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- Halo: Campaign Evolved review – Not daring enough
Halo: Campaign Evolved review – Not daring enough
Halo: Campaign Mostly the Same but with Modern Rendering.
Halo Studios
- Cole Luke
Published: Thursday, 23 July 2026 at 4:00 pm
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A star rating of 3 out of 5.
When the original Halo: Combat Evolved released on Xbox in 2001, it truly was an evolution, making the first-person shooter genre more viable on consoles than ever, along with new graphics tech such as pixel shaders, not to mention the incredible multiplayer. It truly felt like a generational leap.
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Halo: Campaign Evolved is essentially a relatively simple remake; a graphical overhaul, and similarly to Metal Gear Solid Delta, the shiny new lick of paint highlights that the original game is a quarter of a century old and not enough has been done to freshen up the experience, and so whilst it is not bad, it feels at odds with itself.
Clearly, a lot of love and care has been poured into it, with a great reverence for the original, but perhaps a little too much.
That aside, what is new in Halo: Campaign Evolved are the tweaks made to the core gameplay, which is entirely customisable.
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If you want it to play exactly as old Halo, then you can. By default, things such as sprinting are enabled, which I made liberal use of.
I grew up on very fast PC shooters, such as Quake and Unreal Tournament, so I have always found Halo a little slow, but with game design that did not necessarily have that in mind, you can quite quickly blitz through areas, or swiftly get ahead of allies like Sergeant Johnson, where they often teleport back into place.
A Spirit flying above a Warthog next to a grassy cliff in Halo: Campaign Evolved. Halo Studios
Enemy AI is also not very good, and it becomes far too easy to cheese your way through missions. As soon as I found the Needle Rifle, it was over.
There are also the new prequel missions, which are largely fine, but they quickly become quite boring, with endless shooting galleries.
They do explore some interesting locales, such as a sprawling Dome within a Covenant ship, holding a hunting ground with rocky outcrops and UNSC Marines fighting for their lives within.
There is a fun sequence at the end where you get to take control of a Covenant ship in space, and really, this felt like the only true evolution of Halo: Campaign Evolved, and I wish the developers had explored more ways of pushing the boat out there.
Largely, the graphical overhaul is good, but it especially shines in missions such as The Truth and Reconciliation that take place at night. Unreal Engine 5’s Lumen is put to good use, making these missions far more dynamic-looking than ever.
Master Chief wielding an assault rifle at a glowing orb in Halo: Campaign Evolved. Xbox Game Studios
Unreal Engine 5 is not without its flaws, though. It was quite heavy to run on PC, and whilst it looks very good when still, there are plenty of lighting and temporal artefacts that I found very distracting at times when you start moving.
The whole time, I asked myself, "Would I rather play this, or the original?", and often found myself opting for the latter.
The original had a certain sense of scale and otherworldliness that is lost in the more "realistic" depiction. There is so much micro-detail in the areas outside that what once felt like an impossibly expansive space now feels a bit generic.
Perhaps my biggest bugbear with Halo: Campaign Evolved is the art direction of the Forerunner architecture, though this is nothing new in the series. The big offender is the Halo ring itself, with the detail on the underside of the ring giving the impression that it is much smaller than it actually is, thus reducing the overall impact of seeing it.
The sound design of the weapons, whilst good in its own right, doesn’t live up to the iconic originals. Granted, this is likely down to nostalgia, but it feels odd for a remake of a game that was so seminal not to lean more into it.
Something I consider to actually be bad is the lack of multiplayer, which surely is an absolute no-brainer to include in a Halo game, considering there is already online functionality with co-op.
Overall, Halo: Campaign Evolved is absolutely fine. It is largely inoffensive; it just feels like something of a missed opportunity.
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We have seen far more interesting remakes over the years, such as Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2, which go far further in experimenting and trying out new concepts, whilst retaining the core of what made the original games special.
Post Campaign Evolved, if I want to play Halo, I will sooner launch Halo: The Master Chief Collection and experience how the games evolved over time, with the context that I am meeting a game largely as it was at the time that it was first released.
With a recent report suggesting that there are no new Halo games currently in production and all the controversy surrounding Xbox at the moment, Halo: Campaign Evolved feels a bit like meeting an old friend from school who is always trying to relive the glory days, but comes off as a bit sad, which is a real shame, as the franchise deserves far better.
If you are an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, it is well worth a spin. The retail price is fair too, for what’s on offer, but with so many exciting upcoming games, I’d maybe save my pennies for something else.
Halo: Campaign Evolved launches in early access 23 July 2026 and 28 July 2026 for the wider release on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. We reviewed on PC.
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Authors
Cole LukeFreelance Writer
Cole Luke is a freelance journalist and video producer who contributes to Radio Times Gaming. He also has bylines for Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, Network N and more.
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