Halo: Campaign Evolved Review – It’s Beautiful, But Is That All?

The original Halo: Combat Evolved is like that pretty girl who used to live next door that you secretly had a crush on back in 2001.

If you’re wondering what the heck I’m on about, just stick around. It’ll all make sense by the end.

If you’re an Xbox or Halo fan, then you might think Halo: Campaign Evolved was made for someone just like you. Let me be brutally honest with you up front. I wouldn’t be so sure.

To watch the video review on our YouTube channel instead, click here or the image below.

Just A Beautiful Face?

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a full-blown Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original from 2001. Well… a remake of some of it anyway. For the first time ever, it’s releasing on PlayStation as well as Xbox, and it’s undeniably pretty, packed with visual flair and detail, updated cinematics and a redesigned Cortana. It’s even a whole lot better looking that Halo Infinite.

If you compare Halo: Campaign Evolved to both the original game and the Master Chief Collection remaster, it’s easy to see just how extensive the visual overhaul is. What I particularly like, though, is that compared to the remaster, this version carries much more of the original game’s visual tone. It looks familiar, but feels much closer to what I remember Halo looking like in my head.

The water in this game looks insanely pretty.

It’s What’s Inside That Counts

Besides that, though, Halo: Campaign Evolved is mostly the same game underneath, with some updated level design, modernised controls and a few additional abilities. Other than that, it’s designed to deliver that iconic Halo feel, and it absolutely succeeds.

The downside is that it also shows its age, with clunky mission design and level pacing that often has you driving or running through the same areas a little too often.

Despite some of the modernisation, not every new addition really changes the experience, and I still occasionally found myself getting lost because of how repetitive some of the original level layouts are.

Even with the improved visuals, and even a skull that lets you play in third person, this is still fundamentally the same Halo you played back then, then replayed, and probably replayed again with friends.

There’s nothing fundamentally new here that makes you feel like you need to experience the campaign all over again.

If you want to a better idea of what an actual remake should look and feel like, check out my recent review of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced or the Silent Hill 2 Remake.

New Content… But Not Much

The developers have added some bonus missions, and while they curiously begin with a Star Wars-style text crawl, it is nice to see some genuinely new story content with additional cutscenes. Unfortunately, they’re not really anything to write home about.

Honestly, it would have been fantastic to see a proper campaign expansion bundled into Halo: Campaign Evolved instead.

Some level geometry has been changed a lot, while many areas remain nearly identical.

The Master Chief Collection Problem

When it comes to Xbox, there’s a bit of an elephant in the room, and that elephant is the Master Chief Collection.

This brings me back to that beautiful girl next door.

Unfortunately, one day her parents packed everything up, sold the house and moved away, taking her, and your dreams, with them.

Years later, you bump into her again in college. Somehow she’s even more beautiful than before, she’s still into you… and she brought friends.

That’s the Master Chief Collection.

So the question for Xbox players is simple. Why would you ever need anything more?

No Multiplayer Changes Everything

Before answering that question, though, there’s something else we need to address.

If you didn’t already realise from the title, this is Halo: Campaign Evolved.

It includes solo play, online co-op and split-screen campaign, but it’s completely missing one of the biggest reasons many of us fell in love with Halo in the first place.

There’s no versus multiplayer.

Halo: Campaign Evolved and its Unreal Engine can do many things, but letting you 360 bitch-slap your friend from behind before giving them a healthy dose of the bag is not one of them.

Yes, I tested it.

Even in third person.

Brewing a fresh one on a Covenant Elite’s forehead just isn’t the same.

Speaking of Halo multiplayer, if you’re wondering if Halo: Infinite multiplayer is any good these days, I have just the video you need right HERE (or you can click the image below).

Modern Technology Meets Old Design

While there’s still plenty of Halo charm here, there are also a few technical issues.

At launch, Halo: Campaign Evolved repeatedly kicked me back to the main menu whenever I used Quick Resume because, even while playing solo, it insisted I had lost connection to the online servers.

Split-screen performance on Xbox Series X is also surprisingly rough, even in Performance Mode. On top of that, each player gets such an ultra-wide split-screen view that we genuinely struggled to see what was happening while sitting fairly close to a 65-inch television.

Modern hardware has certainly made the game prettier, but it hasn’t solved every problem.

Gameplay has some new additions, but nothing groundbreaking.

The Girl Next Door

So, if Halo: Combat Evolved is the girl next door, and the Master Chief Collection is meeting her years later in college looking even better and bringing friends, then who exactly is Halo: Campaign Evolved?

Halo: Campaign Evolved reminds me of those before-and-after celebrity photos where someone was already beautiful, started getting older, then went and got a whole bunch of cosmetic surgery to try and stay relevant.

But that was never the reason they stopped getting hired in the first place.

Everyone else simply moved on. They honed their skills, learned new tricks and evolved.

That’s Halo: Campaign Evolved in a nutshell.

It looks beautiful, better than it’s ever looked. The problem is that underneath the gorgeous Unreal Engine visuals and the word “remake”, it’s still fundamentally the same Halo. When you call something a remake, there’s an expectation that it does more than simply look better.

Unfortunately, there just isn’t that much more here beyond a very pretty face.

Verdict(s)

That doesn’t mean you should dismiss Halo: Campaign Evolved completely.

Ultimately, Halo: Campaign Evolved is a very decent visual remake, but without the major gameplay changes needed to truly bring it into the modern age. If you want an example of what I mean, just look at Resident Evil 2 and the remake Capcom created. It remained respectful to the original while simultaneously delivering something that felt completely fresh.

My recommendation changes depending on where you’re planning to play.

For Xbox players and Halo fans

For you, there simply isn’t enough that’s new here. There’s no multiplayer, there are a few technical hiccups, and honestly, the Master Chief Collection already offers most of this and so much more. There’s very little reason to buy this when you can simply jump back into the Master Chief Collection through Game Pass.

For PS5 players

If you’re on PS5 and you’ve always wanted to taste that forbidden Halo fruit, this is your opportunity. If you’ve never played Halo before, the campaign is still great fun, especially in co-op. If you’re looking for something to play right now, you could certainly do worse.

Otherwise, we’ve all waited over twenty-five years to see Halo arrive on PlayStation. You’re really not missing much by waiting a little longer and picking it up during a sale.

Final Thoughts

In many ways, Halo: Campaign Evolved feels less like a bold remake and more like a probe being sent out to scan the PlayStation audience for new customers while simultaneously testing how well Halo translates into Unreal Engine 5.

It also feels entirely possible that this may end up being both the first and last Halo game to arrive on PlayStation. There was probably a much bigger plan in motion that got derailed when Xbox came under new leadership, but that’s a different story altogether.