The Halo franchise is often recognised as one of the founding fathers of the modern first-person shooter. With multiple mainline entries, spin-off titles, and an extremely faithful fanbase, this was not only the game that popularised first-person shooters, but it has also carried them through the 21st century and has gained many fans, both new and old. Starting on the original Xbox console in 2001 with Halo: Combat Evolved, this franchise has enjoyed considerable longevity. However, recently, that has pretty much come to a grinding halt. The last mainline entry, Halo: Infinite, was released in 2021 to fair reviews, but with a distinct lack of features when compared to the previous games. Their planned 10-year roadmap of updates fell through, mainly as a consequence of Microsoft’s culling of staff over the past few years, and that left the franchise with no planned direction. Developers 343 Industries took the brunt of almost 100 layoffs in 2023, and that forced them to put main development on Halo: Infinite to rest in 2025, after being spread too thin to support that and creating other projects simultaneously. After a rebrand in 2024, the studio became Halo Studios, forever tying them to this franchise and its future. Instead of releasing any new titles for the franchise, however, they have just released Halo: Campaign Evolved, which is a remake of that original game back in 2001. To preface, I have never played the original, nor have I had much experience with this franchise. I have played bits and pieces of some entries, namely Halo: Reach and Halo: Infinite, but I have never been tempted to play much more. This has always been a middle-of-the-road, standard franchise to me that had a lot of influence back in the day, but is only now supported by nostalgia. The very creation of this remake shows that Halo Studios and Microsoft do not have much to offer for this franchise, beyond a ploy to make those that played it back in the day remember the fun they had. Though it has pretty visuals, fairly entertaining gameplay, and a run-of-the-mill shooter storyline, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a safe remake that does not tarnish its original material but hardly uplifts it either.

Halo: Campaign Evolved follows the story of the original Halo: Combat Evolved and recreates everything in Unreal Engine 5. It sees the Pillar of Autumn fleeing from the planet colony, Reach, which has been destroyed by a vicious Alien race called the Covenant. Badly damaged after an encounter with their opponents, the Pillar of Autumn’s crew abandons the ship and sets down upon a strange ringworld that becomes known as Halo. You are put in the shoes of the Spartan hero Master Chief, dropping down to the surface of Halo and investigating its strange nature, with the Pillar of Autumn’s onboard AI, Cortana, in tow. The Covenant are hot on your trail, though, and you will need to fight through them to survive on this strange world. Luckily, thanks to this being a remake, there are a hell of a lot of guns from this game and other subsequent entries in the franchise featured in this game, allowing you to plough through enemies as you see fit. Across sprawling battlefields and tight corridors, you must fight and discover the true nature of the Halo, housing a horrible parasitic race known as the Flood. Also added to this remake is a prequel story with three new missions, giving you more things to fight and another bite-sized story to follow.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is definitely a case of an Unreal Engine 5 remake that works well, both through great optimisation and a gleaming coat of paint on an already timelessly stylised game. I played this on my relatively standard spec PC and had no problems with performance at all, whilst it looked pretty spectacular as well. I have seen some people say that the art design is rather uninspired compared to the original, but as a new player, this looks great, and it plays nicely too. Of course, everybody knows Halo for its music, and that is still fantastic. As somebody who loved Destiny, it is interesting to hear some of Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori’s earlier work, and it definitely fits their signature. With its strange ancient chanting and an abundance of triumphant brass, it sounds excellent, and I can certainly hear a bit of early Destiny DNA within it. Everything about how the world is crafted is very impressive, whether that be its art design, music, or stunning visuals. I can certainly see how back in the day, it would have been immersive and had a big impact on people. It is no easy thing to create a world that people want to discover and know more about, and Halo does that well. The story itself is fine and nothing to write home about. It is mainly just asking you to go to different points, blow something up, and then move on. But it makes you care, at least a little bit, about doing that when the world is so involving and full of strange things to discover. If I were to play another game in the series, it would be to see the world develop above all else, as I believe that is the main reason these games work well, from a rookie to the franchise’s perspective.

The gameplay of the original Halo: Combat Evolved was very important for the advancement of the first-person shooter genre, but with this remake in the modern day, it does not feel like anything remarkable. I can certainly accept that this remake is just following the age-old blueprint and doing a fair job of it, but shooters have come a long way since then. It is pretty much a case of shooting mindlessly, cutting through hordes of enemies, and throwing the occasional grenade to spice things up a bit. Some enemies, particularly the larger elite enemies, feel very bullet-spongey, and there is not enough satisfying feedback from shooting to make that exercise any easier. Bullets feel pretty weightless, in fact, churning out of the weapon at high speed from your assault rifle but never feel like they have much impact. The shotgun was probably my favourite weapon, purely because it felt good to shoot, both in the way it deals significant damage and in how powerful it feels to fire. Some of the alien weapons are slightly better in that regard, but unless you are using a heavy-duty weapon like the Sentinel rifle, they simply do not do enough damage. The particle effects look slick, as do all the alien weapons themselves, for that matter, but the standard military weapons feel like the only weapons worth using if you want to actually do some damage. So here, you are stuck with damaging weapons that feel rubbish to use, or alien weapons that look great but have rubbish damage capability. It feels a bit unbalanced, and I wish I felt I had a reason to use those cooler-looking weapons. Encounters are well done, particularly when vehicles are involved on those huge battlefields, and even if the action of shooting can be lacklustre, seeing the carnage you have wrought is satisfying. Particularly in the prequel missions, though, there are so many moments that are just moving through hallways between cover and shooting aliens. It is nothing more interesting than that, and if that works for you, you will have fun. However, if you like those more grandiose encounters or just want any degree of substance, give these missions a pass.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is fine, but I would not praise it any more than that. The gameplay is fun enough, but that purely depends on what weapon you are using and what style of encounter you are involved in. The story is serviceable enough, but it is very typical of pretty much any first-person shooter campaign ever and does not go beyond that. Its world is a good introduction to the Halo universe, though, and I would suggest that if you did want to get into the franchise, it is worth it for that idea. If you are a returning fan and are on the fence, it is purely down to how nostalgic you are for the original game. Of course, this was not a factor for me, so I played this all for the first time, but if I already knew what was going on, I am sure I would be underwhelmed. The reason I say this remake was unnecessary is purely down to what exactly has been added here of note. Yes, you can play the campaign in 4-player co-op, which is a nice idea. You can use weapons from across the series and test them out in this campaign, which also works well. But the only thing new Halo Studios has actually added here is the prequel campaign, and that is not even worth doing. Its story is hardly existent, the gameplay is boring, and it is not a good look for Halo Studios that this is the quality of the only original content they have provided. That being said, this is the best way you can play one of the most iconic games ever, and if that is an enticing thought to you, this will probably be a good enough time for you. For me, this is a fine enough experience that was fun at times but ultimately unremarkable.