One of the rarest of events in gaming has just happened…a ‘new’ Halo game has been released. But all is not as it seems for Halo: Campaign Evolved, and before we get stuck into that I feel I need to set the stage.
I make no secret of it that I am a die‑hard Halo fan. Hell, as I write this I am surrounded with Halo cups, a Halo tankard and a Halo decanter complete with four matching glasses, and that is just in my kitchen. For the past 25 years I have been hooked, for better or worse, on the adventures through slipspace of the big guy in the green suit. Halo was the game where I went from seeing games as just fun to becoming so much more.
Read More: Halo Infinite Campaign review – A Master Returns (Spoiler-Free)
I was 15 when me and my wee brother got an original Xbox bundle for Christmas. It came with a copy of Midtown Madness 3 and Halo: Combat Evolved. To this day I can still remember the excitement we had setting up the console and diving into the campaign in co‑op at half five on that fateful Christmas morning.
So, to say when a new Halo comes around it’s a big deal for me personally is an understatement. This intro is important because what follows isn’t just a review I’ve been told to do or a tick‑box exercise. It’s the views of a lifelong fan.
A Disclaimer
I feel a disclaimer has to be inserted here. If you’re coming to Halo fresh or as a PS5 player you’ll have a blast. You’ll understand what makes the game so highly regarded, and hopefully it’ll be your first steps on a journey into one of the richest and most engrossing universes in gaming.
But if you’re a (just checks) almost 40‑year‑old with 25 years of pure fandom and passion for the series then Halo: Campaign Evolved is…well, crap. I am not going to do my usual review style of ‘here’s the tale and gameplay’ and so on. Instead, I am going to be honest about why I feel Halo: Campaign Evolved is such a let‑down for me.
Campaign Devolved
It’s been five years since we last saw the Master Chief and crew. It’s been a rocky five years. Because, as good as Halo Infinite was, it was a bit of a damp squib. So damp that the game’s been stone‑cold dropped in favour of yet another reboot of the series.
If you ask me my favourite Halo game, in a heartbeat I will say Halo: Combat Evolved. I truly love that game through and through and see it as one of the best games ever made. So, I was happy when we got Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a sort of remaster of the classic with a few nip and tucks back in 2011.
Read More: The Enduring Legacy of the Original Xbox
But, in 2026, do I feel like we need yet another retelling of the same game? Hell no. Is the Halo franchise in such a bad way that the best we can get after five years of pretty much nothing, bar a trash TV series memorable for all the wrong reasons (no one needs or wants to see the Chief’s bare arse, just saying), is yet another reboot?
We Have Combat Evolved at Home (And It’s Great)
‘But it lets the younger generations play the game.’ Aye, that’s why we also have the outstanding Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It all feels like a cheap cop‑out that maybe was designed to bring the series to PlayStation one game at a time, similar to how Gears of War was being set up too. With the changes at Microsoft that idea is truly dead in the water.
I honestly don’t see Halo 2 and 3 getting the same treatment as seen in Halo: Campaign Evolved. More so, I pray they don’t. God knows I’ll be 50 before we see Chief again in actual new content.
Read More: Five Video Game Sequels that Took their Series to the Next Level
The game itself is frustrating on a number of levels. It’s a very bare‑bones offering for a start. It shipped with no multiplayer. Just the campaign playable in solo or four‑player co‑op (a first for the game). There’s a remix option which randomises enemies and weapons, and three new missions that play as a standalone prequel.
It’s not a lot for five years’ work if I am honest. Less so when the ‘new’ missions can be done in about an hour and a half and honestly add nothing to the game. They try to link in some lore points to clean things up and introduce a character who is honestly the Temu version of Sarah Palmer, but we’ll never see them again after this. So thank God.
Corridor Evolved
Worse still, the new missions try to capture the feel of the core game. I have never really felt like Halo was a corridor shooter, but after playing that, if I see another purple or white corridor I am going to scream. They play as open room, corridor, open room, corridor, then another corridor, then an open area. I hate it because once you see it you can’t unsee it.
The main game of Halo: Campaign Evolved has been rebuilt from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5 after the studio dropped the in‑house Slipspace Engine. It shows it’s in Unreal. Everything is soft and overly smooth with, at times, strange visual glitches. There are some very nice moments visually, but overall I wasn’t impressed.
Read More: Multi-Kill – A History of FPS
With the game being a remake, it also let Halo Studios change things to bring it back in line with as much of the lore as they can. They also added some new gameplay elements.
On both fronts I feel the game has failed. From a lore stance there are a good dozen lines of audio that don’t make sense given what we know now in the game’s universe. Surely these should have been retconned if you are adding to the script with more one‑liners and the like.
Lightly Polished
As for new gameplay elements, it’s half‑hearted at best. You can sprint, there are a handful of new weapons like the SMG, and there are a few new enemies. But this could have been so much more.
A great example is the SMG. On the mission The Truth and Reconciliation you’re “stealthy” at the beginning, but it lasts about three seconds. The silenced SMG (M7S SMG) is in the series, so why not add that? Or the BR or DMR rifle. Or imagine doing the Flood levels with the LMG (M739 SAW).
Read More: GoldenEye 007 (Xbox) review – Mishandled Classic Still Holds Merit
The most damning thing here is that the game doesn’t even have the M7057 flamethrower, a now mythical weapon that was cut from the original release but added to the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved. They could have re‑written a historical wrong. Did they hell.
Taste the Rainbow
Same goes for enemies. It’s extremely telling that they didn’t really know how to balance the game for four players with such a small pool of enemy types. I remember when gold and white Elites would strike fear in me and my brother. In Campaign Evolved they throw them at you now like Skittles. Red, blue, gold, white and spec ops…you truly taste the Elite rainbow by the third mission.
Read More: Pentiment review – What Xbox Needed
Firefights are less about battling groups where you take out the leader and mop up the stragglers, and more about trying to survive waves of endless Grunts and Elites throwing plasma grenades until a door opens to yet another corridor.
The new missions have Brutes in them (only one type), but they could have added variety to the main campaign or even Drones. Just something to add to fights until the Flood and Sentinels come into the mix. Even then the Flood come in a human or Elite version, that’s it.
For the Few, Not the Many
As I said at the beginning, if you are coming to the game fresh none of these issues will matter to you. But if you have been with the series for 25 years you can bet they get on your wick. One or two little issues you can overlook, but there are just so many here in Halo: Campaign Evolved, it’s like the Flood.
Alone a Flood spore is not an issue. Seventy of them together becomes a huge problem. Sadly, that’s how I feel about Campaign Evolved, with its endless little issues that keep multiplying. This could and should have been amazing, a ground‑zero restart for a new generation. What we got was half‑hearted, middle of the road and, for a lifelong fan, a let‑down.
- Halo: Campaign Evolved review – Combat Disengaged
- Rhythm Paradise Groove review – Another Groove in Paradise
- The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu review – Dripping in Atmosphere
