Halo: Campaign Evolved Review — Same Same, But Different

To be honest, it’s been so long since I played the original Halo, I can barely remember anything about it, but booting up Halo: Campaign Evolved jogged my memory, like a hazy fever dream you remember halfway through a normal workday. You can’t quite remember the details, but the feeling remains.

Firstly, Campaign Evolved is a full remake of the original Halo single-player story from 2001, using Unreal Engine 5 to bring the game and visuals up to speed. It was a good call, because UE5 manages to still capture the colourful, otherworldly sci-fi aesthetic of the original game, without looking too ‘realistic’, if that makes sense. Halo always had a stylistic twist on the designs of ships, aliens, and environments, and that’s all tastefully maintained here.

The biggest differences come in the sharpening of certain textures, fluidity of the animations, and some particle effects during combat, which, admittedly, are really pretty. The plasma rifle and grenades are standouts, with the colourful blasts and explosions adding some serious eye-candy to the gunfights.

Gameplay-wise, it feels very similar to the original, although the new engine makes the responsiveness of the controls a whole lot better. Keep in mind, this is from a time when looking down the ironsights of guns (barring the sniper rifle) wasn’t really a thing yet. So, you get the same run, gun, ‘n jump style gameplay with a subtle zoom for accuracy, and if you’re OK with that, you’re in for a good time.

Of course, with the new engine comes a vast improvement during cutscenes. The story bits from the 2001 entry (which looked revolutionary at the time, but now quite dated) are redone with UE5’s spiffy facial animations and eye-candy tricks, delivering a far more compelling and immersive background to what’s going on with this beloved war between species.

The campaign itself remains identical to the original, but Evolved brings three brand-new prequel missions where you play as Master Chief alongside Sergeant Johnson, leading up to the original game’s beginning. They’re enjoyable but don’t mix up the Halo formula too much.

As the name would imply, this is very much focused on the campaign, so there’s no iconic multiplayer thrown into the mix (which is totally understandable given that Microsoft wants to promote more modern Halo releases), but you can play play through the campaign in co-op, with split-screen co-op available too, which is awesome (why can’t more devs add local co-op again!?).

Verdict

So, is it worth it? I think Halo is old enough now to warrant a remake, despite having some polished-up versions over the years. Add in the fact that it’s now finally available on the Playstation platform, giving those who were Playstation die-hards the chance to play it, and it’s a win. It could’ve been a little bit cheaper than its full retail price, but it looks great and is still a solid game despite the skeleton of the experience being a quarter of a century old.