Halo as a franchise is something special to me. It contains my favourite game of all time, I’ve played all the games in the franchise (except 5) and I always generally have a good time with the games even if they dip in quality at times. I also have played through Halo 1 many times, both the original and the Anniversary edition. Now we have this, Campaign Evolved, a remake of a game that was already remade not that long ago. A strange choice, but with a fresh coat of paint, actual gameplay changes and modern conveniences will this take on a classic campaign be worth the money? Time to find out!
Story is the same as the first game, no real changes made to anything like that aside from some dialogue changes. As such, I’ll instead talk about the new mini-campaign they added which is a prequel to the original game. It sees Sergeant Johnson and the Master Chief boarding a large Covenant cruiser to find information on their home world in order to make a possible counter-attack to win the war. It’s a neat idea, and seeing more gameplay between Chief and Johnson is nice, they tend to have fun banter. However the actual story isn’t really anything to note as things play out as expected and not many interesting developments or characters are introduced. As such you’re more here for the gameplay of the extra levels rather than the story, which is fine and all, but a shame they didn’t really do anything interesting or fun with brand new Halo levels. They mostly just felt like throwing in all the elements of the older titles because ‘people enjoyed these bits’. There’s even a moment where the space dogfighting from Halo Reach returns, which was a nice touch, but again strange that it was included here only to remind people of this moment from Reach. Definitely don’t get this game to experience the thrilling development of Halo’s story as you won’t really find that here.
Presentation is the main point to this game as it updates the visuals, audio and the dialogue completely. I do like the remade visuals as the world feels a lot more colourful and vibrant with unique visual identities for each level. No longer does certain sections of the game feel like a copy/paste job with endless grey corridors as new elements have been added to every area to make them feel more distinct. I especially like the added Flood corruption to later levels as it showcases the full threat that species poses and makes the areas seem more dire in comparison. I also adored the music, but there’s a large caveat with this. The game re-uses music from previous Halo games, specifically 3 and Reach, and as such I am a huge sucker for those soundtracks for obvious reasons. Due to this, I can’t fully say that the soundtrack is great as I could feel my little nostalgic heart strings being pulled by each inclusion of a Halo 3 song, but it’s still good music, and I enjoyed it when it fit the scenario, so I’ll praise it happily. Dialogue is a series of interesting changes, some not for the best. Whilst the actors they got in to re-dub the lines did a fine enough job the pacing and direction of the new cutscenes is… odd. Certain iconic scenes feel a bit stilted, there’s too many instances of gaps between dialogue and the various instances of ‘quippy’ dialogue felt rather forced and not at all similar to the original design. I don’t hate it specifically, it’s fine, it’s just a bit of a strange downgrade when compared to the original voice acting and dialogue. The cutscenes though deserve a special shout out as some of them look absolutely gorgeous, and personally, I felt this was one of the best introductions to The Flood in the series history, so huge props for that. Overall, whilst there were some small issues, I really did think this game looks and sounds great.
Gameplay is where some of the biggest changes took place. Unlike the first game and its Anniversary remake this is a full reinterpretation of the original campaign. So whilst the main beats are still the same the level layouts, enemies, weapons and all sorts of other small changes are completely different. Modern weapons like the SMG and Needle Rifle are in the game, equipment is now a part of the gameplay, you can sprint and several other changes make this feel very different from the original. One of the ways it massively changes it up is in how it makes the game feel faster, there were various levels in which I just felt it best to run past enemies rather than actually fight them and Sprint allowed me to do just that. There’s also a lot more enemies thanks to this being on more modern systems, so firefights can feel truly chaotic. I actually really like this change as it made certain combat scenarios feel like true warzones with different factions fighting one another and you just being another element in the chaos. I also really liked some of the level layout changes, with special mention going to The Library which went from one of the worst levels in Halo history to an actually decent and interesting one in this redesign. It’s certainly not a ‘pure’ experience and I can imagine some of the older vets getting upset at how balance was changed in the initial design but overall I actually quite liked the changes made as it led to various levels feeling more streamlined and utilised the advancements in technology made over the years to make for a more cinematic feeling experience. It won’t be for everyone, but for me, it was a plus.
So all seems good right? Excellent remake with no drawbacks? Well hold your horses there. First off, small issue but an impactful one, I hate how some visual effects can’t be turned off natively as it led to some sections of the game feeling incredibly blurry and grainy which looked awful on certain parts, especially those within Covenant environments. I’d highly recommend turning off DLSS, or at least modifying it, as it saved a lot of the main visual issues I had. Secondly, no multiplayer, which for a Halo game is crazy. There’s co-op sure, but a Halo game with no PvP multiplayer is just madness. This brings me onto my final point, and one of the biggest points against it, the price. Halo: Campaign Evolved is being sold at $50, comparable to a full price game even if slightly under that. However, The Master Chief Collection is available at $40 with the original Halo 1 and Anniversary edition, 2, 3, ODST, Reach and 4 AND all of these having their online multiplayer intact. You can see that value for money is obviously in the MCC’s court and thus it brings up the question of whether the changes to the campaign for this remake really justify it being the only game on the package and for a higher price. Personally, for me, whilst I do overall think this campaign is an upgrade over the original Halo 1, this absolutely does not justify the increased price. I played this on the Game Pass, so the price doesn’t really apply to me, but if you truly wanted to experience Halo for the first time and get to enjoy what it really is I don’t think this has enough value to justify it over just buying the Master Chief Collection.
So that’s my overall verdict. Good game, good changes, not enough to justify the price. If you have the Game Pass, or another way to play this without purchase then yes I would recommend trying this out as it’s an overall better campaign experience in my opinion. However, for the price it is being charged for, and the lack of replayability aside from secret hunting, I’d honestly not bother. A Campaign Evolved perhaps, but it is just one of many campaigns available.