Halo: Campaign Evolved Review

It feels slightly bizarre to be writing a review of Halo in 2026. I still vividly recall queuing up at midnight to pick up my original Xbox console, and getting to play Halo: Combat Evolved on the in-store kiosk there for the first time. And now, 25 years later, I’m playing the same game again, only improved in almost every way.

I’ll not bother you with the recap of what is going on, but as this is where the series (although not the timeline) starts, it still feels important to what we would come to know and love about Halo. There are alien races, religious zealots, twists and turns, and even for a story that remains unchanged, has been thrilling to relive again.

The real meat of this remake is in the various visual and quality of life upgrades. Halo Studios have taken to Unreal Engine 5 to buff the game, breaking tradition with their bespoke engine. UE5 comes with its own flaws, no doubt, but on the whole there’s no denying this remake feels like Halo: CE in every way. The environments look as we remember them, but obviously with a hell of a visual upspuff. Halo’s lush greens, industrial metal ungrounds, and the Covenant’s space ship interiors have never looked better. All of this is bolstered by real time raytracing, lumen, megalights – basically everything UE5 can throw out there in accounted for. It looks stunning across the board, and is far more of an improvement over the Anniversary Edition from the 360. Not only does this version have extra bells and whistles from the better tech, but Halo Studios have stuck far closer to the original design ethos, not shying away from the darker look at times, and giving us a colour palette far more in line with 2001.

Performance is also excellent. When running in the performance mode we get a solid 60fps while retaining a lot of the bells and whistles. Fidelity mode drops it to 30fps, and frankly is pretty horrible to play, so we’d suggest sticking to the higher framerate. It feels sluggish and muddy despite the higher resolution, whereas the performance mode just sings at all times.

Also unlike Anniversary, which stuck a shiny wrapper over the original game warts and all, Campaign Evolved is a proper, ground up remake. Levels have been tweaked to feel a bit more seamless, enemy encounters have redesigned combatants and waves in some areas, and the checkpointing and guiding is far better now than ever. In the mission Halo, it was easy to get turned around when looking for the three groups of UNSC marines that had crashed as the general area looked identical at every turn. While it’s easier to navigate now thanks to better level design, we’re also better led with waypoint markers to ensure we don’t get lost. 

Rerecorded dialogue and reworked cutscenes also help to make reliving a campaign I’ve played countless times feel exciting again. The beats are the same, but the dialogue is better written and performed this time round. I’m not a fan of the pre-rendered cutscenes however, as they feel like a throwback to an era that we don’t need any more considering how great the in game characters look. We can also bedazzle John’s armour with various skins in-game, but these are then not represented in the cutscenes which feels like a bit of an oversight. 

That bedazzling will come in handy, as up to four players can now co-op the campaign, and each can have their own look rather than just a different colour armour. The same is true for the new three mission bonus campaign. Set before the main game, Master Chief and Sgt.  Johnson team up to infiltrate a Covenant base for intel. It’s a credit to Halo Studios that these missions don’t feel out of place or there for the sake of being there. Instead they offer more of the same excellent gunplay and combat scenarios, as well as more lore for dedicated players to lap up. There are a few quirks to be found though; we meet Brutes here for the first time, as well as one of the prophets, which didn’t show their face until Halo 2, and it feels odd to hear John calling out information that’d usually come from Cortana (she doesn’t join him until the start of Halo). But these are small niggles in an otherwise very welcome addition to the campaign. 

Other improvements in the main game come in the form of new weapons from later games (such as the needler rifle and SMG), as well as being able to pick up ans store overshields and invisibilty power ups as opposed to them activating automatically. We can now sprint as well, and while things like dual wielding or mantling don’t make an appearance, the new and improved controls feel good, like this is how things always have been.

One thing that I’m not super fond of is the way saves are handled, especially between devices. I’ve played on Xbox, PC, and ROG Xbox Ally X, and if I’m part way through a level on one, I cannot seem to pick up from a checkpoint on the others, instead having to replay the entire level. This feels like an oversight, especially as the campaign isn’t drop in drop out co-op, which leads me onto – single player and co-op are separate campaigns. While we can pick a level we’ve cleared previously when jumping into co-op, we can’t just progress one save file in either mode. I’m not a fan of this set up, and would much rather my friends just be able to jump into my campaign progress to help me, rather than me playing some levels with them, and then playing the same levels again solo to catch up.

An always online connection also hampers things. Leaving the game in Quick Resume should be a no brainer, especially when playing solo. But almost every time I’ve reloaded the game after a break I’ve been kicked back to the main menu and asked to reconnect to the servers, often losing some progress along the way. Add these two points together, and you can see why I’ve replayed some encounters (or even levels) twice at this point, and it means I’m constantly cautious about where I decide to call it for an evening, hoping I won’t need to replay more of the same again tomorrow.

It’s also a massive shame that we get no PvP included here seeing how it was a fundamental reason that the original game was so beloved. I understand this is just the campaign – which is still very good – but while I’m playing I can’t help but get the urge to want to jump on some Big Team Battle on Blood Gulch, imagining how much fun it’d be with the improvements they’ve made within the campaign. Maybe next time, lads?

There are at least various other add-ons to play with when the campaign is done, like Remix which messes with the levels and enemies to keep things fresh, and the machinima mode, so you too can make your own stab at Red vs Blue like fame. Skulls also return to add modifiers to the game once they’ve been found, and finding them is a fun little meta-game in itself.

Conclusion

While it’s not a perfect remake thanks to a few niggles (and a distinct lack of PvP), there’s no denying that Halo: Campaign Evolved takes what was so beloved about the original and improves on it in many ways. It looks incredible, the quality of life improvements and reworked levels are welcome, and whether you’re back after 25 years or brand new, this is still a standout FPS that needs to be played.