Halo: Campaign Evolved Review

This isn’t a remake that tries to reinvent Halo. It doesn’t try to be Call of Duty, Destiny or whatever the latest shooters are. It remembers exactly why Combat Evolved became one of the greatest first-person shooters ever made and builds on that foundation without ever forgetting its roots.

Please be aware that you could consider there to be spoilers in this because I yap on about so much crap, so be warned if you have never played.

The Combat Is Still Absolutely Addictive.

The thing Halo has always done better than almost anyone else is making combat feel like a giant sandbox instead of a shooting gallery; every encounter feels different.

Sometimes you’re charging an Elite with a shotgun, other times you’re desperately backing away from a swarm of Flood while blindly firing a Needler, and five minutes later you’re hijacking a Ghost because it seems like the funniest possible solution. Nothing ever feels scripted.

The shooting itself feels fantastic. Weapons have real punch behind them, enemies react properly when you hit them, grenades are still absolute chaos, and switching between guns depending on the fight is just as satisfying as it’s always been. One minute you’re carefully assassinating sleeping grunts and picking them off one by one; the next you’re panicking because you hear the unmistakable WORT WORT WORT of an Elite, so you start spamming grenades and realising it’s all gone horribly wrong. That’s Halo.

New Additions To Chief’s Locker.

One thing I absolutely loved was how naturally the newer weapons fit into the game.

The SMG addition is brilliant. It gives you a proper close-range bullet hose that feels perfect for dealing with Flood swarms, while the Energy Sword is just as ridiculously satisfying as ever. Charging into a group of Covenant and carving through them never gets old.

Then you’ve got weapons like the Needle Rifle from Halo: Reach making an appearance too. They’re additions that could’ve easily felt out of place, but they don’t. They feel like they’ve always belonged in Combat Evolved, giving you even more ways to approach each fight without ever taking away from the original sandbox.

It doesn’t feel like Halo Studios added these weapons because they could. It feels like they added them because they genuinely make the combat even more fun.

The additional skulls add so much to the gameplay as well for replayability, HALO IN 3RD PERSON?? Honestly, I turned that skull on and played through Pillar Of Autumn; it’s just not right! But still fun. The replayability and the remix levels, based on what skulls you have found, you can choose a remix option where it chucks you into a level with a random set of skulls, making every playthrough completely different every time.

Every Environment Feels Like A Character

The visuals deserve all the praise they’re getting. Obviously we all know about the moment you first step out on Halo and look up the ring, and yes… it’s every bit as breathtaking as you’ve heard. The crash site on that level, the pockets of fire, the damage done to the floor from the impact and just everything around it.

The beaches, the snowy mountains, the Covenant interiors, the underground Forerunner structures… every location has been rebuilt with so much care that I constantly found myself stopping just to look around. I’d genuinely stop and get excited over a texture on a wall, because I’m a fucking loser and I love it.

Then you get to 343 Guilty Spark, good fucking lord. The swamp is absolutely magnificent, the lighting cutting through the trees, the fog rolling across the water, the sounds coming from somewhere you can’t quite place… it’s beautiful and terrifying at exactly the same time.

You know something is wrong long before the game actually tells you; it’s one of the most atmospheric environments I’ve ever played through.

The Flood Are Still Horrifying

I don’t think any enemy reveal has ever hit me quite like The Flood did back in 2001; even though I knew exactly what was coming, it still got me.

The atmosphere throughout every Flood mission is incredible. Gone are the bright military shootouts from the opening hours. Instead, you’re walking through abandoned corridors, flickering lights, piles of bodies and complete silence before everything inevitably kicks off.

Combat completely changes once The Flood arrives; suddenly you’re being rushed from every direction, infection forms are exploding everywhere, combat forms refuse to stay dead, Carrier Forms are making everything worse, and every fight feels desperate. It’s just fucking brilliant.

And don’t worry everyone, the Library will still make you want to put your head through a wall, in a totally fun way obviously…

Halo’s New Cutscenes & Extras.

The extra cutscenes genuinely surprised me; I was worried they’d overdo it or try to rewrite parts of the original, instead they’ve simply strengthened what’s already there. Except for a few lines of dialogue I’m so used to hearing, they nailed it. Not having Captain Keyes saying “I don’t keep it loaded so you’ll have to find ammo as you go” and then hand you the magnum sucked; yes, I’m one of those Halo fans that loves certain lines that mean absolutely fuck all to the story, but this is my article, so piss off.

The additional scenes give characters a little more personality, fill in small gaps and make the overall story flow together much better without changing the soul of Combat Evolved; it feels like something that should always have been there.

Then you reach mission 9, Keyes.

The emotion of it still lands just as hard all these years later; the visuals somehow make it even worse because everything feels more real than it ever did before. It’s one of those moments where Halo stops being “just a shooter” and reminds you there’s genuine tragedy underneath all the explosions.

Pure Chaos At Its Absolute Best

One thing Halo absolutely nails is how the war spirals completely out of control; by the final few missions, it isn’t simply Humanity versus the Covenant anymore.

You’ve got the Flood tearing through absolutely everything, the Covenant desperately trying to survive, and Sentinels appearing to defend Halo itself; everyone is fighting everyone.

You’re constantly caught in the middle as battles explode around you from every direction.

Sometimes you can literally stand back and watch entire firefights unfold without firing a shot because every faction is trying to kill each other first; it creates some of the most unpredictable combat encounters I’ve ever played.

Then all of that builds into The Maw.

Still one of the greatest finales gaming has ever produced.

Everything is collapsing around you, alarms are blaring, enemies are everywhere, explosions are going off every few seconds before you’re thrown into the Warthog for what has to be one of the most iconic escape sequences ever made.

It’s messy.

It’s stressful.

It’s absolute carnage.

And I had the biggest grin on my face from start to finish.

Stop Looking For Reasons To Hate It

I’ve genuinely lost count of how many people I’ve seen on Twitter complaining about sprint, hit markers and other optional features; just… turn them off, they’re optional.

If you want the classic Halo experience, it’s literally a menu option away.

Some people seem determined to dislike this game because they decided they were going to dislike it months before it released; I don’t get it.

There’s so much complaining that this game is wooden and shit and doesn’t capture what made Halo special; I couldn’t disagree more. I think it’s the perfect homage to a phenomenal classic.

Final Thoughts

The combat is phenomenal, the environments are breathtaking, the extra story content genuinely improves the campaign, and somehow one of the greatest FPS games ever made feels fresh again 25 years later.

I’ve loved Halo since 2001, and fell in love with gaming at the age of 9 because of this game.

Campaign Evolved just reminded me why.