Halo: Campaign Evolved Review. Evolution that stopped in 2001

Halo Studios promised us the return of a legendary classic, but in reality, they released a polished museum exhibit. It turned out that behind the beautiful facade of Unreal Engine 5 lies the same game design from the 2000s, and the game is more disappointing than nostalgic.

It's amazing how the title of the original Halo matched what the game itself was. Combat Evolved was called an evolution – both of shooters in general and console entertainment in particular. Convenient gamepad controls, many multiplayer modes, a sense of fun and celebration. Back then, console games didn't offer all of this in the volumes that Halo dared to provide. Campaign Evolved was a benchmark, and 97 points on Metacritic were entirely deserved!

The remake, however, promises us an “evolved campaign” – let's talk about it.

They were clearly lazy

The player takes on the role of Master Chief – a Spartan supersoldier who crashes on the Halo. This is an ancient alien structure that the Covenant – a group of alien beings united in an intergalactic alliance – is exploring, with the goal of seizing the Halo and using it as a weapon in the fight against humans. Our goal: to stop them, figure out how the Halo works, and escape from it to return to Earth. Why? Because Master Chief's helmet contains a copy of an artificial intelligence – Cortana, who guides us through the entire plot, and we cannot allow her to fall into enemy hands.

Throughout the adventure, you will encounter betrayal, loss, and visit different regions and biomes of the Halo: from green meadows and rocky canyons to snow-covered Forerunner structures and misty swamps. And in every corner of this alien world, there is some secret, a hint, or a full-fledged story: what really happened here, who the Forerunners were, and why they really needed the Halo.

But what is described above is not the merit of Halo Studios. All of this was created by Bungie back in 2001! Even the lore from the terminals, which Saber Interactive invented for the first remaster, they managed to spoil: now instead of cinematic cutscenes, we get pieces of text that can only be read from the main menu. Heresy!

So what's Evolved?

As you understand, Halo Studios decided not to bother. Why change something that already worked well in 2001, right?

The developers decided to focus all their efforts exclusively on art, graphics, and design. In the credits, these departments were listed first – and only after them came programmers, engineers, and game design developers.

And this is clearly felt when you play Halo: Campaign Evolved. All gameplay situations, mechanics, their interaction with each other, enemy AI – all of this is taken directly from the 2001 game and almost unchanged. The player is free to use any means to win: fight in melee, take weapons from enemies, take their vehicles, shell Covenant forces from a tank, or cover them with rockets from a Banshee fighter...

But I wrote “almost” because some very subtle, barely noticeable changes are still there.

For example, the game's difficulty has clearly been rebalanced. Having once completed the original Combat Evolved on legendary difficulty, I remember almost every inch where the game tests the gamer's endurance. It forced me to think about tactics, to act depending on the types of enemies and weapons at my disposal.

I ran through Campaign Evolved's “Heroic” in 11 hours, and only suffered in two moments. And in both cases, the reason was my haste, not the difficulty. As soon as I calmed down and started studying the battlefield, acting according to the situation – I immediately moved on even with the most inefficient set of weapons.

To understand the scale of disappointment – the changes did not even affect the legendary, among the fan community, level “The Library”. More precisely, not quite. Halo Studios, of course, tried to correct Bungie's mistakes, but purely from a cosmetic point of view. Instead of long and monotonous corridors from Combat Evolved, we now have... A set of three rooms that repeat each other over and over again: a corridor with branches where enemies accumulate; a room with glass where ammunition and bonuses lie; a room with a door that needs to be opened or waited for it to be opened for you. That's it! Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Another innovation was sprint – now Master Chief can run fast whenever he wants, and not just walk slowly across the huge Halo. But how often did I use this mechanic? Only in combat, for a quick change of position and an attempt to restore shields. Because the levels haven't changed at all – Bungie didn't just cut sprint from Combat Evolved back in 2001.

If we're talking about what's truly new in the remake, the developers added three prequel missions that take place a year before the events of the first Halo. However, their quality leaves much to be desired – essentially, it's just a set of arenas in a fancy setting, somewhat reminiscent of Emperor Calus's ship from Destiny 2, without any plot-important events. And this only confirms my thoughts that Halo Studios didn't do anything with the original game because they understood – they would only spoil everything. And XBOX and Microsoft don't need failures right now.

Changing tracks in front of a moving train

Since there were no plot or gameplay changes – let's talk about the graphics.

I'll say something blasphemous: switching to Unreal Engine 5 was a mistake. 343 Industries spent years making their own engine and built an excellent Infinite on it. In some places, the graphical changes are almost minimal, and in some places, Infinite even looks better!

Yes, of course, there are levels and moments when my jaw literally dropped. For example, the Silent Cartographer mission is the benchmark of the entire remake. The water is incredibly beautiful, probably the highest quality in the industry today. The rocks are worked out to the smallest detail, and the general views of the level make you gasp with delight. But this is only one single mission.

Because almost the entire rest of the story takes place inside Forerunner structures on the Halo, inside underground laboratories or caves. Or even on a dark, impenetrable swamp due to fog. Because of this, the game looks like a plastic fake of the original Halo without a soul. As if I've seen this hundreds of times in other projects – the art and music here only work in those places where Bungie intended, and where the sterile style of Unreal Engine 5 could not ruin them.

By the way, from a technical point of view, Infinite even worked more stably than Campaign Evolved. Back in 2021, on an old RTX 2060, I had no problems with 343 Industries' game – no crashes, no lags, no freezes on the highest or near-highest settings. But with the remake of the first Halo on my RTX 5070 Ti, there were problems.

Although the game ran on “ultra” settings at 60+ frames per second almost all the time, in the last missions of the Halo: Campaign Evolved campaign, it simply crashed. And this is an officially recognized driver-level problem. I had to roll back to an older version to finish the game.

Verdict

Halo: Campaign Evolved, however painful it is for me to admit it, is a mediocre remake. It's more of a Demon's Souls-level remaster than an attempt to rethink or re-rail a 2001 project: the same gameplay, the same plot, the same levels, the same philosophy. And Halo Studios was just lucky that the original Combat Evolved has not aged a bit and will give many modern shooters a run for their money!

If you have a choice: play Campaign Evolved right now for the beautiful graphics, or buy the Master Chief Collection for a song during sales – I would advise you to choose the second option. All you will lose is a more modern picture, which is not always and everywhere good. But you will get exactly the same Combat Evolved, which to this day is a great and legendary shooter.