Halo: Campaign Evolved - A Thorough & Brutally Honest Review

A 25-year-old classic with a beautiful new coat of paint and some fine additions, yet undercooked elements and weak new missions are a disservice to the original masterpiece

It's been a while since I've written a game review, but then again it's been a while since a Halo game has been released - nearly five full years in fact.

With such a lengthy break one would think the next mainline Halo title, a sequel to the great (but famously poorly supported post-launch which effectively killed it) Halo Infinite would be released by now. Unfortunately, as Halo fans know, 343 Industries, which has since been rebranded as "Halo Studios", and Microsoft as a whole have been struggling to limp through various self-inflicted wounds in the last few years.

After a long overdue culling of some of the top brass at 343 Industries, the newly-named Halo Studios announced in October 2024 that they were transitioning to use the Unreal Engine for all future projects.

Sadly, the overlords at Microsoft who were also involved in the abundance of poor decision-making over at 343, particularly whoever it was that greenlit the horrendously bad Halo TV show, along with the executives that insist on hiring temporary workers on 18-month contracts even when using a convoluted game engine that took many months just to learn the basics of, didn't see their heads on the chopping block.

This is why myself and many other Halo fans will continue to call the Redmond Washington-based developer "343 Industries" until they prove they deserve to be distanced from the controversial reputation they built for themselves.

Fast-forward to today, and a clear vision for the next mainline Halo release has yet to be revealed (only remakes of Halo 2 and 3 are confirmed to be in the pipeline) - not only that, but several canceled projects have come to light, like a multiplayer game led by the very talented Certain Affinity that apparently started as a battle royale, then changed into an extraction shooter before being canned by Microsoft, showing that Microsoft and the 343 execs have wasted countless resources over the years chasing trends rather than understanding what makes Halo the beloved franchise it was.

Now, on the eve of Halo: Combat Evolved's 25th anniversary, 343 Industries and Microsoft have finally released a new Halo game: a remake of the campaign that started it all.

The first Halo title already received a remaster for its tenth anniversary back in 2011, which was handled primarily by Saber Interactive (under 343's supervision), and was dubbed Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

The remaster wasn't bad per se, but it was effectively the exact same game with "better" visuals and very little modern improvements or additional content - I put "better" in quotes because while the remastered soundtrack and enhanced audio fidelity were impressive, the change in art style was not so well-done and rather drastically changed the tone and feel of the original in many areas.

To make matters worse, even ignoring the different art style, the game didn't look very good even in 2011 - the point of such a remaster is to bring visuals up to the latest standards, yet Anniversary's graphics paled in comparison to other releases of its time, bringing its entire reason for existence into question.

It also didn't include the original's multiplayer, instead adding a small sample of seven remade Halo and Halo 2 maps to Halo: Reach's multiplayer suite, which was the latest Halo game at the time. The paltry offering of maps in a completely different game hardly did justice to the original's legendary multiplayer, particularly given that Reach sported very different gameplay mechanics.

Three years later, Microsoft, 343 and Saber Interactive had learned from its mistakes and released the far superior Halo 2 Anniversary, which looked stunning and remained faithful to the original's style - so much so, that it still holds up extremely well today.

Though it didn't include the full suite of Halo 2's genre-defining multiplayer offering, it did include six beautifully remade Halo 2 maps playable in two modes, and it lessened the blow by being released as part of The Master Chief Collection.

That epic collection (which has since expanded and is a must-play for any FPS fan, particularly if one has a capable PC thanks to the wealth of additional content added through mods) included the first four Halo titles with 1080p resolutions and improved framerates in one launcher, along with all of their original multiplayer suites (including Halo 2's, sans Anniversary's overhaul) with full matchmaking.

Despite fans clamouring for Halo 3 to receive the Anniversary treatment given Halo 2's excellent release, Microsoft and 343, in their infinite wisdom, moved on from remakes.

Until recently of course, after they decided to pivot to a new engine.

With Microsoft's push to other platforms as well (which is now being reversed), it seemed like the perfect opportunity for the studio to return to the original and introduce a new audience to the Chief, to give the original game that started it all the treatment its Anniversary edition should have given it, and it was a great way for the studio to get familiar with the Unreal Engine before diving into their next mainline title.

Enter Halo: Campaign Evolved, which as its name implies, features only the campaign - albeit now with four-player, cross-platform co-op, in addition to classic two-player splitscreen co-op - and no multiplayer component, but at a discounted $50 US price tag (or included with Game Pass of course).

Warning: if you have never played through the original Halo: Combat Evolved campaign before but are considering picking up the remake, there are major spoilers ahead, so I'd suggest you stop reading this review and experience the campaign first. If you're new to the franchise, Campaign Evolved is definitely worth playing, but whatever you do, DO NOT start with the prequel missions (found in the menu under "Bonus Missions") - they are terribly made, not indicative of the quality of the original Halo story, and make a terrible introduction to the franchise.

Now, on to the review...

You know our motto, we deliver

If only 343 Industries was more like our ol' pal Foehammer and always delivered what the fans wanted.

Most importantly, in terms of gameplay, Campaign Evolved (mostly) delivers the classic Halo experience, with some smart additions/updates that bring it more in line with later entries.

Despite the engine change, the gunplay still feels great as do the vehicles, although the Warthog does feel slightly "floaty" - unloading a magazine from your Assault Rifle to drain an Elite's energy shields before punching him square in the face, popping off a series of headshots on a poor squad of Grunts with the wonderfully overpowered M6D Magnum, tearing through a Flood form with the classic M90 Shotgun, and splattering a Jackal with your Warthog as they try desperately to dive out of the way are all as satisfying as ever.

The lone issue I noticed with shooting mechanics was, although it's not major and should be simple enough to fix in a patch, that any switching of weapons/melee animations have to completely finish before the game will register any trigger pulls or reloads.

Switching weapons in particular creates a noticeable delay before you're able to fire, especially when pulling out something like the Magnum - it isn't game-breaking, but that delay can mean all the difference between surviving a close encounter and reloading from the latest checkpoint. For casual players that may not be able to tell exactly why it's happening, it's going to make them feel that the game is not as responsive as it should be, which is particularly annoying since that's never been an issue in the original Halo or any of its sequels.

Purists may take umbrage with the inclusion of sprint, but as this remake doesn't include any PvP multiplayer, it's really a non-issue here; if you want to use it, go ahead, if you don't, you certainly don't have to.

In fact, I regularly forgot it was even an option during combat encounters, but it is a nice thing to have if your vehicle is destroyed (or your friend(s) decide to drive away in a Warthog and leave you to fend for yourself) and you have to hoof it on foot during some of the game's more wide-open areas.

Objective markers have been updated to be clearer and persistent to help newcomers navigate the levels; for areas which require all enemies to be cleared out to progress, the last few are highlighted by a red marker placed over their position by default (although this has created one bug which causes enemies with active camo to also be highlighted, which obviously defeats the point of camo); and in keeping with modern norms, hit markers (white with more prominent red ones used to indicate a kill) are added - for purists, thankfully all of these can be turned off easily in the menus.

To bring the gameplay more inline with staples of the series that have been present since Halo 2, 343 smartly added the ability to board vehicles (the Wraith is also now driveable, which it wasn't in the original), swap weapons with your Marine buddies (pro tip - after using a power weapon such as the Rocket Launcher or Sniper Rifle, make sure to leave at least one round left and hand it to a Marine to gain a powerful ally), charged Plasma Pistol shots temporarily disable vehicles, and they replaced the old health-pack system with automatically recovering health following a short delay.

While the charged Plasma Pistol's increased damage and vehicle stunning-capabilities are nice, 343 has made charged shots into effectively one-hit kills if you get hit by one with virtually any previous damage, which is an odd and annoying change that should be reverted - the weapon is meant to be a master at taking down shields and far less damaging to health, not to take out your shields and kill you in one fell swoop.

For other weapon differences: the classic Magnum seems slightly less powerful than in the original, but also seems a bit more precise and is still amazing for dealing with tougher enemies or quickly culling lesser troops, though its iconic sound has also been made weaker and more generic; the MA5B Assault Rifle meanwhile has been changed to a 36-round magazine instead of 60 to bring it in line with Halo 3 and later games, with a tighter spread and lower fire rate over the first iteration.

Oddly, 343 offers a skull which switches the AR to its original, 60-round version (which is conveniently located within the first few minutes of the game for those that prefer the OG style) - which is good that they give players the choice, but it begs the question as to why they felt the need to change it in the first place when there is no multiplayer for balancing to be a concern, and to make that change the default instead of having it default to the original.

Three classic Halo weapons that were in the original game but weren't useable by players have been added to player's arsenals - the Fuel Rod Cannon, the Sentinel Beam, and the world-famous Energy Sword.

The Energy Sword operates just like it has since it was made useable in Halo 2, while the Fuel Rod Cannon works like it does in Halo Infinite (albeit with a proper skin that mirrors the original), with a straight-firing projectile instead of the lobbing, highly-arced ball of plasma that was used in the first game (and was actually playable in the PC port of Halo that was released in 2003) - it does work differently and is now easier to use, but it's a matter of preference on whether one likes the original or the modern take better.

The Sentinel Beam works exactly like it does in Halo 2 and has fantastic firing animations, but oddly sounds muted, with it being almost silent in use for some reason.

In addition, three weapons from later games are also mixed into the campaign: the Beam Rifle (the Covenant form of sniper rifle that is a favorite of Jackal Snipers, which have also been added to the game) and SMG from Halo 2, and the Needle Rifle from Halo: Reach, which all operate and sound like veteran players will remember and are great additions to the original's already impressive sandbox.

As someone who has always loved Halo 2's submachine gun and hated that it hasn't been present in 343's games, I certainly approve of its inclusion here.

The three new prequel missions (more on these later) also feature three weapons not found in the main campaign - the Battle Rifle and Brute Plasma Rifle from Halo 2, and the Spiker from Halo 3.

The latter two look and sound as one expects, but for some reason, the iconic Battle Rifle sounds bizarrely wimpy, like a generic low-caliber modern rifle rather than the powerful and distinct weapon it was in every other Halo game.

The levels themselves are all (virtually) as you remember them, with only very slight alterations made in some levels - such as shortening paths - save for The Library.

For those unfamiliar, The Library is notorious for being a monotonous, grinding, and frustrating slog of a mission that was the lone problem with the masterpiece that was Halo: Combat Evolved when it hit store shelves way back in 2001.

Other than trying to make the path a little clearer, the Anniversary edition back in 2011 didn't make any meaningful improvements to the infamous level, but thankfully 343 redesigned the bulk of The Library for this version.

The dull and repeating interiors are made visually distinct and beautiful here, activating light bridges and other simple additions break up the monotony, and the introduction of the Flood's Tank form as an enemy (which were first introduced in Halo 3) is a welcome addition.

The lone detraction is the brighter colors and lighting in much of the level somewhat takes away from the desperate horror-vibe of the original, but I'll gladly trade that for the vast improvement to enjoyability. They took the worst level and fixed it to be on par with the rest of the package, which I will happily applaud them for.

The only level change I would have liked to see updated (and this is very minor) is having friendly Marines (if there are any accompanying you) go to the control panels to open the doors for you when you are driving the Scorpion during Assault on the Control Room.

Having to get out of the tank (which gets the Marines to likewise hop off of the skids and out of the turret) just to push a button, hop back in and wait for the Marines to get back on the tank is a pretty needless task that feels extremely silly.

More importantly though, the checkpoint system throughout the game seems to be broken, which it never was in the original; sometimes if you die you'll have to redo a good chunk of gameplay, yet other times you'll trigger a checkpoint in the middle of that same stretch. It's very inconsistent which can be especially frustrating when playing on higher difficulties.

There's also some balancing issues when playing solo on higher difficulties - it's pretty clear 343 added in a bunch of enemies (similar to what they did for the Halo 4 and Halo 5 campaigns) to fit a co-op experience, yet didn't bother to scale according to actual player count, making it far more difficult to play by yourself. It's an issue that they've gotten tons of complaints about in the past, yet still clearly haven't learned their lesson.

The biggest gameplay problem however, is undoubtedly the game's AI.

One would expect a 25-year-old game's allied and enemy AI to not be up to modern standards, but somehow, the remake's enemy AI is noticeably worse than the original.

PC players have pointed out that the game's AI appears to be largely taken from Halo: Reach, yet something appears to have been lost in translation as enemies are bizarrely braindead much of the time.

Enemies often stop what they're doing to stand still and let you kill them; others will charge into a wall and remain running in place until you put them out of their misery; sword-wielding elites will be chasing you only to randomly stop and retreat for no apparent reason.

These pathing issues aren't present in Halo: Reach and aren't even common in the original 25-year-old game, leading me to believe it's likely an issue with the developers not properly implementing the AI behavior.

Combat Evolved's AI may have been ahead of its time, but there's certainly no way it should be better than the AI in a remake built over two decades later.

When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty?

Simply put, Campaign Evolved looks fantastic.

Unlike the first remaster, this version looks good even by modern standards, and for the most part, the original's art style is kept intact and enhanced rather than replaced (or over-designed - looking at you, Halo: CE Anniversary).

The environments are lovingly recreated; the night-time insertion in Truth and Reconciliation, the sandy beaches of The Silent Cartographer, the snow-covered canyons of Assault on the Control Room, and the grotesque Flood-infested hallways of The Library all beautifully rendered here.

The attention to detail is also regularly superb, from the scorch marks left under a Ghost's gravity system when it lingers in place to the orange-red glow of a Warthog turret's barrels following sustained fire.

Not having even a simple photo mode is an odd omission here especially since they've become pretty standard for graphically impressive games - the game's style and fidelity really shine in stills, which is something you'd think 343 would want to show off at every opportunity.

The backdrops aren't the only pretty sight though, as the game looks great in action too.

On the Series X, the framerate remains locked at 60 frames per second on performance mode and throughout my playthough I didn't notice any screen tearing or stuttering during gameplay. Note that I have seen some others reporting performance issues so individual experiences may vary, particularly if you're on a PC.

The only time I saw performance dip (outside of cutscenes, more on those later) was a few times after reloading from a checkpoint, it would suffer a drastic framerate drop where it looked like it was hitting maybe 15 frames per second at most.

This would last for maybe 10 seconds before going back to normal and only ever occurred when respawning after a death (reloading that same checkpoint again through the menu or dying again didn't seem to reproduce the problem), and I saw it happen maybe three times total, so it seems to be a rare and relatively minor issue.

Visual effects in particular look superb, from the simmering heat and crackling green energy that follows the impact of a plasma round from the Fuel Rod Cannon, to the brilliant blue-white flash of a plasma grenade, to the stunning pink burst of a Needler supercombine.

The Maw, which is remembered fondly by Halo fans everywhere for its classic Warthog escape run, is perhaps the most dated visually in the original game - while fans remember it as a thrilling escape through a deteriorating ship, when replaying the classic section it's hard not to notice the repetitive visuals and bland ship interiors.

In this remake, it looks like it does in your mind's eye; raging fires and skirmishes between Covenant and the Flood breaking out as you put the pedal to the metal in your Warthog in a race against the clock.

The sequence culminates with players racing through a smoke-choked passageway, the camera blurring from the abundance of flame and thick smoke filling it before you make it to the sprawling hangar bay. Your path is of course blocked off to force you to get out and make a break for the Longsword fighter parked at the end of the runway on foot, which is one spot where a sprinting mechanic is undeniably a positive inclusion and definitely helps with immersion.

The added fidelity and color positively reinvigorate the classic, but perhaps most importantly for the future of the franchise is the return of a Mature ESRB rating.

Halo 4 kept the same rating as Bungie's work, but with Halo 5 and again in Infinite, 343 (at the behest of the marketing geniuses at Microsoft no doubt) toned down such elements in order to lower the rating to T for Teen. Unlike the film industry however, which has left R-rated movies often facing a harder battle for profitability, videogames have never really had this issue and the unnecessary shift made even the excellent core visuals in Halo Infinite feel somewhat...sterile.

Halo isn't just an "action" game - it's a mature first-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on grounded military elements. Emptying a clip full of shredding rounds into alien tissue should result in some blood, damnit, and going from Infinite to Campaign Evolved illustrates exactly why.

One simply doesn't understand how much more immersive a shooter feels when luminous alien blood sprays from wounds, coating walls and pooling on the floor or ground beneath.

Oh, how lovely it is to see the screen momentarily splattered with gobs of purple or blue blood when running over or meleeing those Covie bastards to death.

On a less positive note, like most game developers these days, 343 has motion blur, chromatic aberration, and film grain effects enabled by default, which in most cases simply lowers the image quality and really should only be used in certain circumstances, but modern designers seem to love trying to force these on players.

The somewhat hazy effect of chromatic aberration in particular annoys many people, which normally wouldn't be too big a deal as nearly every game that uses it allows you to turn it off - yet for some reason, there are no toggles for chromatic aberration or film grain in the menus.

This is especially odd since 343 included toggles in Halo Infinite, and Microsoft has made a concerted effort to include a ton of accessibility options across its first party titles, something that is otherwise achieved in Campaign Evolved as well, from color blindness options to screen narration to difficulty modifiers that allow players to do things like reduce incoming damage or deal far more themselves (at the fair expense of disabling many achievements).

One can hope they will add these visual toggles in the very near future via a patch, but for now, at least motion blur can be turned off, which I highly recommend as it makes the game look much better in my opinion.

As a whole the art style remains quite faithful to the original, but there is the occasional odd design choice, most notably the outer hull of the Halo ring itself.

Modern artists at 343 opted to add gigantic illimunated parts (with no real use or reason) and overly-detailed features to the outer metal shell of the Halo construct, no doubt thinking it looked cool - it doesn't necessarily look bad by itself, but it completely misses the intention of the original's more understated design in emphasizing the massive scale of the structure.

Rather than looking like a huge, otherworldly marvel that inspires awe and a sense of wonder, this new version feels more like a generic sci-fi imitation that appears minuscule in comparison even though it's at the exact same scale.

It's especially odd they chose to move in this direction given that Halo Infinite's design of the ring, which closely resembled the original trilogy's design, was widely praised by fans.

There are also a few questionable redesigns of characters - while the Master Chief's iconic armor looks fantastic, Cortana looks a bit off and during certain cutscenes almost looks manly for some reason, her facial animations regularly looking like she had botox or something.

The need to constantly redesign the look of characters (with Cortana in particular having extensive changes for each game even back in the Bungie days) is an oddity that 343 has consistently gotten negative feedback on yet they insist on continuing to do so.

While some characters like 343 Guilty Spark (which is where the studio got its name from) and most of the Covenent enemy variants are just imported assets from Halo Infinite (or Halo 4/5 in the case of Guilty Spark), others have much different models.

Captain Keyes looks older is missing his famous pipe, while Sergeant Johnson now looks like the spitting image of Steve Harvey - why they couldn't have just used Johnson's look from Halo 2 Anniversary is anyone's guess.

It may have a few questionable looks, but overall the gameplay's visuals are a major win that add to the original experience, particularly in the latter half as its darker environments (plus the effect-heavy escape sequence) really shine in a way that 2001 graphics simply couldn't dream of.

I am a Timeless Chorus

Like its visuals, the sound design in Campaign Evolved is similarly great...for the most part.

Marty O'Donnell's iconic score has been remastered and sounds as brilliant as ever with (thankfully) very little notable changes.

Covenant enemies now speak english, consistent with later entries that are explained by speech translation tech (it is 500 years in the future after all), with the trademark funny lines (particularly from grunts) from Halo 2 and 3 being repurposed here. Thankfully, you can still hear a "Wort wort wort" here and there as a throwback to the original.

That change does have a slight effect on the overall narrative that likely wasn't considered. Halo 2 sought to humanize the Covenant's various species and its story dealt far more with their cultures and characters (particularly given that the campaign featured various missions where players controlled the Arbiter, an alien Elite aka Sangheili), which made the dialect switch essential for the experience.

In the original Halo campaign, the Covenant were there to be a clear enemy for players to face while the mysteries of the Halo installation and the Flood provided the narrative core. As such, it may be a bit odd or even confusing for new players to be hearing these otherworldly aliens make remarks in perfect English in the middle of battle, and it somewhat takes away from the foreign feel of the Covenant that the original instilled.

The added fidelity and environmental sounds are uniformly great however, such as the crunching of beach sand under a Warthog's tires or the emphatic echoes of gunfire in an icy cavern which add a layer of immersion that just wasn't possible back in 2001.

Most of the weapons and other effects sound great as well, but there are some very notable exceptions.

One thing I noticed was that the spore forms of the Flood lack the trademark "popping" sound they used to, despite carrier forms and even combat forms having a similar pop when they are taken out.

When designs or sounds are iconic and beloved by millions of fans, you had better have a good reason to make major changes to them, yet Campaign Evolved's audio team seems to love making needless and underwhelming changes to the game's weapons.

The legendary M6D Magnum looks great and still packs a punch, yet the classic gunfire has been replaced by a much more generic, far less powerful sound.

The awesomely powerful Sniper Rifle also looks great and the night-vision toggle on the scope triumphantly returns - scoping in and out sounds just like the original too - but the sound that comes out when you pull the trigger has been neutered beyond belief.

Instead of the heavy crack and lingering echo of an armor-piercing .57 round, the S2 Sniper Rifle now sounds like a generic small-arms rifle.

At first I thought the change was to make it sound silenced since the rifle first appears during the Truth and Reconciliation mission, which allows you to pick off enemies quietly at range without alerting nearby foes - if that were the case, it would have been fine, yet it sounds the exact same when picked up in later missions too, which is thoroughly disappointing and definitely takes away from the feel of the weapon.

The Battle Rifle, which was introduced in Halo 2 but is added here for the new prequel missions (more on them later), similarly has been wimp-ified and sounds like a generic, low-caliber rifle, which again makes no sense given that the devs could have simply used the existing audio files for any other Halo title and no one would have complained.

The Scorpion tank's main cannon, which is supposed to be thunderous and enormously powerful, sounds tiny and weak compared to any prior Halo game, the attention-grabbing weight all but completely removed from its audio file.

They may seem like small things, but all these little, needless changes add up and begin to highlight a bigger problem that plagues modern game design - developers that lack the attention to detail, knowledge, and most importantly, passion that made so many games of yesteryear so great.

For a first-person shooter, guns are obviously an important aspect, and Halo has always been renowned not only for their unique designs and feel, but for having authentic, believable weapons that remain visually and audibly distinct.

Perhaps hiring people like Nick, complete with rainbow, trans, and Palestinian flag emojis and pronouns in his bio, who thinks "glorifying or fantasizing modern guns" in videogames is bad, may not result in the kind of care and attention to detail that game designers used to have with these things.

I think we're just getting started

Now we get to the bigger problems with Campaign Evolved.

A few line deliveries here and there may show their age, but the original voice acting and dialog from the first Halo hold up remarkably well today.

As someone who loves writing, and unsurprisingly, reading, I have always appreciated the quality of Halo's story, from its fantastic world-building that spawned one of the greatest sci-fi universes in any medium to the countless memorable characters and iconic lines that stick with you for years; its handling of complex moral issues without preaching or forcing in modern political views also stand out in today's world.

Bungie's Halo games remain one of the greatest examples of excellent writing for videogames and for science fiction in general, thus if one is going to make changes to their work, it had better be for a good reason and it had better be written by competent writers that actually understand and respect the source material.

As someone who has spent thousands of hours playing every game and reading every book set in the world of Halo, it pains me to see the incompetence that's put on display with Halo: Campaign Evolved's narrative changes.

On the surface, besides the three new prequel missions (again, more on those later), the game's story is effectively the same as it was 25 years ago; yet the delivery is confusingly downgraded, and subtle changes hammer home the point that the directors/writers who worked on this remake don't know what they're doing and have little understanding or care for the source material.

Outside of some smaller roles which have kept their original recordings just with cleaned up and higher-quality audio, the voiceovers for the original have been completely re-recorded.

Rather than simply re-doing their old lines, their dialog has been subtly changed in various spots, with some small segments added or removed, such as lines adding slightly more detail or updated to sound more natural. Nothing overly major, and in theory, not a bad idea.

In practice however, this has proven to be immensely disappointing.

Outside of Steve Downes' iconic Master Chief who sounds as great as ever, and 343 Guilty Spark who sounds mostly the same, the voiceovers are a very clear and noticeable downgrade.

It's as if the voice director has told them to read their lines without any context or nuance and then used their first take.

Even Jen Taylor, who has been superb as Cortana in every other Halo title ever made, sounds bad here, and given Cortana provides the emotional weight in the game, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

The tone and delivery of so many lines just doesn't match the story; if you listen to most of the dialog from the original and then in this remake without looking at a screen, you'd almost certainly assume that the new voiceovers are the 25-year-old recordings and vice-versa.

Unfortunately, two iconic characters have also been recast for this remake, as David Scully, who voiced Sergeant Johnson in the original trilogy and Halo 3: ODST, along with Pete Stacker, who played Captain Jacob Keyes in the original as well as in Halo: Reach and Halo Infinite, are both retired.

Their replacements for Johnson and Keyes, Keston John and Keith Silverstein, respectively, simply can't hold a candle to the originals.

Silverstein's Captain Keyes is serviceable - it isn't bad, but it certainly lacks the memorable deepness and authority of Stacker's portrayal - John's version of the beloved Sergeant Avery Johnson is severely underwhelming on the other hand.

Scully's Sergeant Johnson was a fan-favorite thanks to his distinctive voice and overflowing charisma while delivering one-liners and shouting epithets to his troops, something that is completely lacking in this new version. Instead, 343's Sergeant Johnson sounds far more generic and dull.

Frankly, if 343 was insistent on re-recording all his lines and with alterations, they would have been far better off training AI to replicate Scully's voice and simply paying the man as if he had stepped into the recording booth.

The new voiceovers, even ones made by returning actors, sound like people trying to get through their reads as quick as possible rather than proper voice actors doing their jobs, and again, given that this is virtually across the board with all the new recordings and even with proven vets like Jen Taylor, it's pretty clear that it's a problem with the direction rather than the voice actors themselves.

Just take a listen to this clip and tell me I'm wrong - in the latter half of the video is the original, where you can hear Cortana is clearly concerned that Captain Keyes is opting to manually pilot the Pillar of Autumn to its impending crash-landing on Halo, putting his life in serious peril against her advice; you can also see concern conveyed through simple body language as players are shown the Master Chief's shock expressed by him moving closer to the window, watching helplessly from the escape pod.

As you can hear in the beginning half of the clip, Cortana's concern is nowhere to be found as she plainly reads her lines in the new version, if anything only sounding annoyed that Keyes didn't listen to her rather than fearing for his safety.

And it isn't just how the dialog is spoken.

Halo was far ahead of its time when it came to storytelling in an FPS both in the audio and cinematography departments, yet it somehow manages to do a better job of it than its own remake a quarter of a century later.

The view of the Chief that conveys his concern is nowhere to be found in the remake, replaced by a simple shot taken from behind the escape pod's pilot seat, removing the scene of all emotional weight and making it seem dull and lifeless.

Another example of their overlooking of subtlety and the original's writing is present in The Library.

While 343 Guilty Spark is one of the few characters with redone lines that don't sound terrible, in the original, the ancient AI construct was incessantly humming and talking to himself throughout the level.

The gameplay redesign of The Library was certainly well done, but 343 opted to effectively remove almost all of Guilty Spark's humming and made his diatribes much less manic. Undoubtedly, they removed the humming because they found it annoying - yet that was the entire bloody point.

His incessant humming, his rambling speeches, his insistence you should know what he's talking about - they were there to convey to the player that this ancient, sentient machine clearly had a screw loose.

These may seem like small things, but it's little details like these that separate a good game (or a good story) from a timeless classic, and the people in charge of Campaign Evolved clearly don't understand this distinction.

You Told Me There Wouldn't Be Any Cameras

The graphics and art style may be pretty, but its cutscenes, like its voiceovers, are regularly downgrades from the original in every way (besides obviously the graphics quality).

There are some scenes that remain faithful to the original, and with the updated graphics, are appropriately epic, like the beach landing on The Silent Cartographer, or the Flood reveal during 343 Guilty Spark, which is as hair-raising as its horror-vibe inducing as the original was.

There aren't many cases, but there are certain scenes or parts of them that have been removed for no apparent reason - most notably, the entire hangar sequence from the opening cutscene, which showed off the vehicles and crew aboard the Pillar of Autumn as they assembled and prepared for battle while Sergeant Johnson delivered his rallying speech, yet it's nowhere to be found in Campaign Evolved.

Almost without fail, any changes made to the contents of these scenes are poorly directed - for an excellent example, the scene following your rescue of Captain Keyes from a prison block aboard the Truth and Reconciliation highlights this.

The original, relatively short scene depicts Keyes taking control of a Spirit dropship and getting payback on his former captors by ramming them with the twin booms of the dropship.

In what was surely an effort to add tension and create a cinematic moment, the new and expanded cutscene features the Master Chief, who don't forget is effectively the most highly trained and capable soldier in human history, stupidly putting himself in between a pair of charging hunters that basically requires a miracle in order for him to escape.

Of course, that's the queue for Keyes to come in and save the day by ramming them with the twin booms of the dropship, like in the original version - which now comes complete with an "epic" slow-mo before impact.

Pro tip - if the writing/direction of a scene requires a pair of normally imposing enemies to have comically bad aim at a non-moving target in order to even be set up, you should probably reconsider what it is you're doing.

To top it off, the Chief follows it up by jumping into the dropship with a floaty, rushed animation that looks more like shoddy AI than a properly crafted cinematic. In fact, the Chief's animation is bad throughout this cutscene, his movements appearing sluggish and awkward at best.

The animations are a problem throughout the cutscenes and even sometimes during gameplay - most of the animation during gameplay appears to be reused from prior Halo titles, which again isn't a big deal here, but some are not and look terrible, from odd movement animation to random teleporting of the character model from one position to another with no transition.

Poor Thom's death near the very start of the game is a great example of a scene that, while occuring during gameplay, is entirely scripted, yet still manages to look terrible.

This video features the same clip as it appears in all three versions of the first Halo: the 2001 original, where you can see the dated animations of him running are a bit stiff; the 2011 Anniversary edition, with it's overly detailed style but a virtually identical animation (besides the awkward roll Thom's body does after the explosion that makes it look sloppy, whereas the original has a fireball effect covering this up); and then the 2026 version which should look a lot better.

Graphically it does...yet somehow its animations are remarkably worse.

From Thom's awkwardly slow turn and attempt by the animators to make him look panicked, to his lethargic transition to bolting down the hallway...it already doesn't look good, but the animators then made poor Thom's running look like he's trying to hide the fact that he just shit his pants.

Then comes the explosion to mercifully put Thom out of his misery, which is far quicker than the first two versions, and that comically sends the now-stiff model flying and caps off the thoroughly underwhelming sequence that was somehow done best way back in 2001.

Just look at the horrendous animation and cinematography (or lack thereof) during this piece of a cutscene for another example.

Perhaps the best illustration of 343 misunderstanding the source material and butchering a scene is the traumatized Marine encounter during 343 Guilty Spark.

In the original, as tension builds in the lead-up to the Flood reveal, you open a door only to be met by a Marine who is clearly in fear for his life.

He cowers and slinks back against a wall, yelling at you to stay away from him as he rambles non-sensically - crucially, he begins shooting at you, causing damage and even tracking you with his shots should you attempt to get away, the game effectively forcing the player to reactively kill an ally.

If the player opts to shoot and kill the poor guy (you can move around and avoid him, though as you later learn, killing him is the most humane thing the player can do), utter silence follows, letting the moment sink in for the player.

The short segment marked a clear shift in the original story - you were now descending into the belly of the beast, facing an unknown threat that was able to push a battle-hardened Marine past his breaking point.

It was fantastic game design and strong writing that was far ahead of other games of its era.

Now take a look at the new version.

While they get the panicking, shrinking look of the poor Marine right, 343 has him firing randomly and not even hitting you, eliminating any threat (unless you literally walk up and stand a foot in front of him, where he may then manage to hit you with a shot or two).

The attempt at forcing the player to kill him is entirely removed.

To make matters worse, if players do opt to kill the Marine anyway, a skull (a collectible item that is a staple in Halo games, which are typically well-hidden in the environment and unlocks gameplay modifiers for players to use) drops out as a reward - after his body glitches to an upright position so a canned death animation can play of course, because why not.

Way to absolutely miss the point.

Similarly, whoever directed this remake decided they would add some emotional weight to the game (ironic given that they removed a lot of what was previously there) by adding a little subplot for Captain Keyes.

Right at the start of the game, after players have made it to the bridge and are given their orders, Keyes hands the Chief his service pistol and delivers what would become a highly memorable quote - "I don't keep it loaded, son. You'll have to find ammo as you go."

The line wasn't just about handing the Chief a gun, it was a subtle game design element which led into the discovery for players that they can gain ammo simply by walking over it, a common element to most FPS games, as the player can find ammunition right after walking out of the bridge.

In the remake, that iconic line is gone - instead, Keyes hands a customized pistol to the Chief, and then tells him to make sure it gets to Miranda if he doesn't make it.

Miranda Keyes is of course his daughter, who wasn't introduced into the story until Halo 2, with whoever rewrote this scene clearly thinking this would pay off by 1) letting players know about Miranda before his death and 2) "foreshadowing" Keyes' death later in the game.

The problem with this change is that it completely misunderstands Captain Jacob Keyes' character and tries to inject un-needed emotion mere moments into the story.

Captain Keyes is a grizzled veteran who has defied the odds countless times before, and is not the type that would ever give up on himself, something that is made clear in the original game. He will do whatever it takes to get his people out alive and has an unshakable resolve, as clearly demonstrated by the fact he held off being fully consumed by the Flood for quite some time later in the game when most are near-instantly turned.

The writer might have thought this was a great way to foreshadow his death, but it was about as subtle as a slap in the face - Keyes might as well of held up a sign saying "I'm definitely not going to make it" instead.

Not only is it bad writing, but it completely undermines his character and lessens the impact of his death as a result.

That pistol is then used by the Master Chief in the final cutscene of the game, when players get to the Longsword (which now looks more like a generic fighter jet than the original, larger craft) and are about to fly out of the hangar to escape the impending detonation of the Pillar of Autumn.

In this altered cutscene, a Flood tank form manages to get to Master Chief, who had placed his Assault Rifle in the cockpit but is unable to reach it while grappling with the Flood form. Instead, he's forced to pull out Keyes' custom pistol to save himself, adding more "emotional weight" to the gun, which inevitably will be given to Miranda in the upcoming Halo 2 remake.

This was all made possible by the redesign of the Longsword to make the craft have a cockpit that opens like a modern fighter jet instead of the original design which properly suits a slipspace capable craft with room for cargo.

The fact they went out of their way for such a silly, contrived subplot while ruining various other, well-written aspects really highlights the level of competence that Campaign Evolved's writing/directing staff bring to the table.

And you told me you were gonna wear something nice

Speaking of odd decisions, 343 decided to offer various paid armor skins for players to equip (along with a handful of weapon skins for certain guns) as pre-order bonuses or as part of the Premium/Collector's editions of the game.

This is odd of course because Campaign Evolved lacks multiplayer and it's a first-person game, meaning besides perhaps the hands/arms being seen at times, players don't actually see the different skins they have equipped while playing (if you're playing co-op, your teammates can see them, so I suppose that's a selling point to some?).

Except of course in cutscenes, which outside of Halo 2: Anniversary (it instead featured incredible CGI cutscenes made by Blur Studios that still look phenomenal to this day) have always been in-engine - meaning the scenes are created in real-time with in-engine assets. This saves time on the creation of the cinematics and as a bonus can include whichever weapon you're holding or, in modern titles which like offering skins, your equipped outfit/armor can be worn by the character in the scene; it can also sometimes lead to funny glitches as well, which Halo fans have always had fun trying to screw with.

Yet Campaign Evolved features pre-rendered cutscenes instead, which means they're effectively just video files that aren't changed regardless of what you have equipped, and unfortunately not ones made by Blur Studios.

Normally this would make for cutscenes that are of a notably higher visual quality than gameplay, since every frame can be carefully crafted and enhanced by designers, except Campaign Evolved's cutscenes were almost certainly created in the Unreal Engine and look as though they are in-engine.

They seem to somehow be at least partially in-engine, as there is a very noticeable stuttering every 5-10 seconds or so while cutscenes are playing, something that simply shouldn't be happening if the cutscenes are pre-rendered video files.

It's an annoying problem that has been noted by many players across platforms, and to have such a stuttering issue in cutscenes that are supposed to be the game looking its best since each one is fully controlled by the developers rather than gameplay where countless variables can effect the result, just looks very amateurish.

Considering the quality doesn't appear to be any better than what in-engine cutscenes would have delivered, it begs the question of why 343 opted to go with pre-rendered ones that eliminate much of the point of the skins they're trying to sell.

Another poor decision, though it makes sense given the laziness apparent in various aspects of this remake, is Campaign Evolved's terminals.

Terminals were first added in Halo 3; hidden consoles that could be found by players which unlock a short story that expands on the game's lore.

With the 2011 Anniversary remake, 343 not only added the hidden collectibles into the first game, but also expanded on the concept by going from text-based terminals to offering short animated videos complete with sound effects and narration to tell those stories, something that was repeated in the excellent Halo 2 Anniversary as well.

For this remake, 343 could have add least included the videos from the Anniversary edition, but instead opted to return to text-based terminals.

Shockingly, even those aren't executed properly - rather than being able to read the contents right when you find a terminal, you instead can only access them from the main menu, a dumbfounding limitation.

Reading them from the main menu is poorly presented to boot, as the image takes up much of the space while the readable area is quite small, forcing you to continuously scroll just to read the damn thing. A minor gripe, yet another line of evidence in the massive list that shows 343 did not treat this remake with the level of care fans have hoped for.

Fortunately, the skulls are better handled (ignoring the skulls that are given for things like killing the terrified Marine mentioned earlier), with a whopping 42 total in the game - 39 to be found by players, with three unlocked by default.

These skulls offer all sorts of gameplay modifiers that can be turned on (and in any combination) to vary the experience, with many already being familiar for Halo fans but some fun new ones added to the mix as well.

They can alter the game in various ways: difficulty modifiers make the game easier by offering unlimited ammo or allowing you to fly around a level, or can make the game harder by buffing enemies, removing your HUD and aiming reticle, or reducing the amount of ammo found in a level; fun party-mode type modifiers like Cowbell make explosions far more impactful, the Floor is Lava continuously causes damage any time you touch the ground, Reload which randomizes weapons found in the mission, or of course the beloved Grunt Birthday Party which causes Grunt's heads to explode into confetti when you headshot them (complete with a delightful cheer).

There are also four skulls that make the gameplay more faithful to the original - the earlier-mentioned one which gives the AR its classic 60-round magazine and wider spread (though this appears to currently be bugged, as when enabled, allied Marines wielding the AR never fire and basically become useless), one which disables sprinting entirely, another that makes UNSC vehicles indestructible, and one which disables the aim-down-sights for non-scoped weapons.

Perhaps the biggest new addition is the Perspective skull which gives you a third-person view, something that has been added by modders to the games in the past and was even added officially for use in Custom Games and Firefight later on in one of Halo Infinite's updates.

It definitely offers a worthwhile change to experience the game in a different way, and arguably should just be a setting in the menu or a button press rather than a skull so that players can change perspective on the fly like in Infinite.

For some people that don't like first-person games but do like third-person shooters, or that get motion sickness when playing in first-person, this is obviously an immensely appealing addition - luckily, it can be found and unlocked within minutes of playing on the first mission, so players who only want to experience the game in that perspective can do so pretty much from the get go.

The new Remix mode fully embraces the possibilites of having so many skulls available, allowing you to play through missions with random unlocked skulls active, as well as a chance to get one of two new visibility modifiers - one which blankets the entire level in heavy, Flood-infested fog, or one which permanently activates a night vision filter.

It's a cool addition that adds plenty of replayability and will undoubtedly be a blast to play with friends.

Speaking of which, 4-player co-op is indeed as fun as it always has been - I've yet to play much myself, but I had no issues in the few levels I have played with others, though I suspect the experience may vary as there have been some complaints about connection problems or being unable to join friends' games.

The lone caveat here is that for some odd reason, if you lose connection while playing alone, or if you return to the game via the Quick Resume option via Xbox after spending time away, the game will give you a warning stating you have lost connection and it will try to reconnect later, only to kick you to the main menu moments later.

Luckily, at least on the Series X, loading only takes about 2-3 seconds so isn't a big deal, but it's a pretty weird problem to have in a singleplayer game nonetheless and is undoubtedly more annoying on a Series S or some PC setups which load the game slower.

Were it so easy

A lot of people like to save the best for last. For this piece, I did the opposite.

That's right, the lack of polish in many areas, the poor voiceovers, the terrible story changes, even the shoddy cutscenes weren't the worst of Campaign Evolved.

That award goes to the three "bonus" missions that 343 so heavily promoted.

This remake includes three entirely new prequel missions that put you on a forgettable jaunt aboard a new Covenant faction's ship, with fan-favorite Sergeant Johnson in tow (equipped with a Stanchion Rifle of novel fame, which for some reason is not useable by players; it certainly isn't a technical limitation as modders have already made it fully useable on the PC just days into the game's early release).

These missions are the first new story content 343 has released since Halo Infinite nearly five years ago, and thus the first since their rebranding. And the results are...abysmal.

I will say, the environments look great, just like in the main campaign. The visual variety in these missions is definitely impressive and in that regard, they are genuinely well done. The homage at the end of the third mission to Halo: Reach's Long Night of Solace puts you in the cockpit of a Seraph fighter for a short space battle which is also very neat, but the rest really falls apart.

The videogame industry is going through a tough time right now, but much of it is self-inflicted - executives who are clearly not gamers and don't understand the gaming industry forcing their ideas on dev teams, DEI hiring practices which inspire political viewpoints to be rammed down players' throats and have dev teams that care more about activism than making games, bloated studios that are crippled by bureaucracy and rampant inefficiency, the list goes on.

When it comes to developers that have fully embraced "woke" culture, most have been taught their lesson in the last few years, from the utter failure of Concord which caused Sony to shutter its development studio to the gutting of famed Canadian developer BioWare after their inclusion of horrendous "trans-affirming" dialog went viral and saw the middling Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperform commercially.

Ubisoft, which was once one of the biggest publishers in the world, is perhaps the best example of this lesson as they went all in on "diversity" and "inclusion" over the past decade and have seen their company tank to near insolvency in a matter of years, forced to sell part ownership to its biggest IPs to China in order to stave off bankruptcy.

Their underwhelming Assassin's Creed: Shadows, which was the series (once) highly-anticipated journey to feudal Japan, failed to turn things around - hardly surprising that the public didn't exactly rush to get a game set in feudal Japan which was headlined by a black man (who they claimed was the first black samurai in real-world history, a modern myth that is easily proven false) and a female ninja as the playable characters in a poorly written story.

Just this month however, Ubisoft earned a major win with its latest Assassin's Creed title, Black Flag Resynced, which is a faithful and beautiful remake of the beloved Black Flag that has launched to massive success in spite (or perhaps, just maybe, because of) its lack of a forced political agenda pushed by "woke" writers.

Whether Ubisoft learns from this lesson or not is anybody's guess.

Unsurprisingly for a studio based 20-minutes outside of Seattle Washington, there's a very noticeable amount of liberal LGBTQ activists in 343's ranks, from its purple-haired Chief of Staff to its vocally leftist women in prominent roles like Chief Operating Officer, Executive Producer, and Lead Technical Artist.

Despite the massive layoffs at Microsoft in the last couple years, the company (both Microsoft and 343) still heavily promote their woke pandering, most clearly seen from their pushing of "pride" month and black history month with cosmetics in their games and a slew of social media posts (that they naturally disable comments for).

When given the opportunity to write a new story to supplement the first Halo game, unfortunately, the far-left crowd at 343 Industries just couldn't help themselves; they had to insert their garbage into what has always been a series with a predominantly straight male audience.

The prequels feature two new characters, the first of which is a female ODST who brings eye-roll-inducing "girl-boss" vibes as her biggest selling point.

Despite being a sci-fi story set over 500 years in the future, Halo has always been quite grounded in its depiction of the military, yet in 343's new missions, we have a group of ODSTs (special elite units) featured, none wearing helmets, all looking almost-homeless since they all are missing random pieces of armor that appears to be some attempt at "style", led by a woman who openly disrespects the most highly decorated soldier in humanity's history to his face.

Some "fans" dismiss criticism of her character as being due to her being a female, yet Halo has plenty of popular female characters that are beloved by fans, from Cortana to Miranda Keyes to Kelly to Foehammer, and if you took the exact same character but made it a male, the backlash would be just as big because of how stupidly the character is written.

Some "fans" say "iT's AcTuAlLy In ThE lOrE, oDsT's DoN't LiKe SpArTaNs" - to those, I say, with the utmost respect, you're retarded.

Sure, in the novels it's explained that many ODST's have a problem with the Spartans and why, yet, whether it was a male or female character, no military member is going to show the level of blatant disrespect this new character shows, in front of an entire audience, in the middle of a mission no less, directly to a fellow service member - to top it off, Sergeant Johnson stands around as it happens.

If you want to talk about lore, if one knew anything about Sergeant Johnson's character, they'd know if someone ever treated Spartan John-117 that way in his presence, he'd have shot their head clean off their shoulders.

Her insufferable attitude toward the Master Chief (ie. the player) is not only off-putting, it's incredibly poorly written and once again is completely oblivious to proper storytelling and tone.

There's a reason that the Marines clearly revere Master Chief and openly cheer when they see a Spartan on the battlefield in the games - throughout the games, Spartans (and in particular the Chief) are seen as the uniting symbol of hope for humanity.

Throughout nearly three full decades of brutal fighting, where humanity has lost countless billions of people and many entire worlds to their enemies, the Spartans have time and again done the impossible and inspired the UNSC and civilians alike to keep going and fight on no matter what.

THAT is the lore. THAT is why you would never even see this kind of attitude toward the Chief in any of the mainline games - it doesn't fit the tone and story that's being told in any of the games. A novel doesn't have to match that tone and can explore other things without affecting the game; a mission within that game, just like a section of a movie which doesn't match the overall story it's trying to convey, sticks out like a sore thumb.

Yet to these woke writers, the Master Chief is a symbol of "traditional masculinity" in a game beloved by generations of men and therefore must be brought down a peg by a "strong" female character, complete with her weakly built-up sacrifice that's supposed to show off her heroism and badassery. It wasn't added because it's "lore" - lore was just an excuse to force in the type of character they needed to achieve their goal, which was definitely not to add to the Halo story, but to detract from what is there.

The other new character is nearly as bad, as the prequel missions introduce a new Prophet dubbed Harmony.

Harmony's voice actor sounds as uninterested as humanly possible as he reads off the terribly written dialog he's been given, at one point in a cutscene literally announcing each species of the Covenant to players, with the camera laughably zooming in on each one as they squawk or roar to introduce themselves.

It's easily the worst cinematic in Halo history and feels like satire, but it's really in the game (this poster added the crowd cheering in the background, but otherwise the cutscene is untouched).

The writing throughout the missions is dreadful, from the threadbare, generic plot to the horrendous, stilted dialog that is delivered in a far worse manner than even the renewed voiceovers in the main campaign, to the overt, overly-explained references to lore that are meant to serve as "fan-service" yet instead feel like someone prompted AI to write the most generic sci-fi slop imaginable and add in a few lines mentioning Halo lore to lend it credibility.

Even the level design is uninspired and tedious here; the Brutes, which originally were cut from Combat Evolved and instead debuted in Halo 2 but are featured in these new missions, have a glowing red device on their chests to shoot in an embarrassing gimmick that exemplifies the pitiful state of modern game design; and the AI is somehow actually worse in these missions than in the main campaign.

The three new missions are an affront to not only the original Halo, but to the franchise as a whole. They make Halo 5's weak campaign look like a masterpiece by comparison. They're basically the gaming equivalent to the pitiful Halo TV show that was somehow greenlit by the geniuses at Microsoft.

Why they felt the need to tack on these pitiful excuses for missions instead of adding content that was cut from the original game, or even adding a Firefight mode which would be simple to do here, is beyond me.

I really feel for any newcomer to the franchise that thought they'd start with the prequel missions, because if I wasn't a Halo fan and my first experience with Halo was with them, I'd have uninstalled the game and never looked back.

I Need a Weapon

343 Industries really knows how to deliver a mixed bag to Halo fans.

Halo 4 had phenomenal graphics (even if the art style was changed to a far more hardcore sci-fi look) and a great campaign, but mediocre multiplayer and tried to make Halo into a Call of Duty hybrid - although to be fair, it was Microsoft that demanded the COD-ification, not 343.

Halo 5 went further down the hardcore sci-fi path and delivered a great multiplayer suite (especially the new Warzone game mode) but featured a weak campaign, and while its gameplay made for a great game, it wasn't a great Halo game, as it strayed way too far away from the series signature style and feel.

Halo Infinite, largely thanks to Joseph Staten (the director of cinematics for the original trilogy and writer of the excellent Halo: Contact Harvest novel, he came back to work for 343 in 2020) who was able to perform a miracle and save 343 from utter development hell by rewriting and completely changing the direction of the title in order to somehow get a polished, well-written and great game out in just over a year that managed to recapture much of the original magic of Halo with modernized gameplay; unfortunately, the game shipped without many staple features and modes (including co-op, Firefight, or Forge) which would take nearly two years to be added to the game.

Unfortunately the game was effectively held together by duct tape and prayers which somehow ran very well, but made adding new content a painstakingly slow process, with most players completely giving up on the game long before it was truly "completed" and had the content players needed to stay invested.

Halo: Campaign Evolved now offers perhaps the most mixed bag of all.

On the one hand, the original game's campaign is a timeless classic, and simply having most of it faithfully recreated with smooth, modernized gameplay and stunning visuals makes it amazing.

On the other hand, its clear lack of polish, downgraded voice acting and cutscenes, frustrating little changes, and terrible new missions are an insult to the original's legacy, and mark a second less-than-stellar remake of the game that not only started the franchise, but literally made Xbox into a legitimate console and made Microsoft billions of dollars in the long run.

If the original Halo doesn't deserve to have a full, dedicated and polished remake, then nothing does, yet after two attempts, here we are.

For the future of the franchise, it's immensely worrying that a remake took at least two years of development time (possibly three if rumors are accurate) despite the heavy re-use of assets from other games, and it somehow still isn't polished, not to mention the story and cinematic misses that indicate major problems with writing and direction.

While many are excusing the lack of polish due to Microsoft's decision to release the game now instead of in November as originally planned to avoid GTA 6's launch, GTA 6 was delayed in November - that was eight months ago.

Microsoft had more than enough time to allocate more resources from the studio to the project to ensure it was ready to go in time, and certainly should have done so given the importance of regaining fans' trust (plus maximizing the sales on Playstation given it looks like they're moving back to exclusivity moving forward), yet clearly they chose not to; that four-month change also does nothing to explain the incompetent story and cinematic changes or the horrendously written/directed prequel missions.

If Campaign Evolved is any indication of what we can expect from "Halo Studios" in terms of storytelling going forward, Microsoft may as well shutter the studio now and pass the IP to someone else.

With a remake of Halo 2 already confirmed, Halo Studios has their work cut out for them because there already is an amazing remaster that still looks and plays very well today.

The only way they're going to earn back the trust that they have lost so long ago, is to deliver a properly polished, full experience (preferably with multiplayer) that does a better job than the excellent Halo 2 Anniversary.

In order to do so, it can't just look pretty, and it certainly can't tack on poorly written garbage as a selling point.

Instead of some "new" junk added to the classic title, they need to add at least some of the cut content from Halo 2's storied development, most obviously the infamous E3 2003 demo, which featured a level that was shown to the world yet was removed from the final release because they simply couldn't get it to work properly with the limitations of the original Xbox hardware.

Those limitations are obviously no longer an issue with current consoles, and modders have already painstakingly recreated this level in its entirety for the PC, as well as the modified Battle Rifle that was also shown in the demo but changed before release.

Halo 2 originally featured a third act that was almost entirely cut due to time constraints, which resulted in its infamous cliffhanger ending - if Microsoft and 343 really want to get fans back on their side, they won't just offer a great remake, they'll deliver Bungie's original vision and improve upon the classic (preferably by hiring some very competent writers and game designers; whoever worked on Campaign Evolved, should not be allowed anywhere near it).

If I were them, I'd hand Joe Staten a bag of money to get him back as the game director, as he seems to be the only one in 343's history that's been able to get the team focused and capture the look and feel of the original games that made the series so popular.

With 343's track record and Campaign Evolved though, I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you.

Pros

+Feels great and faithful to the original gameplay, but with various enhancements

+Beautiful graphics and (mostly) great art design

+Faithful soundtrack and (mostly) great audio

+Plenty of skulls and various new modifiers like third-person mode, which add replayability

+4-player cross-platform co-op

+The Library is actually a great level now

Cons

-Clear lack of polish

-Notable animation issues

-Weak story changes/tweaks

-Bad voiceover direction

-Terrible AI

-Prequel missions have the worst writing, dialog, and AI in Halo history

The Final Score: 7 / 10