In the twenty-five years following the launch of Halo: Combat Evolved, everyone worked to create the “Halo killer.” Killzone and Resistance both tried gallantly and failed, but that’s an example of the kind of mindshare Halo had at the height of its power, beginning with its original trilogy, through to Reach, and only briefly beyond that. And, in the end, Halo suffered a death by a thousand cuts, as live-service gambits paid zero dividend and the franchise veered too far from its roots. In celebrating Combat Evolved’s milestone, Campaign Evolved feels like something of a reset—a much-needed starting over for one of the biggest brands in video games.
Having said that, Campaign Evolved is a faithful remake of the source material. In an attempt to shore up a game experience that’s decades old, Halo Studios has, of course, added modern bells and whistles, like sprinting and a more traditional aim-down sights, all the while trimming the fat and refining levels that needed a hot-fix a quarter century in the making. Most significant is Halo’s arrival on opposing platforms, which, regardless of where you pitch your tent, is a seismic shift that feels like a wall being torn down.
Of course, under the Sharma rule, it’s entirely possible that wall might go right back up and that Campaign Evolved will be the first and last Halo game to be released outside of the Xbox ecosystem.
Still one of the best sci-fi shooters ever, Halo follows a genetically-enhanced supersoldier, known as Master Chief, who crash-lands on the game’s titular ring-world and fights to survive the ongoing Human-Covenant war while attempting to unearth the true nature and purpose of Halo. The iconic ten-mission campaign remains intact, albeit with a few necessary changes—along with a couple of unnecessary ones.
While great care has been taken to maintain the original game’s general pace and structure, certain levels have experienced more reshaping than others. Chief’s trip to the ring’s archival library, in particular, has undergone a significant and sorely needed overhaul, improving the level’s flow while selling the actual horrific descent into the Flood-infested substructure. Certain liberties have been taken to improve upon the story’s cinematic presentation, including new action-hero quips for the Chief that don’t all work, and entirely new scenes that better develop the story’s subplots, including one revolving around the pistol Keyes gives the Chief aboard Pillar of Autumn.
The new trio of missions added to Campaign Evolved, referred to as Operation: Meteorite, do an excellent job of filling in a small period of time of recon for the UNSC before the Fall of Reach, while giving Halo historians a taste of John and Avery Johnson working the field together. Each of the levels flows into the next, forming a self-contained narrative that feels like a franchise “greatest hits”. Although Williams and her Tiger Company introduce intriguing politics to the story thread, it’s really the earlier look at the Jiralhanae and the series of escalating set pieces, culminating in a low-orbit dogfight over the glassed planet of Promise, that makes it special, and proof that Halo Studios can still cook.
Despite initial reservations, where I believed the feel of Halo to be sacrosanct, I grew to quite enjoy the modern touches. Whether it’s the addition of sprinting or left-trigger aiming, both of which can be reverted to their traditional inputs through Skulls, or the other elements pulled forward from later games, like vehicle hijacking and certain weapons, it comes together as Halo for the gamers of today, who have been conditioned to expect a certain game feel from shooters that has become standard since Halo’s unique configuration.
Of course, the lack of a pack-in multiplayer suite is a disappointment, especially for a game like Halo, which was very much a revelation in that space and an early catalyst for the Xbox Live boom. Though it’s hard to reconcile those feelings, the inclusion of Remix gives the game a sense of replayability that the original didn’t necessarily offer. By collecting at least two Skulls in a level, which themselves can be used to modify the game experience, players can unlock the option to remix that level by completely changing up weapon and enemy spawns, which can create interesting scenarios and challenging bottlenecks in places you mightn’t expect them. It’s weird to encounter the Flood outside of their regular breeding holes, though it’s even stranger to find the Brutes, which do appear in the aforementioned bonus missions but wouldn’t show up otherwise until the sequel, making up part of a level’s pool, which is always a surprise.
Fortunately, Campaign Evolved can be played with friends in both couch co-op and online. Though I was concerned that the teething issues might taint the experience, as they often do with crossplay titles, Campaign Evolved’s shared experience, from the initial party up to blitzing the Covenant, is as frictionless as you could hope for. It’s a great campaign in its own right, but manning the turret gun on the Warthog’s rear as your partner sends it over dunes just hits different.
Aside from repeated moments of stuttering during the campaign’s cinematics, Campaign Evolved does run quite well and looks spectacular. It does feel as though a particular effort has been made to ensure the original’s atmosphere and aesthetic have been kept intact, though there’s one area in particular that I feel misses the mark. All of the Forerunner architecture has a gloss and cleanliness that feels at odds with its supposed abandonment. I accept that it’s because it’s not a one-for-one reskin of the original, but it’s still disappointing that no toggle exists to switch between classic and revamped graphics. Especially because of how gorgeous parts of this game look, particularly the Flood sections, it would have been great to be able to compare to see just how far things have come.
Although it’s kind of like bangers without the mash due to missing its generation-defining multiplayer suite, Halo: Campaign Evolved is still a stunning remake of one of the most enduring first-person shooter campaigns ever made. But it’s also more than that, and I’m not just talking about campaign remixing. Operation: Meteorite is a narrative launch pad for Reach’s fall that’ll satisfy lore nerds, but it’s also all of the spectacle Halo was once known for, boiled down into a punchy, three-piece feed.