As I write this, it’s been about a day since the reveal of the Halo: Combat Evolved remake at the Halo World Championships 2025. Often regarded as the worst-kept secret in gaming, the Halo community has spent the last year debating endlessly on whether this is a good idea, all across social media. When rumours began, I was incredibly skeptical, not only had they already remade Combat Evolved once (badly), but I was concerned that they would try to “modernise” one of the greatest FPS campaigns of all time. Halo CE didn’t need advanced movement in 2001, and it doesn’t need it in 2026, there I said it. Not only that, Halo Studios (343 Industries previously) do not have the strongest track record as custodians of the Halo franchise since they took over in 2011.
On Friday, they finally lifted the curtain and let the world see Halo: Campaign Evolved for the first time. And, to be quite honest, I was mildly shocked. Before I get into the game itself, I do just want to note how poorly the reveal itself was handled. The “project update” was scheduled at 1pm PST, which was 9pm BST for me. I tuned in at 8:55, ready to see the reveal. The HCS match at the time went to overtime, and then a tiebreak game. This didn’t finish until 9:30pm BST, 30 mins after the scheduled time. On top of that, they then took another 10 minute break, meaning the reveal was then 40 minutes late. I completely understand the nature of eSports and that the unexpected can happen, but then I have to ask the question on whether this was the right place to reveal a campaign-only remake? Ultimately, the reveal itself was overshadowed by the fact that the trailer and the gameplay reveal had already gone live on the official Halo social media accounts before the HCS match had even finished, and the Xbox Store listing had gone live before that. We already knew everything they were going to talk about, which was rather anticlimactic to say the least. However, the saving grace of revealing it at the Halo World Championship is that Halo fans have been able to get their hands on it all weekend and try it for themselves at dedicated demo setups. This means that we’ve been able to hear from different types of Halo fans, and I find this to be incredibly useful at gauging where the game currently stands, and what needs to be improved/worked on.
The key art for the remake looks lovely! I just wish they’d have gone with a different title…
Now, all that being said, when we did finally get to see the game in action, I must say that it looks bloody incredible. The mission they chose to showcase was The Silent Cartographer, and I genuinely think this is the best decision they could have made. The lush beach scenery, and the stunning interiors both make for a beautiful looking environment that looks *mostly* faithful. They’ve also gone through and reshot all the cutscenes, and from what we’ve seen so far, not only do these look incredibly faithful, but they’re also bloody brilliant. The beach landing shows a fleet of Pelicans with one being shot down by a Spirit drop ship, as Chief gets ready to depart. They’ve kept Chief kicking the grenade down the shaft, but also modernised his entrance as he quickly checks his corners whilst entering the facility containing the Cartographer. If all the cutscenes in the game have been upgraded and enhanced to this level of quality, we’re in for a real treat.
Imagine showing this to someone playing Halo CE in 2002. The power of Unreal Engine 5 is really on show here.
Master Chief himself also looks fantastic, I still remember the first time we saw him in CE Anniversary promotional material and he looked hideous, but they’ve nailed him first time here. The Mark V armour is drop dead gorgeous, and I couldn’t be happier with the way he looks.
Master Chief’s Mark V armour has finally been brought up to date, and doesn’t it just look INCREDIBLE?
I was also pleasantly surprised when I heard the music, it does sound like it’s the original CE soundtrack, just very faintly remastered. I think this can only be a good thing, as whilst CE Anniversary had a good enough soundtrack, it wasn’t on the same level as the original if we’re being honest. On the topic of audio, they do appear to have re-recorded some of the voice lines, Cortana sounds distinctively younger in some dialogue. I think this is a positive personally, as the lore has developed over the last 25 years, it does give them the chance to fill in some gaps during the course of the campaign.
Speaking of filling in lore gaps, it was also confirmed that we’d be seeing three new prequel missions featuring the Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson. This is a huge positive! During the original game, there wasn’t much of a connection between Chief and Johnson, he is just kind of there for most of the game. Then, he shows up in Halo 2 and out of nowhere he’s suddenly a major character. I really think these new prequel missions are going to bridge that gap for players that don’t read the books, and I think that’s a wonderful thing indeed. More Halo CE can *never* be a bad thing.
Whilst we’re on the subject of new additions, they did confirm that the CE sandbox would be receiving nine new weapons for Chief to use across Installation 04. So far, five of these have been confirmed, with these being the Energy Sword, Needle Rifle, Battle Rifle, the Sentinel Beam and the Fuel Rod Cannon. I have mixed feelings on this, but they’re more positive than negative.
The Energy Sword is one I’m torn on, I understand why it’s now usable, but I can’t help but feel it does take away an element of that mystique and wonder about the Covenant in Halo CE. Watching the sword fall to the ground and then collapse back into the hilt definitely felt alien in 2001, and I’m not sure that using the sword will really have that same feeling.
The Needle Rifle, the Sentinel Beam and the Fuel Rod Cannon all make perfect sense to me, the Sentinel Beam and Fuel Rod were both present in the original game, just not usable (unless you count the Fuel Rod on the PC port). I really like the inclusion of the Needle Rifle, CE’s Covenant sandbox always felt rather thin, and considering how close Halo: Reach is in terms of the canon? Yeah, I really like this one.
The Battle Rifle? I’m going to be honest, I really hate this. It doesn’t need to be there. We have the Magnum as the keystone weapon in CE, and adding the Battle Rifle just leaves the Magnum open to being nerfed heavily and toned down, which I personally think goes against what Halo CE was trying to do all those years ago. I love the Battle Rifle, just not here, I don’t think it’s needed. We don’t have confirmation just yet as to what the other four weapons are going to be, but if I was to guess (and I’m going to), I’d predict the Flamethrower is in, the SMG makes the cut, the Plasma Caster and the silenced Magnum from ODST for nighttime stealth missions. If I see a DMR anywhere near this remake, I WILL scream.
In hindsight, the signs were there all along, all the way back from last year…
Other smaller additions include the ability to play the campaign in 4 player coop online, both cross-progression and cross-platform. Now, cross-progression? The cat is indeed out of the bag, Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming to PlayStation for the very first time. I personally only see this as a good thing with more people getting to play as the Chief for the very first time in 25 years, but it does also represent the end of an era in some regard. Phil Spencer once said “If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox”, and now 15 years later, Halo is going to be on the PlayStation. That symbiotic relationship between Halo and Xbox appears to have reached its end, and I do believe it’s going to have a lasting impact on the Xbox brand itself. However, from a strictly Halo perspective, the move to PlayStation is set to be a good one.
Seeing Master Chief on the same promotional image as the PlayStation 5 logo is going to take some getting used to for sure….
Speaking of sweeping changes, there is a pretty big one, and we DO need to talk about it. Halo: Campaign Evolved does in fact feature sprint. I’ll be honest, I don’t care for this in the slightest. The levels weren’t designed with sprint in mind, and from the look of the Silent Cartographer so far, it appears they haven’t been changed with sprint in mind either. I’ve said it before, I will say it again, the classic Halo games do not need sprint. There is an option to turn it off in the settings, which I do appreciate, but then that begs the question of “If you can turn a game mechanic off, does said mechanic really add anything to the game?”. I think it’s a valid question, and I personally would have preferred them to leave Sprint to the modern titles and preserve that classic CE gameplay. The Sprint debate is a dead horse however, and I will simply just be turning it off and moving on when the game releases.
Another change I really don’t like the look of is that a lot of the weapons and enemies seem to be reusing assets from Halo Infinite? The Needler, Elites and Marines are straight out of Infinite, and I don’t understand why they’re making the same mistake again. One of the key complaints about CE Anniversary was the swapped in Halo: Reach assets that didn’t fit with the CE aesthetic, and with this remake, they’re doing the same thing with the Infinite assets? This absolutely baffles me, and I am hoping that it is a placeholder as the game is over a year out because if it does launch with Infinite assets, they will feel out of place and detract from the experience somewhat.
They did also confirm that there is going to be abundance of new Skulls in the campaign, and I think this is pretty cool. I always liked finding the Skulls in the campaign and going out of your way to obtain these, so hopefully they will be unlocked in the same way. The replay value does go up tremendously with Skulls, and so I’m all in.
A particularly big bugbear going around currently is that the remake is campaign only, and I honestly believe that this is a good thing. I absolutely adore Halo multiplayer, but I do not think that the CE multiplayer will hold up 25 years later to an entirely new audience. CE multiplayer is not the same as later games, there’s a lot of quirks and funky mechanics that make it what it is, and if you do go in and change those, it isn’t CE multiplayer any more. However, if you leave them in, a casual crowd is going to get very frustrated very quickly, and it becomes a very slippery slope. I genuinely believe that going campaign only for this remake was the best way to go.
So overall, how am I feeling? Cautiously optimistic is the word I’m using for this at the moment. There’s a lot of things I really like, and a lot of things I really don’t like. At the time of writing, the game is about a year out so things can and will change, but so far I’m definitely more in for this remake than out. If you’d have asked me a week ago about a CE remake, I was completely against it as I genuinely believed that Chief would be grappling around the Halo ring, curb sliding into the map room and thrust boosting around the Pillar of Autumn. Now I’ve seen it however? I’m a lot more intrigued, and I’m pleased that it’s a lot more faithful than I first anticipated. Halo Studios still have a lot of work to do, but it’s time to wait and see if they can stick the landing and launch a CE remake we all love, instead of what we got in 2011. We were promised a new era this time last year when Halo Studios rebranded, and this new era looks to be starting by touching up what came before. How fitting that for the three developers this franchise has had, their first title has always been Halo: Combat Evolved in some capacity. As Master Chief says at the end of Combat Evolved, I do in fact think we’re just getting started.