You can say a single-player campaign is truly great if revisiting it is as much fun as your first playthrough, even if you remember how it all unfolds step by step. Pistol blasts at scrambling infantry, pelting elites with plasma grenades, tearing Flood like bubble wrap with an assault rifle; Halo: Campaign Evolved recaptured the familiar feeling of playing the original on a rented Xbox at my grandma’s house in 2001. But as much as I adore Halo’s campaign and its simple but clever combat design, hits can only be played so often. With the base game, Anniversary Edition, and Master Chief Collection available in 2026, it’s easy to view this remake as more of a test of the Unreal Engine than anything else. There’s a new batch of Skulls and three prequel missions to sweeten the deal, making for a few hours of fun to run through, but the changes beyond the graphical overhaul are otherwise minor, and overall they don’t completely improve or detract from what I played 25 years ago. So, while it’s nice to see Halo age, we’ve been down this road many times before.
Halo: Campaign Evolved – first screenshots
There aren’t really any surprises here for anyone who’s played Halo before; Master Chief awakens when the UNSC flagship is captured by the alien Covenant and escapes, landing on a mysterious ring-shaped planet. Through the twists and turns of various biomes and chrome-plated halls of the Forerunners, you uncover the truth about Halo itself, paving the way for the rest of the series. It’s a clean, serious story that, in retrospect, seems surprisingly simple. And let’s not forget that Master Chief, along with Cortana, personified the feeling that dudes rockespecially when you’re driving the Warthog at full speed when the classic theme song starts playing.
Campaign Evolved includes several brand new cutscenes that oscillate between banal and simply Great. Driving up to the beach in the Pelican for The Silent Cartographer is a little more challenging, but I miss the original first-person flight experience, and the scene on the bow of the Pillar of Autumn in the first mission kind of kills the sense of urgency. While these are attempts to make the story more cinematic and detailed, they sometimes lack the natural flow they replaced.
Halo’s combat crew remains the same all these years later.“
Overall, there’s beauty in how quickly Halo reacts to impact, and it was this initial setup of a distinct sci-fi world that set the stage for some of the best-designed gunplay of its era, which revolutionized first-person gaming on consoles at the time. The sense of wonder that comes with trying to figure out what direction to take while exploring Halo itself, as Covenant ships constantly drop Marines, Elites, and Jackals, created encounters that felt organic and varied. On their own, this mixture of enemies was strong enough for the main fights, and when they’re accompanied by armor-clad Hunters or cloaked elites lurking with energy swords, I’m reminded that Halo was much more than just a scripted shooting gallery. And it’s still a serious challenge on legendary tracks, rivaling modern FPS campaigns. As annoying as it can be to wipe from something like the annoying suicidal Grant running around with two plasma grenades in his hand, you just have to suck it up and play a little smarter next time. Positioning, grenade placement, and making the most of any available weapon is part of why Halo’s combat crew remains the same all these years later.
In some areas, repeating corridors are actually used for too long. Make your way through the Library with Guilty Spark, make your way through the corridors of Covenant ships, or return back during the “Two Betrayals”; these aren’t the most exciting parts of Halo. However, the fundamentals of its iconic, satisfying gunplay still make it at least enjoyable to replay. Moments like the ability to pilot a Banshee or Scorpion tank through snowy valleys and engage in open firefights with the freedom of Halo make the lulls a little more forgivable.
Unreal Engine 5 update technically What’s impressive is that high-end games built in Unreal often come close to photorealism. These smaller details are definitely noticeable, which is all the more obvious since I replayed this campaign in the Master Chief Collection just prior to this review. However, loyalty alone is not what made Halo sustainable, and a change in atmosphere is also a change in personality. It feels like every surface has a glossy sheen to it, like it’s been strangely polished by gallons of Brasso. I remember the same debate when Anniversary Edition came out, but at least it had an instant visual switch button, and Campaign Evolved doesn’t because it’s a remastered game. Changing the aesthetics doesn’t hurt the experience, and while it’s nice to see modernization, it’s not always necessarily a stylistic improvement.
In some UE5 games I notice a strange fuzziness in the image quality that is present here, almost like weird film grain that can’t be turned off, and some weird distortion around weapon models when you’re in motion. However, there are times when the visual overhaul left me stunned. The way the setting sun shone through the cracks on the Pillar of Autumn in The Maw added to the dark, melancholic feel of the final mission. The way the plasma weapons illuminated the walls of the cave as the Covenant and the Flood fought within it added depth to the cramped spaces and chaotic battles within. Along with the mood lighting and slimy biomechanical motifs of later missions, this reinforced the idea that the original Halo could have a slight touch of horror at times.
Campaign Evolved is also sort of a Frankenstein of the other Halo games. The physics and controls seem to be heavily based on Halo: Reach, and the character models are borrowed from other games. These are some of the more subtle examples, but much more noticeable is the inclusion of several weapons that couldn’t be used in the original. The purist in me wasn’t always a fan of this move, but when I was launching Fuel Rods at enemies, lunging with Energy Swords, or taking out the Flood with the Sentry Beam, I really couldn’t complain as they feel incredible to use and add variety to the fight.
I feel the same way about the addition of sprinting, which changes the rhythm of the campaign in key parts and makes it easier to get through long stretches of hallways (and allows me to rush past encounters I’d rather not be in at all). Health kits have been scrapped in favor of health regeneration, the rocket launcher can lock onto vehicles, and you can also keep equipment hidden to activate it whenever you want – these aren’t huge changes on their own, but I for one appreciate the ability to hit an Overshield just before attacking two Hunters at once.
While it’s nice to see modernization, it’s not always a stylistic improvement.“
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Skulls, little secret modifiers you’ll find in the most unexpected places of every mission. This is a carryover from the Anniversary Edition, with several new ones added. In my opinion, the Skulls were one of the more interesting ways to add replay value to the campaign, as you had to both hunt them down and repeat missions with them active. Runs can get quite bizarre with silly changes like Grunt Birthday Party or difficult ones where you can only charge your shield through melee kills. Remix modifiers are a welcome addition, allowing you to randomize the types of enemies you face or the weapons you pick up throughout the campaign. I love how quirky these things can be, and in the absence of PvP multiplayer, they can spice up co-op experiences with absolute chaos – mostly good.
The big attraction, however, are the three new prequel missions, which take place a year before the events of the main campaign. A rescue mission by Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson to rescue UNSC Marines being held captive on a Covenant ship, and while these aren’t exactly groundbreaking levels, they follow the template of a traditional Halo campaign in terms of encounter design and objectives. This also means that some of your time is again spent bobbing and weaving through the ship’s corridors while you mow down the usual suspects.
Few moments truly shine as brightly as UE5’s dazzling new plasma grenade flash. The gilded halls of the ship’s upscale quarters lend a retrofuturistic aesthetic similar to Destiny’s Leviathan raid, and the open combat arenas are a clever way to flesh out the lore of these prequel missions while providing a little more room for those open-ended encounters that Halo has historically been good at.
The story’s implications add a bit of depth to our understanding of the Covenant, even if they don’t move the needle in terms of what’s established in Halo’s existing story. The narrative itself relies on cheesier action tropes, but I’m not one to appreciate that part of the series. And if that means more time with the Chief and Johnson, I’m not going to turn my nose up at it.
I appreciate the roughly two hours that it adds bonus missions, considering it feels more like Halo.“
Combat features typical Covenant waves of enemies, but the new Brutes bring a fun twist to combat encounters. They have a glowing chip on their chest and will go berserk and attack anything in sight if you shoot it, which can be useful in tougher battles. It’s also fun to flick the chip and just watch them ride into town on defenseless foot soldiers. As impressive as they are when they charge at you, keep a powerful needle rifle handy to make short work of them, or any enemy for that matter. I was also excited about the dogfights that were showcased in the lead-up to release, and while it was a bit of fun to send the Seraph into the stars for real space combat, it didn’t last long and ended just as it started to take off.
Halo: The Complete Playlist
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I appreciate the roughly two hours that bonus missions add in, given that this is more Halo (and technically new) Halo, and I’m glad that co-op is seamlessly woven into the experience. But when so much of Halo’s legacy is tied to PvP multiplayer (and maybe a bit of PvE Firefights), I can’t help but feel like there’s something important missing from the campaign-only remake. So who is it for? Well, it’s for Halo Studios; a goodwill gesture that they have charted a technical path forward for a franchise that has not received much attention in recent years and is expected to be part of Xbox’s growing reliance on reviving legacy franchises. With that in mind, Campaign Evolved proves that while the original Halo didn’t really need a remake, it at least still has some spark left, and hopefully it will lead to fresher ideas.