Developed on Unreal Engine 5, Campaign Evolved boasts upgraded visuals and a reimagined mission set comprising redesigned and new levels, incorporating mechanics, weapons and narrative additions new to Combat Evolved in order to reflect subsequent Halo games. The story cinematics and audio were also remade, featuring re-recorded dialogue from the game's principal voice cast. The game does not include the original game's competitive multiplayer, but does support four-player online cooperative multiplayer in addition to two-player split-screen on consoles. Campaign Evolved will also support cross-play and cross-progression across all platforms.
343 Industries assumed control over the Halo franchise following the release of Bungie's Halo: Reach in 2010, debuting with the remastered Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (2011) for Xbox 360 before developing new mainline entries through Halo Infinite in 2021. The development team restructured and rebranded to Halo Studios in 2024, simultaneously pivoting production of the series away from the proprietary Slipspace Engine used for Infinite towards Unreal Engine 5, and beginning work on Campaign Evolved as the inaugural game utilizing such technology as a means of introducing the series to new players ahead of a multiplatform release, a first for the franchise. The game was teased in October 2024 before being officially announced the following year.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved's (2001) campaign,[1] featuring redesigned missions with alterations to the level design and structure, along with new movement options and mechanics that reflect subsequent gameplay updates made in Combat Evolved's various sequels.[2] The ability to sprint, first introduced in Halo: Reach (2010) before being integrated into Master Chief's moveset from Halo 4 (2012) onwards, is enabled by default but can be toggled in-game for a more faithful experience.[3] As with Halo 2 (2004) onwards, the Chief is now able to hijack an assortment of vehicles piloted by the Covenant, such as the Wraith tanks, which are additionally destructible.[4] The "Warthog" vehicle has also been partially redesigned to include a fourth seat on the rear bumper, allowing a full four-man fireteam to be active at once while driving both offline and in multiplayer.[5] The enemy variety has also been updated to acknowledge later additions to Halo canon, such as the Flood comprising their 'pure' forms first introduced in Halo 3 (2007).[6]
Campaign Evolved adds a further eight weapons beyond the full selection available from the original Combat Evolved, including the Covenant energy sword, Battle Rifle, Fuel Rod Cannon and Sentinel Beam from Halo 2 and Halo 3, as well as the Needle Rifle from Reach.[7] As introduced in Halo 2 and subsequently incorporated into Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (2011), the game features numerous collectible Skulls that modify gameplay conditions by either debilitating player proficiencies or initiating absurd effects, such as a weapon randomizer or the classic 'Grunt Birthday Party' Skull which triggers an explosion of celebratory confetti upon landing a headshot.[8]
In addition to the original game's ten missions, Campaign Evolved includes three new missions set before the events of the game, focused on new locations and characters encountered by Master Chief and Sgt. Avery Johnson.[9] As the title suggests, Campaign Evolved excludes the competitive multiplayer included with the original Combat Evolved,[10] but still supports cooperative multiplayer throughout the story, with all platforms featuring online play with up to four players, including full cross-platform play and cross-progression, as well as the option for local two-player split-screen gameplay for the console versions.[8][11]
Development
Halo: Combat Evolved was developed by Bungie as a launch game for Microsoft's debut video game console, the Xbox in November 2001, spawning the Halo franchise as a tentpole first-party series for the platform.[12][13] After Bungie gained independence in 2007, Microsoft, which retained the rights to the Halo property, assembled 343 Industries as a first-party studio that would continue the franchise.[14][15] In October 2024, 343 Industries announced their formal rebranding as Halo Studios, intentionally done as a way to signal a fundamental change in the development team's internal philosophy, and to provide a clean break between eras of the franchise as previously done with transitioning between Bungie and 343.[16] Halo Studios simultaneously announced that multiple future games were in various stages of production, and that they were all set to be developed on the third-party Unreal Engine 5 as opposed to the proprietary Slipspace Engine technology they had produced for their latest game, Halo Infinite (2021).[17] Art director Chris Matthews cited Unreal's respective lighting and rendering technologies, Lumen and Nanite, as presenting opportunities for more interactable objects and player experiences, motivating the engine change.[18]
Among their new projects in Unreal Engine 5, Halo Studios initiated development on Campaign Evolved as a means of defining a fresh starting point for new players with little knowledge of the Halo storyline and universe, while laying the groundwork for future games in anticipation of both the franchise's 25th anniversary, and the growth in the potential addressable audience from a PlayStation release, a historical first for Halo.[19][20] Despite the graphics front-end being created in Unreal Engine 5, the team preserved elements of code from the original Blam engine created by Bungie and iterated on by 343 Industries, as a means of retaining Combat Evolved's distinct physics and computer-controlled enemy behavior.[21] Game director Greg Hermann asserted that the move to Unreal also enabled the team to refocus on the implementation of gameplay and content by relying on the technical support of Epic Games, as opposed to simultaneously managing engine and design responsibilities as they did creating Slipspace and producing Infinite.[20]
Design
Creative director Max Szalgor stated that an aim of Campaign Evolved is to faithfully rebuild every encounter and mission in Combat Evolved with enhancements to fidelity.[22] Fully remaking Combat Evolved also allowed the developers to rectify numerous design and accessibility constraints they were unable to address when working on the remastered Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary in 2011, such as improved wayfinding and navigation functions during traversal, and improvements to the diversity and pacing in enemy encounters, notably citing the sequencing of fights against the parasitic Flood in the game's seventh mission, "The Library."[23]
In addition, the team sought to integrate gameplay mechanics and features first introduced in later Halo games into Combat Evolved, namely the ability to wield every weapon used by the Covenant including the Energy Sword, which was not usable by the player until Halo 2 (2004), as well being able to hijack and commandeer all of their vehicles such as the Wraith tanks.[24] Skulls, collectible gameplay modifiers first introduced in Halo 2 before being incorporated into Combat Evolved Anniversary, are available in Campaign Evolved; the game boasts 'dozens' of Skulls to procure, the highest number present in any Halo campaign to date.[25]
As its subtitle suggests, Campaign Evolved eschews including the original game's competitive player versus player (PvP) multiplayer due to the development team's focus on refining the single-player campaign and expanding its respective cooperative multiplayer options. The game still supports four-player online co-op and cross-platform gameplay on all platforms with cross-progression, and retains the two-player local split-screen mode on consoles, which executive producer Damon Conn hoped would uphold the sense of community prevalent in Halo gameplay.[26][27]
Presentation
While Combat Evolved Anniversary simply graphically updated the original game, Campaign Evolved redoes several elements of the game's presentation, chief among them being completely new cinematics and audio that has been re-recorded with new performances from the original game's principal voice cast, including Steve Downes and Jen Taylor reprising their roles as John-117 / Master Chief and Cortana, respectively.[28] Game designer Dan Gnaidy stated that the developers reviewed the development assets they had access to from Combat Evolved's production to map the blocking and sequencing of scenes, in addition to referencing the original game assets and storyboards produced by Bungie.[6] The game's audio design has been revised, including the original score co-composed by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori being faithfully remastered.[4]
Release
A remake of Halo: Combat Evolved was first reported to be in development in June 2024 by The Verge, which additionally speculated that the game would target a multiplatform release amidst Microsoft Gaming's newly announced shift to agnostic games publishing that year.[29] The game was first teased alongside the announcement of the Halo series' pivot to Unreal Engine 5 at the Halo World Championships in October 2024, as part of a demonstration of 'Project Foundry', an in-engine visual exploration piece produced by Halo Studios to experiment with the series' aesthetics in the engine that was noted by commentators for evoking familiar biomes and designs from Combat Evolved.[30][31][18] The game was further teased by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer during the Xbox Games Showcase in June 2025 as being slated to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Halo and the Xbox brand.[32][33]Halo: Campaign Evolved was officially announced in October 2025 during that year's Halo World Championships, with a roundtable discussion by Halo Studios developers alongside a thirteen-minute gameplay demo of "The Silent Cartographer", which was also playable to attendees at the event.[34][35]
Halo: Campaign Evolved is set to be released for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S in 2026.[36] It will be available from launch on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass before being distributed to the lower-tier Standard and Premium plans within a year of release.[37][38] It is the first entry in the Halo franchise to be available on Sony's PlayStation consoles, a decision that Microsoft Gaming Content and Studios head Matt Booty attributed towards a desire to take games to where players existed irrespective of platform, due to lack of player attachment to current consoles and a reduced view of other platform holders such as Sony and Nintendo, as competition for Xbox next to other media.[39]Halo community manager Brian Jarrard, who wore a PlayStation-themed shirt to announce the game's availability on the platform, commented that the developers viewed Campaign Evolved as the beginning of a new era for the franchise that allowed the community to welcome more players with the shift away from Xbox exclusivity, asserting that future Halo games would also be slated to release on PlayStation going forward.[40][41] After the crossplay announcement, GameStop half-jokingly declared the console wars to be over. The official social media accounts of the White House responded with an AI-generated photo of President Donald Trump in Master Chief's armor, which led to widespread political discussion.[42][43][44]
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