroic or Legendary playthrough, plenty of deaths will add up to a couple of extra hours.

The Operation Meteorite campaign, comprising three prequel missions featuring Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson, adds a couple more hours of story content, but you should still get through the whole thing in under 15 hours. I completed all 13 missions on Heroic difficulty in about 13 hours, having also played Combat Evolved a few times before.

Finally, those that commit to finding all 39 Skulls and all 13 Terminals spread across each mission, you'll be spending several more hours replaying and scouring each level. If you're going for the Platinum Trophy too, there are plenty of tough challenges that will likely take you multiple attempts to complete, so don't expect a quick walk in the park!

The game is only in early access at the moment, so make sure you know when the Halo Campaign Evolved release time is and ensure you pre-load Halo Campaign Evolved before then.

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It takes a moment to adjust to the fact I'm using a DualSense controller and my PS5 to play a Halo game – something which seemed like heresy only a few years ago. But from the moment I fire the iconic M6D Magnum pistol in Halo: Campaign Evolved, my muscle memory from years past kicks right back in. Navigating space cruiser Pillar of Autumn's rat's nest of corridors before crash-landing onto Installation 04 and mounting up in a warthog remains one of my favorite openings for a video game, and Halo Studios has recreated it with stunning accuracy.

Despite being a ground-up remake of the game that started it all for Halo (and arguably Xbox) 25 years ago, it's impressive not only how instantly familiar Halo: Campaign Evolved feels but also how well it holds up. But, after a full run of the campaign and its three new bonus missions, I can't help but feel that such a faithful approach might be to Halo: Campaign Evolved's detriment. It certainly looks the part, but there are so few flourishes that I also can't find many reasons to play it over what's come before.

Sacred Icon

Playing through the opening half of Halo: Campaign Evolved reminded me that The Pillar of Autumn through to Assault on the Control Room really is an all-timer sequence of levels. You get to see almost the whole gamut of Halo environments, from claustrophobic spaceships to lush landscapes, rugged canyons, and esoteric Forerunner facilities.

These have all been beautifully and vibrantly rendered in Unreal Engine 5. Levels like 343 Guilty Spark and The Library benefit greatly from some significant visual improvements. Advanced lighting, a ghostly knee-high fog, and plenty of Flood goop all add to the mysterious atmosphere of these ancient installations, break up the monotony, and even amp up the horror.

I also can't deny that such dedication to realism means Campaign Evolved lacks a certain charm compared to the polygonal and yet timeless look of its precursor. Even so, it's also much kinder on the eyes compared to the brightly lit and overly detailed Anniversary remaster in The Master Chief Collection.

The visuals for Halo: Campaign Evolved are where the most obvious changes to the original lie, though there are a few mechanical additions to bring the original up to modern Halo standards. Namely, Master Chief can use smart-link aiming with any weapon and is now allowed to sprint. I found that both can be safely ignored for a classic feel (there's even a Skull that fully disables sprinting if you hate it that much), with sprinting being a nice addition to simply get around some of the larger levels a bit faster. It hardly dictates the flow of combat with the only foes that really pushed me to sprint mid-combat being aggressive chargers like Hunters, energy sword Elites, and the hulking Pure Form Flood.

Although, I was a little disappointed to see health packs have been cut in favor of Chief regenerating health. This always felt like a nice separation between his Mark 5 and Mark 6 Mjolnir amor, with the latter appearing from Halo 2 onwards along with fully regenerating health – a reminder that Master Chief isn't quite so invincible that encouraged you to play a little more tactically rather than charging in like a barbarian.

With that said, going in guns blazing at all times on Normal difficulty is where Halo: Campaign Evolved really shines, feeling closer to the original game's Heroic difficulty. Measured aggression in the face of the Covenant and using every tool in Chief's arsenal means you can play more like Doomguy, strafing around and filling each enemy with lead or pistol-whipping them before charging to the next. And it’s still as satisfying as ever to perfectly Hail Mary a plasma grenade into a cluster of Grunts, sending them wailing and flying.

So, with the 2001 classic acting as such a solid foundation, it's practically impossible to not have a good time playing Halo: Campaign Evolved, at the very least. I was initially apprehensive that these relatively simple 25-year-old design principles just wouldn't hold up in a time of fast-paced movement shooters and vast open worlds. Surely such a basic feel would make for a terrible first impression for PS5 players who may have no idea what Halo even is, let alone never played it before. But I think it's this simplicity that makes it shine. As such a faithful remake of its forerunner, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a first-person shooter in its purest form.

Unnatural formation

The more I play Halo: Campaign Evolved the more I also realize that this commitment to faithfulness is a double-edged sword. How can a game titled "Campaign Evolved" claim to be an evolution if it sticks so closely to its source material?

Sprinting, regenerating health, and other modernizations are joined by minor tweaks to level design and dialogue, and an expanded arsenal. The Energy Sword, Sentinel Beam, and Wraith tank, all previously tantalizingly out of reach for Chief in the original, can now be wielded to great effect on the ring – they're even joined by the Needle Rifle, SMG, and Fuel Rod Gun, further fleshing out the already excellent weapon sandbox.

The Library, my least favorite level in Halo: Combat Evolved for its monotonous and labyrinthine structure, has been redesigned a little to trim the fat and inject a bit of variety to its vast halls. You go down instead of up now! That vastness certainly had its own appeal, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad that it's a considerably more intuitive place to navigate in Halo: Campaign Evolved. It still feels maze-like without you getting lost, providing a greater sense of momentum even as the incessant monitor orb Guilty Spark dawdles and spouts nonsense. But it's a crying shame that Cortana no longer tells him to "sod off" at the start of Two Betrayals.

The stunning scenery that is arguably one of the main draws of Halo: Campaign Evolved also comes at the cost of Unreal Engine 5 choppiness. I noticed that whenever there were lots of enemies on screen or plenty of particle effects going off at once, animation frame rates would noticeably plummet. Nothing game-breaking, but hardly what I'd expect from something that is so otherwise polished.

Hopping back into Halo: Combat Evolved via The Master Chief Collection made me realize that this remake's changes are unfortunately quite inconsequential. Halo Studios has imitated the original so well that there is little that Halo: Campaign Evolved does that makes it an essential play. Obviously, if you only have a PS5, then Halo: Campaign Evolved is your sole option – that's also ultimately who this game is for too – but I find it difficult to recommend to anyone else when The Master Chief Collection, and therefore the original Halo, is widely available.

I think we're just getting started

Of course, Halo Studios already thought about this and so Halo: Campaign Evolved also includes a new three-mission prequel campaign, Operation Meteorite. These bonus missions see Master Chief teaming up with his best non-AI pal and fan-favorite Sergeant Johnson to investigate a mysterious research vessel to hopefully learn the location of the heart of the Covenant.

To be blunt, these missions are quite unremarkable. Despite taking place one year prior to the main campaign, what transpires is of no real relevance whatsoever. It essentially just establishes that Johnson and Chief are two bros who like to kill aliens together and find themselves in an almost Rogue One-style plot-hole-that-didn't-need-explaining story. Narratively, these missions end up being more relevant to Halo 2's story, so Halo fans can do the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme while it flies right over the heads of PS5 greenhorns.

These missions are also the only place in all of Halo: Campaign Evolved where you'll get to use the Battle Rifle and fight Brutes. Couple that with the limp narrative and Operation Meteorite ends up feeling more like a chance to deploy some fan service in the form of mild banter between Chief and Johnson, who wears Chief's 1999 MacWorld demo Orion armor, while also testing some things for the surely inevitable Halo 2: Evolved – there's even a gondola section!

Halo Studios clearly has a lot of respect for Bungie's legacy but has also avoided doing anything particularly interesting or new with it. I would have liked to have seen more substantial structural changes to levels given that the developers aren't bound by the technical limitations of the original Xbox. That resulted in recycled environments and backtracking through levels, which are neatly woven into the narrative, but it feels like a wasted opportunity to leverage such modern technology and then not put your own spin on those classics.

However, after trying to go bold with Halo 4, Halo 5, and Halo Infinite and having to go back to the drawing board every time, I'm hardly surprised that this is how Halo: Campaign Evolved turned out. A modern recreation is certainly the safest option for Halo Studios and Xbox Game Studios, and it's a solid effort that resurrects what feels like a bygone era of single-player shooters. But, only because it copies the genre-defining Halo: Combat Evolved so closely. Why iterate on near-perfection? Yet, the promise of an evolved campaign experience, like Installation 04 itself, rings hollow, and I'm left wondering if playing it safe is really what Xbox should be aiming for with Halo right now.

Halo: Campaign Evolved was reviewed on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is one of the best FPS games you can play this year, and if you're interested in the rest of the Halo series, take a look at our list of the best Halo games.

Halo Campaign Evolved pre-loading is now available for all platforms and all editions, so whether you're on PS5, PC, or Xbox Series X, you can get the game installed now, ready for the full launch. With the early access period still running, many players can still upgrade, download, and start playing right now, but you may as well get set for July 28 instead. With that, I've explained everything you need to get done before Halo Campaign Evolved's full launch, including pre-loading, so that you can dive in as soon as possible.

How to pre-load Halo Campaign Evolved

To start pre-installing Halo, you obviously must have pre-ordered the Standard Edition of the game on your platform of choice. Bear in mind that if you've got the Premium Edition or the Premium Edition upgrade, you can install and start playing the game now before the Halo Campaign Evolved release time thanks to the included early access period.

With the game pre-ordered, your platform's storefront should automatically begin pre-installing the game right away, assuming you have automatic downloads switched on. Otherwise, check the Halo Campaign Evolved page on your platform's store front or your game library and you should be able to start the early download from there. To ensure you have enough space for it, you should have about 100GB of free space on your console or PC's storage.

I also highly recommend making sure you get your Microsoft account details ready – or make an account if you don't have one while you wait – so that you can get your account linked and start playing Halo with minimal hassle. You can't play the game without an account, and it's used to make crossplay and cross-progression function, so you can play Halo Campaign Evolved with whoever and on whatever eligible platforms you have available to you.

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The Halo Campaign Evolved release time has almost arrived, letting all players dive in from July 28 and not just those with the Premium Edition. With a global simultaneous release for all platforms, everyone will be able to log into Halo Campaign Evolved from the same time, but that works out as a different time for each region due to time zones. So, if you want to know when you'll be able to start playing, I've laid out some of the Halo CE remake release times below.

Halo Campaign Evolved release time

Halo Campaign Evolved releases globally on July 28 at 3pm UTC. That means all players, whether you're on Xbox Series X, PS5, or PC will be able to play from that time. Here's how that translates to different time zones so you know exactly when you can play:

• US Pacific: 8AM PDT on July 28
• US Eastern: 11AM EDT on July 28
• UK: 4PM BST on July 28
• Central Europe: 5PM CEST on July 28
• Eastern Australia: 1AM AEST on July 29
• New Zealand: 3AM NZST on July 29

There's not long left to get your Halo Campaign Evolved pre-load sorted so that you're ready to play as soon as the launch time arrives. And to make sure you can hop in without a hitch, I also recommend making sure that you have your Microsoft account details ready so that you can link it to your platform account, particularly if you're going to play on PS5 or Steam (obviously now is a good time to make one if you don't have one).

This is essential for crossplay and cross-progression, letting you join your friends regardless of what platform they're on and change platforms without losing progress and unlocks.

Halo Campaign Evolved early access release time

If you've pre-ordered the Premium Edition of Halo Campaign Evolved you can hop into Halo Campaign Evolved right now but there are mere hours left of early access. This period started on July 23 at 3pm UTC and will last until the full launch on the 28th when everyone else gets to play.

You might also want to know how long Halo Campaign Evolved is, particularly if you're planning on 100%-ing it.

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Halo: Combat Evolved birthed the long-running and widely loved series Red vs. Blue, an animated show filmed inside of the classic sci-fi shooter that ran for decades. Now, in a sweet full circle moment, the remade Halo: Campaign Evolved is paying tribute to the series with a brand-new Machinima mode.

Halo Studios announced as much in a new blog post answering the community's most-burning, non-spoilerific questions ahead of the remake's release date later this month. Is Campaign Evolved playable on handhelds? Yep. Friendly fire during co-op? If you want. And is there a physical disc release? Yes, despite last week's PlayStation controversy.

Asked about a possible Machinima mode, the answer was another yes. "Halo: Campaign Evolved will have a Machinima mode," community manager John Junyszek writes. "With Machinima mode, you will be able to pop out a freecam, lower your weapons, and even control your Spartan while in freecam mode."

"Machinima mode is available to all players just by using input combos, and does not need to be unlocked by finding a Skull. If you're looking to create great content, you can leverage Machinima mode, in combination with the Acrophobia & Blind Skulls, and even various personal settings such as disabling your HUD UI, to capture unique videos and screenshots."

For those out of the loop, Rooster Teeth first struck gold in the early 2000s with its webseries Red vs. Blue, and is widely credited with popularising Machinima filmmaking, which mostly consists of editing in-game or in-engine footage to create narrative content. People had made Machinima content prior to the first Halo game, but Red vs. Blue is really the first of its kind to blow up to that extent.

At the time, Halo's Forge and Theatre modes were used to record and plan content. Halo: Campaign Evolved has neither series-staple this time around, but it's nice to see the new Machinima mode filling in for now.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a faithful remake tasked with relaunching a legendary franchise for a new generation of players

Halo 3's final Warthog Run is one of the iconic FPS series' most memorable finale set-pieces ever, a thrilling and theatrical conclusion paying homage to Master Chief and Cortana's desperate escape from the exploding ringworld in the original Halo, Combat Evolved. It might surprise you to hear then that lead developers on Halo 3 once strongly disagreed on the direction of the game's finale, with some arguing for the Combat Evolved-inspired Warthog Run it ended up being, and others pushing for a flying mission and homage to Star Wars, of all things.

Don't get me wrong, being the ultimate space opera, Star Wars totally makes sense as an inspiration for Halo, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear other battles were inspired by George Lucas's magnum opus, but Halo 3's final mission is such a perfect conclusion and full-circle moment for Master Chief that it feels untouchable. But that wasn't always the case, with Halo 3 campaign design lead Robert Stokes telling FRVR, "one thing we did differently as compared to Halo 2 was to approach the design of the missions with an eye toward the 'fuck yeah!' moments and the 'oh shit…' moments."

That philosophy inspired many of Halo 3's most memorable missions purportedly without much friction, but when it came to the final Warthog Run, Stokes says "there was a bit of a battle over the finale," which is where the aforementioned disagreement needed to be solved.

Specifically, an unnamed lead developer was "really pushing for it to be a flying mission in a banshee," Stokes says, describing an alternate mission where instead of taking the wheel of a Warthog and racing your way through a collapsing Forerunner megastructure, you'd be escaping by flight in an homage to "the escape from the innards of the second Death Star in [Star Wars: Return of the Jedi]."

Coincidentally, or maybe not, the final mission in Halo 4 begins with a flying mission in which you captain the F-41 Broadsword inside a massive Forerunner warship, and that definitely seems like it could've been inspired by Star Wars. Although, I think it's safe to say Halo 3's final mission made more of a splash in the long run, suggesting paying homage to series past is always more reliable than branching off into other IP.

Halo Campaign Evolved's PS5 port has strict split-screen co-op requirements: both players need PSN memberships and Xbox accounts

Update: Halo Studios says it made a mistake and accidentally posted incorrect information about playing Halo: Campaign Evolved's PS5 version in split-screen co-op. You don't need two active PlayStation Plus memberships, just two PlayStation accounts and linked Microsoft accounts.

"We incorrectly stated that PlayStation Plus is required for local co-op splitscreen play. Local splitscreen co-op requires a PlayStation account for each player but does not require a PlayStation Plus account," the studio tweets. PSN memberships are required for online co-op, as is the norm.

Original Story: Halo: Campaign Evolved is shipping Master Chief off into the gravitational pull of the chonky PS5, but PlayStation folks looking to play the remake via split-screen or online co-op should expect some stricter requirements, at least compared to the Xbox Series X|S version.

Halo Studios' shiny remake looks to faithfully recreate the 2001 classic's campaign with a new coat of paint, some series' favorite weapons retrospectively added in, three-new prequel missions, a bunch of skull modifiers, and many more changes. But it wouldn't be classic Halo without co-op, so Campaign Evolved supports two-player split-screen co-op and four-player online co-op as well.

PS5 players won't have a totally smooth ride when trying to get two Master Chiefs on the same couch, though. In the lead up to the game's launch next month, the developer shared some of the game's co-op requirements.

"Just as you do today for Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Halo Infinite to ensure smooth cross-platform progression, to play Halo: Campaign Evolved you will need a Microsoft account and XBOX Gamertag, regardless of the platform(s) you play on," community manager John Junyszek writes in a new blog post. "This enables both cross-platform play and cross-platform progression."

On PS5 specifically, both split-screen players will need to have an active PlayStation Plus membership and a linked Microsoft account. Steam players will only need to link to a Microsoft account, while Xbox Series X|S players will only need an active Game Pass subscription if they want to play online, as expected.

The PS5 requirements are somewhat surprising because couch co-op normally isn't paywalled behind a PSN subscription - online and multiplayer is - and local co-op is such an integral part of how Halo travels between friends and family and generations. I imagine needing two paid PSN memberships will make casually sharing the game on a sofa more of a hassle than it should be.

On the subject of co-op, Halo Studios also detailed how mission difficulty will scale "appropriately depending on how many people you have in your lobby." Having more Master Chiefs running about could impact the number of enemies in encounters, the rank of those enemies, and their intelligence which can affects their aim or how often they flank. Though these factors are also dependent on the difficulty you choose, too.

Halo: Campaign Evolved releases in full on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Game Pass on July 28.

While you're here, check out our interview with the developers to learn how Halo: Campaign Evolved reignites Halo's longest-running argument

Depending on how much you have played the first Halo, one of Halo: Campaign Evolved's biggest changes may fly – or run – under the radar. I'm talking about sprinting: while Master Chief only had one pace in 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved, its upcoming remake will take cues from later Halo games and let the Spartan sprint.

It may not seem like it, but being able to run is a foundational change. Having played two levels from Halo: Campaign Evolved on Heroic difficulty, there were plenty of times where being able to sprint saved my life, from outrunning grenade blasts to reaching cover with a scrap of health left.

Silent running

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Summer Game Fest 2026, creative director Max Szlagor says the team at Halo Studios has done "a lot of work" to ensure being able to sprint doesn't change the game in unintended ways. "There are some encounters that are quite dangerous if you try to get past them," he adds. I can vouch for that: I tried to sprint past the Covenant's in The Silent Cartographer's climactic escape sequence, with multiple attempts ending with me being hounded out of position and killed.

"Every encounter's hand-crafted, and we've thought about that space for all of the sandbox, the co-op experience, things like that," says Szlagor. "It's really just about making sure we dial in the mood, the intent, the feel – we really want to make sure it's there."

Szlagor also points to vehicles now being destructible. "You could lose your Warthog, or your tank, at various points in time. And some of these spaces are quite large, so you want to be able to traverse [quickly]," he explains. "It's very natural to want to get in and play as you might have played a modern Halo title, so that's really the inspiration."

Sprinting seems to have been implemented with newer fans in mind, but executive producer Damon Conn stresses that recapturing the original tone of Halo: Combat Evolved has been a guiding light to the team. "You will have the same feeling of dread when you meet the Flood at certain parts of the game, and sprint isn't going to give you any flexibility – other than having maybe a few more moves you can make," he warns. "But you are absolutely going to come to terms with the enemy that is there, and it will be spooky, but if you want to enable [challenge modifier] Skulls, you can go back to the way it was originally."

Paired with Halo: Campaign Evolved's other retroactively-added features – including weapons from later games and the ability to hijack vehicles – it feels like the remake is taking a cautious approach to revisiting the 2001 original. That scope speaks to Halo Studios' broader ambition – to get back in touch with Halo as it looks towards its next entry – but Conn says the team also wanted to be "truthful" to its source. "We're not trying to necessarily replace what Bungie did," he says. "We're just trying to build something that sits beside it."

"We didn't set out with this game to modernize for modernization's sake. We did a lot of intentional gameplay adjustments, or tuning, or development that actually sets us up with a great foundation for features [going forward]," he adds. "It's a bridge from the past to the future."

We've rated the best Halo games. Where does your favorite land?

As the debate around generative AI in game development surges in the wake of controversies in games like Kingdom Hearts 4, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, and 1666: Amsterdam, a veteran Halo artist is warning developers against relying on the tech for creative direction.

Eddie Smith, a former Bungie employee and freelance artist who contributed to the original Halo trilogy, tells FRVR he saw AI's mask slip while working on the Las Vegas Sphere production of The Wizard of Oz. In order to wrap the original 4:3 frame film around the venue's massive 16K spherical screen, the production team reportedly used generative AI to create some of the art that would fill the gaps, but quickly found the process more cumbersome than it was worth.

"When they started it, of course, they thought the AI would do a lot of it," Smith says. "And they realized, no, the AI is really, it just does what you teach it to do. I look at AI almost like a toddler, an extremely advanced toddler, who's just learned how to talk and obey standard instructions. But they're still a really small child and they constantly have to be reinforced and read."

Ultimately, Smith says, human-made art was used in every frame of the production, as even with AI tools, extensive manual touch-ups were required just as they would've been had humans been doing the art from the beginning.

"I got to see what the monster looked like up close and then it, ironically, pun intended, it was like The Wizard with the curtained pulled back," Smith says. "It's like, 'Oh, okay. AI is not really that smart.'"

Of course, anyone who's looked at an image of AI-generated art for more than a short glance knows exactly what Smith is talking about. There's an uncanny quality to AI-generated imagery that's unmistakable, not to mention a conspicuously common problem getting right the amount of fingers and toes people tend to have on their hands and feet.

On the games side, a major controversy is the use of generative AI for concept art. Baldur's Gate 3 studio Larian found itself in hot water last year for embracing that very idea for its new Divinity RPG, but after facing severe backlash, reversed its stance entirely. After Crimson Desert became the latest example of AI-generated concept art allegedly slipping into the final game, Mewgenics co-creator Tyler Glaiel slammed the practice and said "that's where you want to be the most creative."

Smith would seem to agree, arguing that concept art creation is part of the foundational creative vision for a game, and that only humans are capable of forming that vision.

"They're gonna get a rude awakening because I was already part of that process," he says, adding, "I saw them go through that arc. I saw them realize, 'Oh, we're going to need to hire artists to do this.'"

It sounds like Smith is willing to accept the use of AI in some capacities, and some would argue that its presence is unavoidable, but he advises game developers to have a very strong, human-made vision for their projects – at most, something for AI to support rather than formulate.

"Unless you know what you're doing, AI is not going to help you," he says. "All the problems that people have had in games and the reasons why they don't finish games, AI is not going to solve that. AI is going to help you not finish games even more. If you're the type of art director who doesn't know what they want, you still won't know what you want."

"There is a limit to progress based on price": In today's AI hardware disaster, Stellar Blade Blood Rain devs prioritize "making the game playable" for as many people as possible

Returning to Halo's first campaign via its upcoming remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved, I'm struck by how quickly the now 25-year-old sci-fi shooter series found its footing. Everyone has their preferred entry – mine is Halo 3: ODST, though Halo: Reach won when we ranked the best Halo games – but no matter your favorite, it's likely you can trace its best bits back to the first Halo with surprising clarity.

Halo: Combat Evolved dared to be bigger and bolder than many of its contemporaries at the time, realizing vast sci-fi setpieces while developer Bungie honed in on the moment-to-moment action that strung its levels together. Campaign Evolved takes a light touch to the original, developer Halo Studios opting for a glossy Unreal Engine 5 makeover with little in the way of mechanical tweaks. The result lets that original vision shine – often to resounding success, but on occasion leaving me to wonder whether this $50 do-over goes far enough in putting Halo's best foot forward.

Old Spartan, new tricks

Beginning four missions in, with Master Chief leading a beach assault upon the titular Halo superweapon's surface, Campaign Evolved's updated graphics make an instant impression. The beachhead is lush and tropical, with ray-traced sunbeams adding liveliness to turquoise waters and Pelican gunships alike, but the original game's sharp lines still poke through. I like that Halo Studios hasn't crammed window-dressing into every nook: space has been left for the more emergent details, from grenade scorchmarks to ragdolled bodies and discarded weapons. It's a small touch, but helps to preserve the game's arcade-y side.

Other parts of Campaign Evolved feel exactly as they did. Some shootouts felt like puzzles, in the sense that they were so overwhelmingly challenging on Heroic difficulty that I felt like there could only be a 'magic' solution to surviving. The answer, always, was to fight smarter and harder – working within the thin margins of Master Chief's limited shield to dish out damage, finishing targets before their shields could regenerate and knowing when to duck for cover. Letting your shield regenerate is a rare luxury, as the Covenant's alien forces are oppressive. Even later in the preview, when I'd traded open beaches for narrow Forerunner corridors, Elites still found smart ways to flank and press my cover while Grunts and shielded Jackals kept the Chief pinned.

Aggression begets aggression, and in true Halo spirit I was encouraged to lean into the chaos. Grenades are powerful but scarce enough to keep handy for Brutes and Arbiters, and limited ammo meant I often had to ricochet between corpses in firefights, scooping up a plasma rifle and emptying its rounds until darting for the nearest replacement. The magnum has been kept as powerful as it was in the original, and if you're wondering whether it's still as much fun to pop Grunts with it… Do you really need to ask?

Having handled our Marathon review earlier in the year, I'm surprised by how much Bungie's latest shooter has primed me to play Halo: Campaign Evolved. The latter's mysterious ringworld sparks the same curiosity as Tau Ceti IV, both of which feel like ancient history and the distant future at once. It's refreshing to come back to the beginning – partly to see the likes of the Covenant and Flood as fresh threats again, and partly because the first game enjoyed a more endearingly hammy tone than its successors.

But with Bungie long-gone from Halo, it's strange to see Microsoft lead the series' 25th anniversary celebrations with a stripped-back remake. Given Halo Studios ditched head-to-head multiplayer to focus wholly on Halo's campaign, I would have liked to see the developer show more confidence in its stewardship of the series by pushing the remake further. The original's issues with backtracking and repetitive corridors were visible in the first mission I played (The Silent Cartographer), and given those problems get worse from there in the 2001 game's campaign, it seems strange to offer such a lavish visual touch-up but leave the same hang-ups for newcomers to stumble into.

Make no mistake, I still had a lot of fun blasting through the Halo remake. The decision to add weapons from later games made for an excellent twist in The Silent Cartographer, as I was able to cut through Elites with an Energy Sword rather than play coyly from cover. Similarly, Assault on the Control Room benefits from the Chief being able to hijack vehicles – I spent more time than I'd care to admit trying to squeeze a stolen Banshee indoors to get my money's worth. Campaign Evolved excels when it uses new tricks like these to build upon the old, and while the remake's scope remains on the timid side based on what I've seen so far, there's still enough here to sell me on a co-op playthrough when it launches next month.

Besides Campaign Evolved, here are all the upcoming Xbox Series X games still to come

It's an odd moment for the industry right now, as we prepare for Halo: Campaign Evolved to launch on not just the Xbox Series X/S, but the PlayStation 5 as well. Master Chief's struggle against the Covenant is not exclusive to the green brand any more, to the point publicity is actively using Sony's hardware.

Summer Game Fest 2026 gave us more footage of the remake of the iconic and genre-defining first-person shooter. Amid all the bullets and explosions, a small boiler-plater sticks out: "Captured on PS5 Pro."

Yes, the latest compendium of the most famous Spartan taking on alien masses to prevent mass genocide wasn't even made using an Xbox system. Instead, the gameplay comes from the latest iteration of Sony's platform.

There are likely two central reasons for this: the first is to play into the game coming out on a Sony system and show how good it looks, and the second is probably because it runs really nicely on the PS5 Pro, providing sharp, smooth clips of the FPS. Either way, it's definitely odd, and onlookers are a bit taken aback.

"Seeing that and Halo together kind of makes my brain fry a little bit. If you showed me this 15 years ago I would have called this an impossibility," says one fan on Bluesky. "On the official Halo channel is insane," another adds.

"Microsoft can't even console war correctly smh," a third player adds. One person makes a bold prediction: "A year. I give E-Day a year."

Funnily enough, Gears of War: E-Day very nearly joined Fable and Halo: Campaign Evolved on PS5, and a port is reportedly almost finished. One year may be right on the money. We'll see how Master Chief does against the Flood, first.

3 years after releasing one of the best indie JRPGs, Sea of Stars devs roll out the "final update" and tease a new game

Halo: Campaign Evolved has a release date thanks to yesterday's Xbox Games Showcase, and we've also now been shown what we can expect from the game's various different editions, including one slightly baffling choice to make a digital game manual a Premium item.

Depending on how much money you want to spend on Halo: Campaign Evolved, Halo Studios has a number of different options for you when the game launches next month. As well as the Standard Edition, which just includes the game, there's the Premium Edition – which comes with five days of early access as well as some cosmetics, a digital short story, art book, and game manual. The $200 Collector's Edition includes all of those things, too, alongside some physical goodies – "a 12-inch Dark Horse Master Chief statue, light-up LED Cortana chip, Steelbook, three original concept art prints, physical version of the reimagined game manual," and the physical game (if you're on Xbox Series X or PS5, anyway).

As Prima Games points out, it's the digital game manual that's sticking out like a sore thumb here when it comes to the bonus content on offer for the more expensive editions. To give it a bit of room here, Xbox describes it as "a lovingly crafted modern homage to the original Halo: Combat Evolved game manual" that "blends classic presentation with contemporary detail." It adds: "Featuring updated gameplay information, controls, and background lore, the Halo: Campaign Evolved digital game manual is a nostalgic companion for longtime fans and a helpful introductory guide for newcomers stepping onto Alpha Halo for the first time."

So, you'd hope that it has a cool design that makes it feel a bit more like a digital collector's item like the art collections that Deluxe Editions of games – including this Premium Edition – often include. However, it's probably because it's a game manual – you know, a little booklet of information telling you how to play the game, which was once a standard thing included with all titles – that some fans are a bit annoyed, to put it lightly.

"Don't give me something that was industry-standard 20+ years ago under the guise of it being a 'feature.' If shoving it in a premium version is the only way it can be affordable, then don't do it at all. Really dislike this," one user on Reddit writes. "Oh fuck all the way off with this shit. My god. A fucking game manual and you have to pay more for it? An art book makes sense but a game manual?!" says another.

I suspect that most people opting for the Premium Edition will likely be in it for the five days of early access, making Halo: Campaign Evolved playable from July 23 rather than July 28, in which case the digital manual will just appear as a bonus. Bearing in mind that the Premium Edition is an extra $20 on top of the standard price (making it $70), it's a considerable price increase for anyone who does simply want to own all the bonus goodies.

Halo: Campaign Evolved prequel story was written by the award-winning sci-fi author behind some of the best Halo novels.

Halo on PlayStation has officially made it out of the group chat, and now Campaign Evolved pre-orders are ready to go across PS5 and Xbox Series X. The Combat Evolved remake sees Master Chief retouched with current gen visuals, but Halo Studios also promises more of what made the original so great; more weapons, more vehicles, and more Skulls.

Halo Campaign Evolved pre-orders come in two casual flavors, Standard and Premium, with so-far out of stock Collector's Edition stacked with physical goodies. While the latter is already proving tough to get hold of, the former are readily available in physical and digital form across the web.

What do you get for pre-ordering? All standard and physical editions will come with the Foundry Armoury Pack, with some slick new skins for that Mark V Mjolnir suit. Those who upgrade to the $69.99 / £69.99 Premium Edition, though, will also storm the battlefield with the Alpha Halo Armoury Pack, a digital story and art collection, and up to five days early access.

Pre-order Halo: Campaign Evolved in the US

Pre-order Halo: Campaign Evolved in the UK

With Summer Games Fest rolling to a close there's a bunch of titles to get on your shopping list. We're also showing you where to pre-order Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 and helping with all your Fable pre-orders as well.

The Xbox Games Showcase just showed us our first look at Halo: Campaign Evolved's prequel missions, which we'll finally get to play this July.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is billed as a faithful remake of the iconic shooter, but Halo Studios is still taking a few nice liberties with Master Chief's first adventure. Most notably, the game's taking us on a three-mission romp, called Operation: METEORITE, set a year before Master Chief's awakens from cryo-slumber and gets dropped onto an alien ring.

Dear old Sergeant Johnson's along for the ride, Cortana looks much different than her original 2001 counterpart, and, oh, you can pilot alien vehicles in massive space battles. Take a look in the trailer below.

We already got a brief glimpse at the remake's brand-new additions via an accidental leak on the Xbox Store (quick, act surprised) alongside a few paid cosmetic DLC packs that weren't shown off in the trailer. So expect some customization options that weren't present in the OG Xbox original, too.

"Sneak into a Covenant science fair in Operation: METEORITE," the game's Steam page explains. "Before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, these all-new, action-packed missions follow the Master Chief and his most stalwart ally, Sgt. Major Avery Johnson, as they encounter new threats, new allies, and untold surprises aboard a Covenant vessel."

Halo: Campaign Evolved launches July 28, 2026 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, and PS5.

Pre-orders for the remake are up now with a Standard Edition that costs £50/$50, and a Premium Edition that costs £60/$60 and comes with five days of advanced access, a cosmetic pack, and some extra digital goodies.

Here's everything announced at Summer Game Fest 2026.

Only a day away from the big Xbox Games Showcase, screenshots from Halo Campaign Evolved leaked onto the official Microsoft Store and they revealed quite a bit about the upcoming game.

Before today, Halo Studios had only really lifted the lid on one specific mission in Halo Campaign Evolved. That's all changed now thanks to screenshots attached to what sounds like two cosmetic DLC packages called the Alpha Halo Armory Pack and the Foundry Armory Pack, which have since been deleted from the storefront... but not before fans spread them online.

The screenshots include delightfully fluffy brutes, first looks at remade levels outside of Silent Cartographer, dear old Sergeant Johnson, and a blue (not purple) Cortana design that I'm sure won't be controversial at all within the community, right? Oh, there's also the reveal that Halo Campaign Evolved will take us into space combat sections.

That last point is a particularly big deal since 2001's Halo Combat Evolved had no such feature. In fact, Halo as a whole hasn't given us playable space battles since Halo Reach more than a decade ago - if you're not counting the aerial fights in Halo 4, I guess.

Still, Master Chief's been able to pilot alien aircraft since the very beginning, so it's not too jarring of an inclusion for a modern remake. Halo Studios previously revealed that Campaign Evolved would feature three all-new missions starring Johnson, so there's also a good likelihood these space sections will appear during that prequel arc. Though it's not impossible for them to be threaded into certain pre-existing levels, too.

Halo Campaign Evolved is set to launch sometime this year on PC, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, and PS5. Tomorrow's Xbox Games Showcase should give us more official information about the game.

For now, here are five Xbox games to watch for at Summer Game Fest 2026

Halo Studios has thrown Halo Infinite a bone in the form of a new co-op survival mode, months after announcing the end of major updates for the shooter and months before the developer moves on to Halo: Campaign Evolved. For now, it's resisting those Halo Finite allegations.

"Seconds into your first match of Firefight: Gauntlet, you'll understand the name," a new blog post from the developer explains. "This deviously difficult PvE mode introduces upgradeable attributes, elimination objectives, and auto-scaled difficulty settings to a boss-filled Firefight experience designed to challenge even the toughest Spartans."

Firefight was already introduced in Halo Infinite years ago now, but what's particularly interesting about this new Gauntlet variant are the roguelike elements. Five maps are connected by a supply area, and between rounds you can upgrade your Spartans to try to prepare for the raging brutes and sticky-bomb-kamikaze grunts coming up.

"Gather ammo and equipment, roll for power weapons, or level up your personal buffs (Speed, Resistance, Regeneration, and Damage) for the onslaught ahead." Then, each round crescendos to a boss fight that's already kicking players' butts.

"Halo Infinite's new Firefight Gauntlet mode is really damn fun," one popular content creator tweets, calling it "hard as balls but very very very fun" and claiming it should be used as "a template for a Firefight variant in future Halo titles."

Even Mint Blitz, a content creator who frequently goes viral for pulling off in-game stunts worthy of Master Chief's extended universe shenanigans, calls it maybe "one of the hardest challenges in gaming history," adding, "holy hell is this a challenge."

"Rumors of Halo Infinite's death have been greatly exaggerated," a popular reaction on the Halo subreddit reads.

Should you be struggling to make a dent in those enemy waves, Halo Studios says you can retrieve an Oddball from a map called Harbinger to activate the mods you'd normally get from campaign Skulls. Doing this also boosts all four players' personal scores.

Halo lead mocks rumors that the studio is chasing Arc Raiders and Marathon with a PvE extraction shooter spin-off.

Extraction shooters are all the rage right now between Arc Raiders and Marathon, but you might want to take rumors of an extraction shooter set in the Halo universe with a grain of salt.

A new video report from Rebs Gaming recently claimed that plans for a long-rumored Halo battle royale - said to have been a partnership between Certain Affinity and Halo Studios - had been shelved in favor of a PvE extraction shooter codenamed Project Ekur.

The channel's sources are a little unclear on how Project Ekur would come out, however. Whether it's a standalone multiplayer release or a bolted on mode for whatever the next mainline Halo ends up being called is up in the air, apparently.

Either way, Halo Studios community director Brian 'ske7ch' Jarrard seemingly mocked the report on social media. "Exclusive report: someone told me the next Halo game is a pottery party game," he tweets, "(am I doing it right?)"

Jarrard's joke was posted alongside a friendly bit of brand synergy as Halo Studios celebrated the release of Kiln, an actually very real pottery party game from fellow Xbox-owned developer Double Fine.

"Hard to remember when it wasn't always super serious doom posting and infighting and data mining and rumors," he says in a follow-up tweet. "I totally get it, especially when it always drives engagement, but yeah, I think we all long for when it was about having fun and shared enjoyment of a videogame. We'll get back there."

Of course, the community lead's reply isn't actual confirmation or denial of anything. Similarly, all rumors and reports shouldn't be taken as fact until more concrete information comes along, although one Halo dataminer did find mentions of Ekur dating back to last year.

With that being said, a PvE Halo extraction shooter isn't the most outlandish idea in the world. Heck, a former series developer even said an ODST game very similar to Helldivers 2 had been pitched many moons ago but eventually went nowhere, and I could totally see that working.

Underpowered grunts facing hordes of outsized aliens, landing onto maps in drop pods, and calling in supplies from above is a particular type of power fantasy that ODSTs lend themselves to very well. Or you could just make those grunts overpowered as heck and replace the ODSTs with super soldier Spartans. I'd be down for both.

In the meantime, the developer's gearing up to release a second pretty faithful remake of Halo: Combat Evolved sometime later this year, this time with a three-mission prequel arc and a customizable Master Chief. Back when 343 Industries rebranded into Halo Studios, it also announced there were multiple Halo games in development, so it's entirely possible (if not incredibly likely) that another multiplayer Halo project is also in the pipeline.

Halo dev accusing the studio of harassment fights "devs hate Halo" theories in tell-all post: "No one works a 60- or 80-hour week out of spite"

A former Halo art director of 17 years, who recently made some pretty damning allegations against the studio, has now taken a Gravity Hammer to common misconceptions around the storied franchise. Top of the list are those "devs hate Halo" allegations that fans frequently throw around.

Earlier this month, Halo Infinite's art director and a former series veteran Glenn Israel accused senior Halo Studio staff of "numerous unethical and/or unlawful acts," including blacklisting and "multiple harassment campaigns." But he's now turned his gaze to fans theories in a tell-all social media post.

First up, "devs hate Halo." Israel says "this just isn't true" because Halo Studios, previously 343 Industries, "only hired fans, and while there may be truth to the idea that they hired some fans who were willing to express critical opinions on the franchise, or had ideas about how it might evolve or improve, that’s true of every single fan here," over on Reddit. "No one works a sixty- or eighty-hour week out of spite. No one risks their health or their friendships or their sanity to spit in your eye."

The proverbial joke about no one hating on [x franchise] more than its fans is especially true with Halo, as each entry and each era has its mix of both passionate fans and detractors. Israel is right to point out that, theoretically, you could plop 100 people from the series subreddit and still not come to a consensus about what Halo should be.

"I’ll reiterate, the studio I knew only hired fans," Israel adds "They agree with you more than they're allowed to say. I’ll also reiterate that, early on, super-fandom in the studio for the “extended universe” was a real problem – the narratives were too dependent on lore the average player did not know and would not be motivated to discover in a book or a comic." Looking at you, Halo 4.

Finally, the long-time Halo dev then takes aim at allegations that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) "ruined" the franchise. Israel explains that Microsoft had emphasised diversity and inclusion across the company, but people shouldn't "get lost in the fog of culture war" because he was "never asked to raise one voice or silence another [and] never had a 'quota' to fill."

"My interpretation of the policy (and the guidance I gave to my reports) was that D&I is as much about diversity in thought and inclusion in opinion as it is in identity, about recognizing and setting aside one's assumptions about a group to engage with someone fairly as an individual," he writes. "In practical terms, it might just mean making sure that the introverted genius in the corner who knows their manager is making a mistake feels safe enough to speak."

He then sums it all up pretty succinctly: "Halo is stronger when all Spartans are welcome." Hear, hear.

Legendary Master Chief actor says he didn't like doing voice work for Halo 5's misleading ads because it made it harder to "stay true to the character"

FPS games are ubiquitous on consoles nowadays, but there was a time when the concept was so novel and rare that gamers would allegedly launch drinks at Seamus Blackley - often cited as the father of Xbox - for merely suggesting that Halo: Combat Evolved could be a good game. How dare he?

Perfect Dark and Goldeneye 007 certainly proved FPS games could work without a mouse and keyboard, and were definitely noticeable steps up from what had been attempted before, but neither were quite as tight as the shooters that had thrived on PC for years - your Dooms and Quakes and such.

In an interview with Expansion Pass, Blackley talked about what promoting Halo: Combat Evolved was like during "a time period where people would f***ing die on this hill, probably literally, that a shooter would never work on a console." Pretty awkward for the man who built a console, the OG Xbox, set to launch alongside an FPS.

"Crazy town," Blackley said. "Dudes threw beverages at me that exploded on me because they got so frustrated that I was saying that Halo might be a good game on a console."

PC gamers allegedly complained that you had to have a mouse and be sitting at a desk to enjoy the thrill of digitally mowing down aliens, but to Blackley, someone with a background in physics, he would say: "I understand time and rotation, like, it's going to be fine."

Of course, those complaints didn't make much of a dent on anything apart from Blackley's clothes. Halo became the Xbox's killer app and, more than that, legitimized the entire genre on consoles with lots of small but smart design choices, like letting players throw grenades and use melee attacks without having to equip dedicated weapons. It didn't hurt that Halo: CE was also plainly fantastic, full of creative levels and a suite of multiplayer maps that felt more like a party game built for chaos.

The iconic game's returning later this year with Halo: Campaign Evolved, a full-on remake with three additional missions.

Veteran Halo developer of 17 years accuses the studio of blacklisting, fraud, and "multiple harassment campaigns"

Halo Infinite's art director and a developer who's worked on the franchise for 17 years, Glenn Israel, is accusing senior Halo Studios staff of "numerous unethical and/or unlawful acts."

In a series of LinkedIn posts, the long-time Halo developer says he either witnessed or was personally subjected to "blacklisting, fraud, rampant favoritism/cronyism" and "multiple harassment campaigns designed to provoke the constructive discharge of "unwanted" employees otherwise in good standing" between January 2024 and June 2025 - a few months before his eventual departure from the Xbox Game Studio.

"After filing several documented complaints with Microsoft ‘s Human Resources department in June 2025, a senior Global Employee Relations (GER) representative threatened retaliation on first contact and promised to quash any further investigation," Israel continues. He also claims that "senior Halo Studios representatives engaged in a four-day-long act of harassment intended to manufacture a cause for my termination," and that Microsoft's HR departments apparently "failed to take any appropriate disruptive action" during and after the alleged incident.

Israel adds that "the catastrophic mismanagement of Halo Campaign Evolved created an opportunity for senior Halo Studios representatives to temporarily reassign the art team from my unannounced project and falsely characterize my role as "redundant", a plainly retaliatory act."

The Halo Infinite lead makes a number of other allegations aimed at both Halo Studios and Microsoft as a whole, and in a follow-up post, he also says he suspects that "Microsoft routinely contrives or otherwise exploits layoffs to rid itself of employees who have filed proper and effective complaints."

Glenn Israel joined the franchise during its Bungie days before hopping over to 343 Industries and staying at the company for its rebrand into Halo Studios.

We've reached out to Xbox for comment.

For now, Halo Studios is gearing up for the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved, a top-down remake of the iconic first game in the series coming later this year.

Part of Overwatch's enduring popularity lies in how it feels like you're playing a totally different shooter depending on which hero you choose. Soldier 76 is the straightforward FPS guy, for instance. Widowmaker is the traditional sniper. Lucio arguably has some parkouring Titanfall DNA. And in a big-brained move to appease 30-year-olds everywhere, one of Blizzard's newest heroes can be neatly summed up as the Halo guy.

Joining the roster as part of Overwatch 2's rebrand back into Overwatch, DPS hero Emre should be more than familiar to people who cut their teeth on classic Halo games. He has a three-round burst rifle that's an effective headshot popper at any range, two bouncing grenades that you can customize into sticky bombs, plus a temporary transformation that gives him a fast-firing pistol and a floaty jump. Not to mention the AI 'companion' attached to him - it's almost like Master Chief's in the room.

Countless online posts noticed the similarities, too, with some mentioning that Emre feels like home for veterans of Xbox's sci-fi franchise. "Very nice of them to add Halo guy to Overwatch," one fan says. "Hero Emre or should I call you by your real name, John-117 aka Master Chief," another writes.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who went 'this guy is Halo' when he has the pistol out, immediately reminded me of Halo. If Soldier is Call of Duty man, Emre is Halo man," a third fan says.

Master Chief, mind telling me what you're doing in Overwatch? from r/Overwatch

Some even took the opportunity to call for an official Halo crossover in the game, which seems likelier than ever with Emre's introduction and the fact that Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard. Emre would or, at least, should put on Master Chief's iconic green armor, but fans had ideas for Halo's extended cast as well.

"I could see D.Va as a hunter or promethean [and] one of the support girlies as Cortana," one theorized. "As long as Torb gets a Grunt skin, I'll be happy." Another popular fancast imagined Reinhardt as one of Halo's bulky, hammer-wielding brutes, and I imagine that would make for another sick skin.

Overwatch more frequently crosses over with pop culture forces outside of gaming, like the current Hello Kitty collab or the event featuring K-pop group Le Sserafim, but it's no stranger to inviting gaming superstars into the fray, as it's done in the past with Persona 5 and Street Fighter. Heck, other Blizzard IP such as Diablo and World of Warcraft have also been represented - why not stuff from the wider Microsoft canon too?

"The mood all week" - After a year of Marvel Rivals taking its lunch, Blizzard is just happy you're playing Overwatch again

The iconic voice of Master Chief in Halo, Steve Downes, has spoken out about Halo 5's weirdly misleading promotional videos... more than 10 years later.

In case you weren't around or have forgotten, before Halo 5's release in 2015, 343 and Microsoft released various trailers and promotional videos showing all sorts of stuff that would end up not being included at all and in some cases was seriously misleading, specifically Master Chief's relationship with the game's other playable protagonist, Spartan Locke.

According to Downes, it was difficult to perform for these misleading ads because he felt like it was a betrayal of character.

"When I was in session for the game, we also did separate sessions that ended up being promos and trailers to promote Halo 5, and as many of you know, those stories, those trailers sort of led you to believe one thing when in fact it was another thing in the actual game," said Downes in a recent YouTube AMA. "And I sort of knew that when we were doing it, and felt that perhaps the Chief was being pushed in a direction that I didn't feel was particularly right. So, trying to keep the director happy and also be true to the character became a little more of a challenge than what I was used to."

There's never been an official explanation for why these pre-release materials were so deceptive, but a common theory is that the game went through a major rewrite after the ads had been produced and it was too late to re-do them.

At another point the AMA, Downes got onto the much more topical issue of generative AI in video game development, and made his stance very clear: AI voice cloning is "where we cross a line."

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a faithful remake tasked with relaunching a legendary franchise: "We see this as a way to grow, expand, and reconnect the Halo community"

Steve Downes, the iconic voice behind Master Chief from the Halo franchise, has joined the chorus of high-profile voice actors speaking out against the use of AI in voice performances. However, his concern is very specifically related to the alarming prospect of developers using real voice recordings to make AI clones of those voices.

In a YouTube AMA going live today, Downes made it very clear that he does not approve of anyone using AI to replicate his voice. "That's where we cross a line that gets into an area that I am uncomfortable with," Downes said in a clip taken from the AMA and shared to his official YouTube channel.

"I'm not a proponent. I don't like it, and I would prefer that it not be done," Downes added.

While he's clearly passionate about the issue of AI in voice acting, Downes struck a measured tone and clarified that he believes AI has "many, many positive effects on not only showbusiness but humanity in general" - but that it "can also be something that deprives the actor of his work.

"I'll go on the record with that," Downes said.

Yeah, all in all, not exactly a full-throated rebuke of generative AI in game development. Certainly not an endorsement either, but Downes limited his critiques of AI to its voice cloning abilities, whereas you've got actors like Neil Newbon, who played Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3, straight-up saying "fuck AI" and "there's no fucking way" AI could make anything like Baldur's Gate 3. Hating AI is a spectrum, I suppose is what I'm saying.

Downes, rather excitingly, is returning to voice Master Chief for Halo: Campaign Evolved, Halo Studios' ground-up remake of the 2001 FPS classic, Combat Evolved. Notably, one of the project's lead developers said last October that AI is "a tool in a toolbox" comparable to Photoshop, but assured "the people are the ones who are creating the game."

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a faithful remake tasked with relaunching a legendary franchise: "We see this as a way to grow, expand, and reconnect the Halo community"

Just as Sonic the Hedgehog eventually found his way onto Nintendo hardware, Master Chief is about to make the leap onto PlayStation with Halo: Campaign Evolved, a top-down remake of the classic FPS. Putting the face of Xbox on PS5 is a bold move, but it's one made with the idea of further unifying fans of the franchise, and ushering in a new era.

In an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+, two leads from Halo Studios (the renamed 343 Industries) explain exactly why it made sense to release this iteration of the iconic shooter on a Sony machine. "We hope to bring along the series veterans who have been with us for the past 25 years on the Xbox and PC platforms, and have them be able to play with this entirely new generation," Damon Conn, executive producer on Halo: Campaign Evolved, tells us.

"Maybe [it's] people who have never been exposed to Halo, because they've always been on Sony products," he continues, "or maybe they just missed it, or maybe they switched consoles at a certain point, and they want to kind of come back together."

He, rightly, notes that "the original is a masterpiece," and the team's goal isn't to make a replacement, but something that sits alongside Combat Evolved. There are some tweaks and quality-of-life improvements, like four-player cross-platform co-op, allowing people to enjoy the narrative together regardless of their system.

"Halo is really, you know, best played when we have a large, healthy community," Max Szlagor, creative director on Campaign Evolved, says. "We're able to honor the Halo legacy on PlayStation," Conn adds. "It's just paving the way to expand our Halo universe, that's how we see it."

Halo: Campaign Evolved comes almost five years since the last new entry, Halo Infinite, in 2021. In that time, Paramount's ill-fated Halo TV show is the only substantive release that we've seen, but there are apparently multiple games in the pipeline. If all goes well, there'll be plenty more Spartans ready to enjoy them after this comes out.

Check out our Big in 2026 spotlight series for more on the video games that are set to define this year.

Halo: Campaign Evolved may be the most important Xbox Game Studios release of 2026. When executive producer Damon Conn says that this "is an opportunity to pave the way for the future of Halo" he isn't being hyperbolic. "We're building a game in Unreal Engine 5, on a platform that we've never supported, while offering more ways for players to play with each other than ever before. We're excited to reignite the spark that started it all," he says, "but we don't take it lightly."

Halo: Campaign Evolved is pitched as a "faithful and modernized remake" of Master Chief's most iconic adventure, "and a celebration of Combat Evolved" ahead of its incoming 25th anniversary. Creative director Max Szlagor stresses that Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) "has been careful to craft the game in such a way that it stays true to the original's tone, atmosphere, feel, and emotional impact" as it grapples with the complexities of recapturing Chief's bounding momentum in a new game engine.

A New Dawn

Recapturing the classic Halo feel is key, because the future of the franchise is inextricably tied to UE5. The studio announced that it was hard at work on multiple projects back in October 2024, with a focus on crafting "the next generation of Halo with Unreal Engine" following the discontinuation of support for both Halo Infinite and the proprietary Slipstream engine.

I recently had the opportunity to play through a short section of the rebuilt, still iconic Silent Cartographer mission. Call it an amuse-bouche ahead of release later this year, a chance to reconnect with the floaty jumps, thunderous melee, chattering MA5B assault rifles, and bouncy Warthog rides that helped define the original adventure. Movement and momentum, combat and physics land in a way that feels as fresh as it does nostalgic. "It's important for us to be authentic to the feel, to the things people loved," says Szlagor.

Despite a focus on careful restoration, Halo Studios isn't afraid of making appropriate amendments to modernize Combat Evolved. "We were able to implement some changes that just kind of make sense," says Conn. "Like adding the ability to pick up and use the energy sword, Fuel Rod cannon, and Sentinel Beam Gun. You can also pilot the Wraith tank. These were all things you couldn't do in Combat Evolved."

Szlagor says that "being authentic to the material that's there" is a guiding principle, although Halo Studios is considering more foundational changes as it "rebuilds every mission, every encounter, and every cinematic" from scratch. "Another opportunity we have is to address player feedback, and look for ways to improve wayfinding and the diversity of encounters," says the creative director, alluding to the idea that a new generation of players needn't languish in The Library like so many of us had to 25 years ago.

If Halo Studios gets Campaign Evolved right, it should go some way to quelling lingering fears about whether this franchise can find a path forward on UE5. The introduction of brand new content should also demonstrate how strong a handle the studio has on the core ethos of the franchise – a key consideration as we wonder where the next mainline installment may take Chief and Cortana in the future, following the divisive response to Halo Infinite.

"We are also designing three brand new story missions focused on Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson," says Szlagor. "They take place before the events of Combat Evolved, and it'll be the kind of mission that Chief and Johnson would have gone on during that time period – featuring new environments, enemies, characters, and weapons." While Szlagor won't be drawn on more details, he does confirm that this special Campaign Evolved adventure "takes place before the events of Reach."

Whether you're here to indulge in some nostalgia, play the first new Halo campaign missions in five years, or dive into Installation 04 for the first time, you'll do it with a larger playerbase than ever before. Halo: Campaign Evolved marks the series debut on PlayStation, and it's undoubtedly the biggest first-party franchise to land outside of the Xbox ecosystem so far – joining Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War: Reloaded, which arrived on PS5 last year.

"We hope to bring along the series veterans who have been with us for the past 25 years and have them play with an entirely new generation," says Conn, who confirms that four-player online co-op with full crossplay is supported. "There are people who have never been exposed to Halo. Maybe they've always been on Sony products, switched consoles at a certain point, or just missed it at the time. We want to bring players back together."

"Halo is best played when we have a large, healthy community," says Szlagor. "We see this as a way to grow, expand, and reconnect the Halo community." Conn adds: "We want to honor the Halo legacy on PlayStation, and we're paving the way to expand our Halo universe – that's how we see it. And it's not a small thing. We don't and we won't take it lightly. We definitely feel the weight of it."

With Xbox preparing for its biggest year of the console generation so far, we are exploring the publisher's most anticipated first-party games (and some key Game Pass releases) as part of our Big in 2026 Spotlight series. Join us every day this week for exclusive interviews, new previews, and fresh insights into all of the upcoming Xbox games you need to have on your radar.

In a game stuffed with unforgettable moments, the one Halo: Reach mission that throws you into the thick of a giant space battle remains a glowing highlight, but it was apparently a battle in itself to even get space combat into the game at all.

Responding to a viral Halo: Reach mod that lets players enter ship-to-ship combat against each other, former Bungie designer Niles Sankey remembers pitching the iconic mission The Long Night of Solace and then struggling to keep it in for launch.

"Might surprise people that we had to fight tooth and nail to keep space combat in Reach," Sankey tweets. "Higherups at Bungie wanted to cut space combat (which wasn't unreasonable, since the feature/content requests were significant). In fact, there was originally TWO space combat mission planned in Reach. The second was to happen right before the last mission."

This second space combat mission was apparently only ever really an "idea on paper," but it would have had players zoom into space to repair various orbital cannons before returning to the planet surface and calling down death from up high, according to Sankey, who says the section was cut due to "budgets and resource constraints."

"We added the boardable mac cannon at the end of the" Pillar of Autumn mission, he continues, "and called it a day, and then they let us keep the first space mission and ultimately we made it our E3 gameplay reveal."

He adds that "the Halo mod community make such incredible content," and wishes that Microsoft "was able to create official Halo content that was half this cool."

Space combat hasn't returned to the series since The Long Night of Solace, though Halo 4 did feature a couple rad flying segments that would fit the bill if they were, you know, set outside of a planet's atmosphere. This year's Halo: Campaign Evolved is unlikely to have any ship-to-ship combat either, on account of it being a remake, but there are multiple Halo games in development at the moment, so you never know what might happen.

Take a trip down memory lane with the best Halo games of all time.

Cortana, the blue AI that guides Master Chief through almost the entirety of the Halo series, is in many ways a larger than life character, capable of helping to save or nearly destroying the universe. But Bungie didn't give the character's voice actor much direction outside the fact that Cortana had to sound like "the girl next door" in the player's ear.

Cortana's long-time voice actor Jen Taylor (who also has roles in Dota 2, Left 4 Dead, and played Princess Peach for almost a decade) appeared in a Fall Damage video to try to guess some of her most iconic lines. And when recalling the legendary shooter's early days, Taylor said she "didn't have inspirations from other media" when creating the character.

"The direction I got was, 'Listen, we're walking a line here because you're going to be telling us what to do, so your voice needs to be pleasant,'" Taylor remembered. "And they really wanted the sound of the girl next door, somebody that you like. At the time, it was somebody that you cared about and wanted to hang out with, but you're not in love with… she's not that girl."

Hearing that is interesting because there's always been fan debates around how deep Master Chief and Cortana's relationship really goes. Do they share the bond of comrades or is there something romantic going on? I always thought the pair mirrored each other quite nicely: there's the human who acts like a machine and the machine who acts human both taking care of each other. But maybe all the Cortana and Chief shippers are projecting. Who's to say?

Halo Infinite is finished with "major" updates after its next release as devs focus on Halo: Campaign Evolved, fans lament it's "going out on a whimper"

Halo and Master Chief's co-creator Marcus Lehto recently went into detail about the series' earliest days, and has even spilled the tea on how Microsoft wrangled the game out of competitor Apple's hands.

Before Halo became the killer app for Microsoft's Xbox console, it was actually supposed to be a third-person shooter for Apple's Macs. CEO and company founder Steve Jobs even introduced the game to the world on stage during 1999's Macworld Conference, which still had an epic theme tune and aliens but was otherwise very different to the Halo we know now.

"We got up on stage with Steve Jobs at Macworld and we talked about it there," Lehto remembered in an interview with Kent State Magazine, the college he once attended.

Looking for studios and exclusives to bulk up its Xbox launch slate, Microsoft eventually called the studio, which was at that point in a spiky financial situation. "And then Microsoft said, 'Steve Jobs can't have that. We're going to buy you and move you all to the Pacific Northwest, and then we're going to have you build this game for the Xbox.'"

I'm guessing that was creative, incomplete paraphrasing on Lehto's part, but imagining Bill Gates and Steve Jobs embroiled in some kind of tech billionaire civil war over the rights to Halo does bring a smile to my face. The rest is history, though - Halo: Combat Evolved launched alongside the OG Xbox and the series has become synonymous with Microsoft's consoles ever since.

Elsewhere in the interview, Lehto said that he actually redesigned Master Chief nine times before landing on the suit featured in Halo CE.

Reminisce with the ten best Halo games, ranked.

Everyone with a passing interest in games probably recognizes the green man that usually reps Xbox and Halo - for a time, in the Xbox 360 era, he was almost as ever present as Mario. But before Master Chief (AKA John 117 or John Halo) became a gaming mascot, his creator rebuilt his design nine times to get it just right.

Halo co-creator and Bungie's former art director Marcus Lehto recently spoke with Kent State Magazine, the university he once attended, about his long career. Lehto recalled that he was first attracted to the FPS hit maker after playing the original Marathon and was quickly doing UI work for the company on Myth: Fallen Lords.

But what Lehto would become most known for was, arguably, the Master Chief. "The creation of the Master Chief is something that I went through so many ringers to try to find the right look, the right feel, the right stature for such a character," Lehto said, adding that the design was changed nine times before landing on the suit we see in Halo: Combat Evolved.

"And then from a visual design standpoint, I really did focus on some of the things I learned here at Kent State to break it down into the most basic visual elements," he continued. "It's such a key thing to get right in order to not overly complicate a design."

What were those "basic visual elements," then? According to the Kent State report, Lehto took inspiration from seemingly random places, like the shape of an M1 Abrams tank and a BMX helmet, which sort of makes sense when you see Master Chief's orange-visored helmet by itself.

"It took forever, but I wasn't going to stop because I had learned through the program here that you don't stop when you're just on your first iteration," Lehto said. (Good spot, Gamespot!)

Of course, the Master Chief's gone through more redesigns since 2001's seminal shooter. Almost every single sequel has made adjustments big and small to his super soldier armor, and next year's remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved, is set to once again reimagine the design 25 years later.

Halo co-creator says Campaign Evolved "looks and feels genuine": "It's gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001"

Over the years, Halo has become a massive part of my life. Like many, I grew up with the franchise and have distinct memories of staying up later than I'd like to admit, playing multiplayer with my friends, or trying our best to beat any given level on Legendary with them. As I've gotten older and much of my life has changed, one thing has remained the same: staying up unreasonably late to play through the Halo campaign with my buddies. This is largely thanks to Halo: The Master Chief Collection, developed by Halo Studios.

Lots of people have yearly traditions that they look forward to. Sometimes it can be as simple: a birthday, an anniversary, or getting together to watch a season opener for your favorite sports team. I'm no different in this regard, too, but instead of getting together to yell at Matthew Stafford on the Los Angeles Rams in his opening game, my friends and I instead yell at one another while trying to complete the entire Master Chief Collection on Legendary.

As one might imagine, this is no easy task because some of the best Halo games are significantly harder than others (I'm looking at you, Halo 2). Still, the hardest thing about all of this is scheduling time to do so. If getting older has taught me one thing, it's that getting any group of adults together is a task all on its own. Yet we always manage to dedicate some time out of the year to run through everything The Master Chief Collection has to offer.

Back in the fight

Halo, in a lot of ways, is timeless. When the series originally came out, it was during a very formative time in our young lives. It showed us what console gaming can be, and how good storytelling can stay with you for years. In many ways, replaying this with friends is a lot like rewatching your favorite movie with someone who enjoys it as much as you do. Even though you know exactly how it ends and what twists and turns are waiting for you, they still hit as hard as they initially did the first time you played it.

Every time we embark on this yearly tradition, it's usually done in chronological order. The opening of Halo Reach sets the tone for what's to be expected. It's an emotional journey that captivates us all the way to Halo 4. By the time we get to the end of Reach, we're usually emotional wrecks, having witnessed some of our favorite characters in the series die one by one. But despite the emotional damage, the ending is always the best part of the game for us because it always becomes a challenge to see which one of us will survive the longest.

The challenges don't end there. As we make our way through the games, almost like clockwork, we always fall into these role-play situations where we pretend to be in the UNSC fighting whatever the Covenant or Flood is throwing at us. Because of this, it makes it significantly funnier whenever one of us is shot in the head by a Jackal or beaten to death by a Brute. Most of these deaths are followed by a salt in the wound quip – funny for those of us who see the calamity from a safe distance, at least.

But nothing will bond you and your friends quicker than dying repeatedly to a Brute Chieftain with a Gravity Hammer, or a white armored elite chasing you down with an Energy Sword on Installation 04. Jokes about dying stop being funny, and now you all have a common enemy whom you all equally hate and want to see dead. Finally seeing them bite the dust is a feeling that never gets old.

Halo naturally has a lot of fantastic over-the-top moments that are only elevated when playing with a friend. Nothing will make you feel more like an action hero than blowing up a bridge with your buddies to stop the Covenant from closing in on you in Halo: ODST, or by outrunning an exploding planet like you do at the end of both Halo Combat Evolved and Halo 3. Some of these sequences feel impossible – but so is trying not to grin when Forward Unto Dawn plays out.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection has a lot to offer. Each story has its own unique identity that makes the games well worth playing at least once. The Halo series is a giant space opera, and there are a lot of little things to get attached to. Despite knowing that Sergeant Johnson is going to die at the end of Halo 3, it still hits all of us like a truck when it inevitably happens. I have just as much fun playing through these games now as an adult as I did when I was a child when they first came out. Playing through the entire collection with my friend group is something we look forward to doing every year, and we've already made early plans to do it again in 2026. If you haven't had the pleasure of going through The Master Chief Collection with your friends, it's something I'd highly recommend – you'll be in for one hell of a time.

As the Xbox Series X turns five, we've rounded up the best Xbox Series X games you can play today

Halo Infinite is apparently not so limitless, as community manager John Junyszek announced in Halo's November community livestream that the game's next major update will also be its last. Fans of the 2021 first-person shooter seem resigned to their newly finite existences.

"This upcoming Halo Infinite update will be our last planned major content release. And that's going to be Operation Infinite. And it's… got some good stuff in it," Junyszek says.

He makes it clear that Halo: Campaign Evolved, the developer's remake of the memorable 2001 shooter Halo: Combat Evolved, is "kind of the future of where our studio is starting to invest more and more of its time."

"We did kind of want to let people know about that," Junyszek continues. "We're really focused on now doing Halo: Campaign Evolved, and now getting Halo Infinite – all the stuff that was in the pipeline, out to our players. And a lot of that will be customization."

"So for the final season update," says one commenter on YouTube, "we just get shop items and the ugliest armors for the season pass."

"Going out on a whimper," the same user says in a second comment.

"The sad thing is," says a popular reaction on Reddit, "4 years of 'support' would've been great! But much of that 'support' was stuff that should've been there at launch. Too little too late."

Halo developers have been struggling against player expectations for a while; despite some fans always acting hungry for more Infinite, the past few years of layoffs at Microsoft have seemingly discouraged devs from maintaining the game rather than devoting themselves to new projects. Now, players are like parents who can't believe the Halo studio's poor manners – not mad, just disappointed.

OG Halo CE dev reacts to the remake's new sprint: "If you make a game mechanic optional you have abandoned your post, thrown up your hands and admitted you have no vision."

Halo 5 just crossed its 10th anniversary, and to celebrate, a pair of former Halo designers are talking about why the series' earlier cinematics are so much better.

Released in 2015, history hasn't been especially kind to Halo 5, and its flashy, cinematic, ultimately controversial opening scene is either seen as a standout in an otherwise lackluster single-player campaign, or a glitzy prophecy of what would follow. Either way, original Halo: Combat Evolved designer Jaime Griesemer and Halo 3 campaign designer Niles Sankey have thoughts on how it compares to older Halo cinematics.

"For me, this was the moment when Halo went from being a War Story with futuristic elements to a Sci-fi Superhero Story," said Griesemer on Twitter.

"It's an impossible shot. The camera flies around and through objects, time speeds up and slows down at random, the camera anticipates events that are scripted instead of reacting to capture them, there is no sense of space or proximity or cause and effect..."

There comes a time in any beloved franchise, whether it's in film, TV, or video games, that fans feel like it lost its soul. That moment, for most Halo diehards, is the Halo 5 opening sequence.

"It's like they gave the camera to Superman," added Griesemer. "That's all fine in a Superhero Story, but it breaks the stakes of a War Story. If the audience perspective is not grounded, then the stakes of the story are not grounded. It's exciting and flashy, but has as much impact as a kid playing with dolls."

Echoing this sentiment in a different framing, Sankey argued that video cinematics shouldn't outdo the actual gameplay, sharing this insight from his time at Bungie.

"A few of us at Bungie had an unspoken rule about Halo cinematics: Never make the player in the cinematic feel more 'badass' than the actual game," said Sankey. "We don't want players thinking 'I wish that's how the game actually felt'. Cinematics should serve the gameplay, not compete w it."

Indeed, one of the most enduring and persistent paint points about Halo 5 is that the opening cinematic writes a check that the ensuing campaign can't cash. And that appears to be precisely Sankey's point.

"Can you point me to the gameplay clip where players: Airdrop in, slide half way down a mountain, run through rocks, parkour a Wraith, jump into a Phantom while parkouring a Jackal, and then karate roundhouse eject an Elite out the side? I'd love to see that," he wrote in a follow-up tweet.

I'd love to see that too.

Halo co-creator says Campaign Evolved "looks and feels genuine": "It's gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001"

Ensemble Studios' (of Age of Empires and Halo Wars fame) Halo MMO was apparently killed to secure an Xbox executive's bonus, according to one former developer.

Cast your mind back to Halo's golden years in 2008 - Halo 3 just became a juggernaut, Ensemble Studios' Halo Wars strategy game was on the horizon, and whispers about the same studio working on an MMO set in the sci-fi universe were in the air. However, things took a bit of a nosedive when Microsoft unceremoniously shut down Ensemble.

Now, Sandy Peterson, a prolific developer who worked on everything from Doom and Quake to Age of Empires and the mysterious Halo MMO, has taken to social media to dish on the project.

"In 2008, Ensemble Studios started planning a gigantic MMO set in the Halo universe," the former dev recently tweeted. "We code-named it Titan. It was to take place tens of thousands of years ago, before the Halos were set off and destroyed all sentient life in the Galaxy. I was in charge of the universe-building - planet histories, alien species, etc."

Peterson explains that players could choose to take control of the Forerunners, the ancient civilization that built the Halo rings, or "their enemies, the Covenant." Not to be an insufferable lore nerd, but the Covenant didn't exist as we know them during the Forerunner era, so perhaps the MMO would've found a way to repurpose already recognizable Halo aliens, like the elites and grunts, into a faction with a new name.

And it sounds like the ambitious project was pretty far along, too, as the team "had quest lines all worked out, homeworlds for the species, etc." Microsoft had even projected that it would make $1.1 billion, at the very minimum, but "it was all brought to naught when Don Mattrick realized that his stack bonus was based on income MS had from games in 3 years."

"You see, we estimated 3.5 years to finish Titan if we did it right," Peterson continued. "And that's beyond Mattrick’s drop-dead date. So by firing ALL of Ensemble, he didn't have to pay for our expensive studio for 3 years, and he didn't care about Titan. All he lost was a game studio who never sold less than 3 million copies of everything we made. I don't believe he did justice to Microsoft stockholders but hey - Don started as an EA hatchet man so what would you expect?"

Another Ensemble developer, Dusty Monk, said the project was killed because Microsoft wanted to appeal to a more casual audience and wasn't too receptive to "this very expensive, very long, and very protracted $90 million USD project we were working on"... back in 2010.

Age of Empires eventually came back under a new studio called World's Edge, and multiple other companies were spun up by ex-Ensemble talent. Though that Halo MMO never recovered from the fallout, at least we have these alleged Titan screenshots to puff on for copium.

Halo co-creator says Campaign Evolved "looks and feels genuine": "It's gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001"

It may have taken a few years, but we finally know the real name for The Weapon, Cortana's replacement AI introduced in Halo Infinite. Designed as a clone of Master Chief's former companion, The Weapon has operated under her pseudonym until now.

During this year's Halo World Championship, Jen Taylor, the voice of Cortana and The Weapon, participated in reading passages of upcoming novel Halo: Edge of Dawn by Kelly Gay, with Steve Downes, Master Chief's long-running video game performer. The excerpt revealed the AI's real name: "I am UNSC AI serial number CN0435-0, name designation Joyeuse."

That's pronounced 'joy-oose,' if you're finding it tricky. There was applause, since we've been waiting for this since 2021. Joyeuse is the name of a sword wielded by Carlonginian Emperor Charlemagne, a significant political force in Europe through the mid-to-late 700s. While that may seem an obtuse reference, it carries on a lineage started within Bungie back before the Covenant.

The Weapon’s New Name Revealed at HCS Worlds 2025 from r/halo

Marathon, Bungie's futuristic FPS from 1994 and very much a precursor to Halo, contained an AI named Durandal, named for a word carried by Roland, a French Paladin with ties to Charlemagne. Cortana, then, comes from the blade of Ogier, another French Paladin. Charlemagne has clearly remained a benchmark despite Halo Studios (formerly known as 343 Industries) taking over the mainline games from Bungie some years ago now.

While it is a fun reveal, we've no real clue when it's going to matter. Several Halo projects are in the works, with Halo: Campaign Evolved, a full remake of the first game in Unreal Engine 5 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, coming next year. Future installments are expected to be multi-platform from now on as well. Whenever Halo 7 arrives, you can bet we're all saying Joyeuse in our heads until it's properly made canon.

OG Halo CE dev reacts to the remake's new sprint: "If you make a game mechanic optional you have abandoned your post, thrown up your hands and admitted you have no vision"

Former Halo lead Jaime Griesemer has commented on the debate about whether Halo should have a sprint function after it was retroactively added into Combat Evolved's upcoming remake.

Halo: Campaign Evolved was announced last week, joining 2025's Gears of War: Reloaded in returning to a beloved Xbox series. However, Campaign Evolved is not an exact remake, as the game adds things like sprinting and changes to the level design. Former Halo lead Jaime Griesemer is wary of some of the changes, including the removal of some rocks that were intentionally placed so that you couldn't destroy your enemies from the safety of a Warthog, calling Campaign Evolved "like the dance remix of a classic song that skips the intro and the bridge and just thumps the chorus over and over."

In a thread on Twitter, Griesemer says, "Right, I'm going to settle this question once and for all in a definitive thread on the topic…'Should Halo have sprint?'" before following up with the type of rambling you'd find on a log in a horror game. "That's an absurd question. 'Should' implies a moral imperative. Game mechanics have no inherent moral value. This question has no legitimate answer and any attempt at answering it will result in a phone booth full of badgers."

Griesemer elaborates, "No mechanic makes a game unequivocally "better" because games are systems and changing a system is always a trade-off between positive and negative consequences." He then explains some of these in his view, saying that a positive aspect of sprinting is that it "allows players to get where they want to go in less time," and that "impatient" players want it for tasks like "back-tracking or they've played before."

But Griesemer adds that "sprinting breaks mission pacing and the sense of exploring a mysterious environment", and it "makes vehicles less useful and important." He cites playtests where "players complete an entire vehicle mission on foot because sprint makes it less obvious they are doing the wrong thing."

However, he doesn't believe that giving players the option to turn sprint off – the way Campaign Evolved will – is a good compromise, saying, "If you make a game mechanic optional you have abandoned your post, thrown up your hands and admitted you have no vision and that someone else should design the game. In this case, everyone else should design the game."

Halo co-creator says Campaign Evolved "looks and feels genuine": "It's gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001"

Halo: Campaign Evolved was officially revealed last week, and it's got the community divided. It's the same story we've seen with numerous other recent remakes, as some fans love the new, high-fidelity look while others think it's lost the soul of the original. But those new visuals have one very important endorsement: the approval of Halo's co-creator, Marcus Lehto.

"My honest impression of seeing the new Halo Campaign Evolved is this," Lehto says in a tweet. "I absolutely love where this is going. The game looks and feels genuine. It's gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001. It warms my heart to see Halo CE like this."

Lehto served as art director on the first three Halo games and is credited as the co-creator of the franchise as a whole, having designed the Master Chief, the Warthog, and many of the other iconic elements that give the series its visual identity. (He also served as creative director on Reach.) If anyone knows how Halo should look, it's Lehto.

Of course, Lehto wasn't the only one who worked on the OG Halo, and designer Jaime Griesemer has been substantially less positive about Campaign Evolved, likening it to a "dance remix of a classic song that skips the intro and the bridge and just thumps the chorus over and over." In an era where we're seeing numerous approaches to remaking a classic, I guess there's no pleasing everyone.

Halo: Campaign Evolved hands-on: Is this Unreal Engine 5 remake a bizzaro world Combat Evolved or an "opportunity to pave the way for the future of Halo"?

A game designer who worked on 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved isn't taking kindly to some of the remake's changes, specifically the removal of a couple of rocks.

Halo: Campaign Evolved was announced last night at HCS 2025, and Halo Studios decided to reveal it to the world by showing off arguably the game's most beloved mission, The Silent Cartographer, which sees good old John Halo go from driving around a sunny beach to shoot outs in claustrophobic alien interiors and back again.

But OG Halo: CE designer Jaime Griesemer didn't have nice things to say about a 13-minute walkthrough of the remade mission posted online.

"You aren't supposed to be able to take the Warthog up to steamroll the Hunters," Griesemer tweeted. "I intentionally placed rocks in the way so you had to fight them on foot. When you can just smash the crates out of the way it wrecks the encounters. But the worst part? They put trees in the landing area of the WooHoo Jump. Lame."

He's of course referring to a moment in the demo where our Master Chief takes a machine-gun-fronted vehicle into an encounter with two Hunters (Halo's big hulking baddies) and wrecks them pretty quickly, which arguably makes the moment less of an event and speeds up the entire mission.

"It's like the dance remix of a classic song that skips the intro and the bridge and just thumps the chorus over and over," he added.

On the other end of the spectrum is Halo co-creator and frequent art director Marcus Lehto, who said it's "good to see the new and familiar faces building the Halo team" and "the explorations look fantastic."

Halo: Campaign Evolved is being billed as a faithful remake built on top of some original code, but Halo Studios has also been open about how they're updating certain missions to make them fit for four-player online co-op and to remove very 2001 quirks, specifically in The Library. So, it's hard to tell if the small change makes the game worse or just... different without seeing the full package sometime next year.

Halo: Campaign Evolved hands-on: Is this Unreal Engine 5 remake a bizzaro world Combat Evolved or an "opportunity to pave the way for the future of Halo"?

PlayStation is getting its first ever Halo game in the form of the newly unveiled Halo: Campaign Evolved - a remake of the landmark first shooter in the series, also coming to Xbox and PC - and it sounds like the era of exclusivity is over for Master Chief.

Halo: CE is probably Xbox's most iconic game, but seeing the PS5 logo pop up in its reveal isn't too surprising after the console maker ported former exclusives like Forza Horizon 5 and Sea of Thieves to its former rival's platform. And it's just going to get more common, according to Halo Studios.

Speaking at a livestreamed panel from HCS 2025, community director Brian Jarrard said "Halo is on PlayStation going forward, starting with Halo: Campaign Evolved," perhaps hinting that there's more in the works apart from 2026's remake. "It's just gonna mean more Halo for everyone. It's really a new era."

All that talk was only bolstered by the official PlayStation Blog in a post also penned by Jarrard, aka ske7ch. "As the Master Chief once said: 'I think we're just getting started.'"

"For some of you, it'll be a chance to revisit a classic in a completely new light. For others, it'll be the very first time setting foot on the ring and discovering what makes Halo unforgettable," the blog continued.

Halo coming to new platforms shouldn't be too dramatic a surprise as Xbox president Sarah Bond just recently called exclusive games outdated because people "want to be able to play with your friends anywhere regardless of what they're on."

Halo: Campaign Evolved hands-on: Is this Unreal Engine 5 remake a bizzaro world Combat Evolved or an "opportunity to pave the way for the future of Halo"?

It's finally happening. Halo is going to be playable on PlayStation. This is the sort of thing which would have been utterly unimaginable when Combat Evolved landed nearly 25 years ago, that Microsoft would have ever allowed Master Chief to wander beyond the borders of the Xbox ecosystem. Everything changes with time. After all, it would have been equally unimaginable back then to think that Halo would ever be in the position that it is today – struggling for relevancy in a genre it once revolutionised.

What we're looking at here is Halo: Campaign Evolved. It's the original 2001 campaign reimagined in Unreal Engine 5. A remake built atop the legacy codebase, an engineering trick The Coalition has pulled with Gears of War in the past, and more recently, Bethesda with The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered – though, to be clear, what Halo Studios is shooting for here is far more ambitious. Halo: Campaign Evolved feels newer, as if the past is being used as a guiding hand rather than a direct reference point.

It's why controversial features like sprint and weapon magnification return, a hangover from 343 Industries' contributions to the franchise. And why more forward-thinking improvements are coming; nine weapons which weren't available in Halo: Combat Evolved, including the Energy Sword and Battle Rifle, find their way into the arsenal; there's the ability to pilot the Wraith too, and hijack enemy vehicles. The principal cast has returned to deliver new performances, and Halo Studios has even promised that slight tweaks are coming to the dreaded trudge through The Library.

I was able to play a subsection of the iconic Silent Cartographer mission on Xbox Series X. This very early work-in-progress build of Halo: Campaign Evolved doesn't necessarily represent the final experience that's shipping on PC, PS5, and Xbox in 2026 – it's more proof-of-concept than anything else, a showcase designed to settle any fears about the Halo franchise shifting to Unreal Engine 5. Bungie's proprietary Blam! game engine powered the first five core Halo games, with Infinite shipping on 343's in-house Slipstream. These sorts of changes can have seismic impacts – across everything from movement, momentum, weapon-feel, physics systems, and so on.

What I'll say is that Halo: Campaign Evolved does feel suitably Halo. The MA5B assault rifle still chatters as it tears through Elite energy shields. The M6D pistol still hits like an overtorqued bolt through Grunt and Jackal skulls, their bodies littering a beachhead restored with an impressive attention to detail. It's good to hear actual Cortana again, actor Jen Taylor unburdened by any hint of rapancey or resets.

Foehammer whipping Echo 419 around to drop off a Warthog is as exhilarating today as it was 25 years ago. It's here where I first catch the horizon, following the bending arc of the Installation 004 superstructure up beyond the axis of my vision. It's stunning. I honestly can't wait to see The Pillar of Autumn, and some of the wider vistas, born out in this more luscious art style. And the Warthog is still stunningly silly to drive, bouncing around terrain as hapless UNSC soldiers drag a blazing turret around.

The physics feel right, which was my primary concern heading into this. For series veterans, Halo: Campaign Evolved will undoubtedly be a nice flash of nostalgia, a return incentivised by the addition of four-player online co-op (with full crossplay support) and a promise of the most gameplay-modifying Skulls to ever feature in a Halo campaign. For those coming in for the first time, this early demo signals that the wonders of Halo: Combat Evolved built to modern standards of visual fidelity and performance is incoming.

I think my big fear here is how elements like sprint are ultimately going to disrupt the foundations of Combat Evolved. Halo Studios says it has gone to great lengths to preserve the pacing of the original adventure; that's easy to say, but I'm not convinced that giving players even the option to blindly sprint through environments does make this goal largely unachievable.

Sprint can be disabled in the menus, but the problem the feature inherently creates isn't rooted in player choice but rather the intentionality in which Bungie approached the original underlying design. Halo: Combat Evolved's pacing is almost entirely dictated by the speed in which you are able to amble through its atmospheric environments. Increased movement speed made sense in Halo Infinite's sprawling open-world, but here it feels unnatural. I worry about how this design decision will impact the experience for first-time players, and whether it will weather away the awe, the tension, the release.

Perhaps debates surrounding attempts at modernization versus design intention will fade over time, as more of the game is made playable. Either way, with Halo Studios banking on Halo: Campaign Evolved to act as a proof-of-concept for the future of the franchise, the devil is in the detail. Nowhere is that going to be truer than in three new prequel missions that will feature new environments, gameplay, characters, and enemies – tracking Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson on a new adventure set before Combat Evolved. I'm keen to see these sections for myself in the future.

Faithfully remaking the original game will demonstrate whether Halo Studios has a handle on the basics, but entirely new missions will give us clear insight into whether the group has the vision to deliver something all of its own. As executive producer Damon Conn tells me (and I'll have more to share from our chat in the days ahead), Halo Studios believes that Campaign Evolved "is an opportunity to pave the way for the future of Halo." That's a journey which begins with "rebuilding the classic that started it all in a brand new engine for a new audience and veteran players alike."

What I have seen and played of Halo: Campaign Evolved so far are promising, even at this early stage. There's still a lot to see and a lot more to learn, but it's certainly true that Halo is in desperate need of some new energy. So what better place to start than where it all began.

The OG still ranks high among the best Halo games of all time.

Halo: Combat Evolved is a beloved game full of memorable levels, but its most famous stage is more often remembered for the wrong reasons. The Library is the part Halo fans warn series newcomers about, and the devs behind the upcoming remake aim to make an array of changes to fix the infamous stage.

The upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved will feature an array of changes to improve the pacing and playability of certain stages, and in an Xbox Wire post breaking down the remake, the devs are very explicit about the implications: "Yes, we mean The Library."

"We learned from Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary that there was still an appetite for things like better wayfinding, navigation, and diversity in enemy encounters," creative director Max Szlagor says. "In The Library specifically, which features several Flood encounters, we wanted to reevaluate the pacing and enhance the environmental storytelling. We've added new lines to Guilty Spark, which guide players through the level, and there’s new dialogue that gives more insight into the narrative as it plays out."

It's been years since I last played Halo 1, but even with that distance from it, I still remember The Library mostly as a seemingly endless series of hallways where the fleshy Flood enemies would keep pouring out of the rafters. The level's reputation may overstate just how bad it is – you're still playing Halo at the end of the day, so there's a limit to how terrible it can be – but it's certainly a low point of the campaign.

There are other tweaks to the campaign, too, with weapons and vehicles from later entries appearing here. The game also now supports four-player co-op, which means the devs "had to think about how all of the original encounters and spaces can scale to accommodate that many players," according to Szlagor.

In the end, though, even with some bigger changes coming to a level like The Library, the developers are "not changing the stories, it’s about refining and adding context to this moment, and other levels like it, so players can stay on track."

These are the best FPS games you can play today.

If you find yourself in a room full of Halo fans and the desire to sow chaos takes hold in your heart, just toss out this question like a grenade: Should Halo have sprint? Halo: Campaign Evolved, the upcoming remake of the original game, is letting you choose your own answer to that question.

"You can sprint now," as the devs say in an Xbox Wire post detailing the newly announced remake, "if you'd like or disable it if you don't."

The original Halo didn't feature a sprint option, and that tradition continued through Halo 3 – even as popular FPS titles like Call of Duty were making sprint feel like a genre staple. In 2010, Halo: Reach offered sprint as an optional ability and in 2012, Halo 4 made it part of the standard control mechanic, which is what it's continued to be throughout the rest of the series.

Of course, letting you sprint is a pretty fundamental change to the basic feel of a game, which is why it's always been such a controversial topic among the Halo fandom. Offering it as an option sounds like a nice compromise, but how's the pacing of the levels going to feel? The original stages were built with Halo 1's original feel in mind, but the devs say there are some tweaks to the level design, particularly in the Library. I fear the true debate over sprinting may just be getting started.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is building on one of the best Halo games of all time.

True to the rumors, Halo Studios has just announced Halo: Campaign Evolved, an appropriately titled Unreal Engine 5 remake of the game that kicked off the entire series - Halo: Combat Evolved, of course - coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass, and PS5 next year.

As you can probably guess by its name, the remake is solely focused on remaking Halo CE's campaign and is stripping out the competitive multiplayer modes, but it is making up for the omission with new additions that are both exciting and inevitably divisive.

Pretty facelift aside, Halo: Campaign Evolved is updating some level designs as the studio specifically called out how pathfinding in missions like, infamously, The Library could be a headache. But maybe the most exciting addition is a little three-mission prequel arc that follows Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson. (Ahh, the nostalgia.)

Maybe more controversial is that Halo Studios is going back to add features seen in newer games. Iconic weapons, such as the Energy Sword and Battle Rifle, are also making an appearance here, for example, which is really cool, as is the inclusion of two-player couch co-op and four-player online co-op for the first time ever. Oh, and you can hijack vehicles too.

The addition of sprint, however, will probably bring back the heated discourse from 2010... and 2012... and 2015... and... you get the gist. Though, thankfully, you can disable it if you like.

An Xbox Wire post states that "all of the new content created in Unreal Engine 5 is layered on top of code and systems carried directly over from the original games," to hopefully retain the feel of moving a 1,000 pound super soldier.

"We've added new lines to Guilty Spark, which guide players through the level, and there's new dialogue that gives more insight into the narrative as it plays out," creative director Max Szlagor added. "We're not changing the stories, it's about refining and adding context to this moment, and other levels like it, so players can stay on track."

"This is Halo for everyone," executive producer Damon Conn said.

Could Halo: Campaign Evolved be one of the best Halo games of all time?