Let’s get the key detail out of the way: This is the first time I have ever officially donned the legendary, green Mark VI armor.
I’ve never owned an XBOX, and I never really played Halo at someone’s house. But I’m not clueless and oblivious. I know how important Halo is to both the shooter genre and gaming in general, and I was as excited as anyone to see a pig flying past my window, holding up a sign saying Halo would be on PS5.
Campaign Evolved is Halo Studios‘ epic rejuvenation of the iconic first instalment. It’s a remake 25 years in the making, and the missions and level design unfortunately show this in spades at times, but it’s still a refreshing and competent single-player shooter in a market sorely lacking them.
Divine and Decadent
I got chills when I booted up Halo: Campaign Evolved, with the spine-tingling choir bellowing out one of gaming’s most famous motifs.
It was real. I was about to properly play Halo.
Within a couple of missions, the stage had been set: Master Chief is a war-torn supersoldier (a Spartan) with more hype and aura than the members of BTS combined. He’s tasked with staving off an alien race called the Covenant, wanting to use the planet ‘Halo,’ which they believe to be a weapon, and therein begins our quest.
Honestly, I loved the story and loved the characters. Master Chief and Cortana’s dynamic is great, with our AI companion’s somewhat unseriousness playing the perfect foil to the Chief’s more stoic nature. Each scene plays out through highly detailed cutscenes that feel right at home in 2026.
Don’t worry, I’ve done my due diligence by researching and comparing a lot of what I played to 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved—feel old yet?
Campaign Evolved is a huge upgrade from a graphical standpoint. Environments ripple with a rich layer of new textures and patterns, and every level feels alive, even if many of them do end up being endless labyrinths of the same room or corridor.
Around and Around We Go
Combat Evolved is over two decades old, and it certainly innovated at the time: A regenerating shield instead of traditional health pickups, limited weapons, and the diversity of its closed and open gameplay sections.
Whereas Campaign Evolved is a product that reflects a previous time, and its design and structure, unfortunately, do the same.
The remake features the original 10 campaign missions, along with three bonus escapades to quench your insatiable thirst for capping the Covenant. The start is electric, from escaping the overrun ‘Pillar of Autumn,’ to exploring the curious ringworld planet.
I found the first half of the campaign to be electric…until I started to get deja vu.
The final third of the game is quite jarring, as many missions are repetitive slogs through the same twisty, turny corridors, rooms built from the same rehashed blueprints. You also end up backtracking through several levels, which also lessened my immersion by the end, but it was obviously a conscious design choice to ease development back in the day.
The Library—which has been reworked for the remake—is the most egregious of the lot. If you’re someone who wasn’t a fan of it back in the day, this won’t do anything to change your mind.
Even one of the three new prequel missions included a level that felt like a reskinned version of the same ship and corridors again. It was perplexing, as is the finale to the prequel chapters, which also left me greatly underwhelmed and deflated, thanks to a boring vehicle section that clearly tried to replicate the magic of Campaign Evolved.
The second mission is fantastic, and the missions include later Halo weapons you don’t get in the OG campaign. They’re not ‘must-play,’ but a welcome addition to the overall package.
I have great fondness for the variety in Campaign Evolved, from flying vehicles to using powerful turrets—there’s just not quite enough of it.
Without multiplayer (although co-op is enabled), this is a solid FPS, but I do have to raise questions about the $49.99 price tag, especially as it took me around 9-10 hours to beat all 13 missions.
What I won’t question is how fun combat in Halo: Campaign Evolved is, and how tight the gunplay feels.
Master Chief Up To Mischief
My head constantly bobbed along to the futuristic songs that accompanied me, Master Chief, and Cortana, and I was content for those kickass tracks to be overshadowed by the furious rattle of the Assault Rifle, the ray gun-like pews of pulse weapons, and everything else, really.
I can see why people talk about Halo’s lore and lineage with such reverence. Bungie nailed the atmosphere back in the day, and old-school fans should be more than pleased with Halo Studios’ homage to the groundbreaking original.
The soundtrack earns top-class honors, and the shortfalls in the game design are countered by the excellence of the game’s overall feel. From the spiky hell of the Needler to the calamity caused by a Rocket Launcher, the slow burn of greater firepower ramps up throughout the story, and even I was overjoyed to finally swing the Energy Sword like an aggressive fencer.
A lot of features from later Halo games have made it here, so it certainly lives up to the remake label by not stringently sticking to the source material—including MANY more tricky skulls to find.
Campaign Remix is a new feature that lets you use all the new skulls, mix them up, and randomize them to create some of the most unique experiences in Halo yet.
Weapons feel great, sound great, and they have a great heft to them. Enemy AI is exceptionally tricky, with numerous Covenant types bouncing around the screen, forcing me to rethink my strategy. I didn’t find the Flood much fun to fight, but at least it provides a midgame switch that (again) might require you to alter your arsenal.
While the level design falters towards the end, the visual spectacle doesn’t; if anything, it gets better. The Covenant and the Flood battling each other make for a sci-fi epic, and throw Master Chief into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for a delicious disaster.
Halo: Campaign Evolved Review Verdict
Do you risk changing too much of the original campaign and risk upsetting purists? I think Halo Studios chose to err on the side of caution, maybe a bit too much at times. Campaign Evolved can feel dated, and the lack of multiplayer is a sore point and detriment to the overall value.
But Halo: Campaign Evolved is a must-play game for newcomers to Halo. If you haven’t played it since the Anniversary remaster or Master Chief Collection, then it’s also a definite recommendation. This is a great-sounding, amazing-looking first-person shooter with a highly enjoyable story.
Halo 1 is rightly heralded as a groundbreaking FPS, and rumors suggest that more Halo remakes are on the way. This proves that Halo Studios has the minerals to make them classy, and I can’t wait to play more chapters of this storied series.
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Halo: Campaign Evolved
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Halo: Campaign Evolved
Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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