Introduction — So, Was Halo Actually Worth The Hype?

I have known Halo for years. I grew up playing the multiplayer, I knew Master Chief, I knew the Xbox connection and I knew Halo was one of those games that people would talk about like it changed gaming forever.

The problem is, I’ve never played the campaigns.

That meant Halo: Campaign Evolved was a bit of an experiment for me. I was not coming in with ten+ years of nostalgia telling me what was good, bad and downright ugly. I was coming in as somebody who knew the franchise, but was basically asking, ‘Okay, what is it about the Halo campaign that people loved/s so much?’

My answer after finishing it is pretty simple: there is a lot here that I like, but there is also a lot that I found exceptionally repetitive.

And the funniest part of it all; the new missions that were not part of the original campaign ended up being my favorite part of the entire game.

Getting Into The Halo Story

The story is actually pretty easy to understand if you are new to Halo.

You are basically dropped into a fight for humanity, you meet the Covenant, you discover the Halo ring and then things start getting considerably worse when the Flood enter the picture. The game does a good job of giving you enough information as you go, so I never really sat there thinking, ‘Okay, cool, what did I miss?’

Master Chief himself is a bit of a mystery. He’s intense, loyal and mission focused, but lacks emotional depth. That is not necessarily a bad thing because it fits the character, but it does make Cortana stand out even more.

Cortana was probably my favorite character. She’s witty, has a sense of humor and later on almost acts like a jealous girlfriend when Chief starts getting friendly with another AI. Those little interactions gave the campaign some personality.

The Flood were also a cool introduction because they change how you approach combat. Suddenly you are not just killing enemies; you are thinking about whether that body is going to become another problem five seconds later almost like sequids from Invincible.

Story-wise, I would give the main campaign a 6.5/10. It’s good, but it doesn’t leave me thinking, ‘I need to know what happens next.’ It was more like, ‘Okay, cool, this is what is happening. Let’s see where it goes.’

Then Operation: METEORITE Happened

This is where I honestly think Halo: Campaign Evolved surprised me.

Operation: METEORITE is a three-mission prequel story set one year before Halo: Combat Evolved, with Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson working together aboard a Covenant agricultural ship. It adds new enemies, locations, weapons and story material.

And I enjoyed these missions considerably more than the main campaign.

Chief and Johnson working together is refreshing. You are actually seeing them go through the missions together, rescuing UNSC teams and dealing with these new threats. The Tiger Team rescue was one of those moments where I was thinking, ‘Okay, this is the kind of thing I wanted more of.’

The new enemies also make the game feel fresh again. There are some creatures here that, honestly, made me think how difficult the main campaign could have been if these things had been around throughout it.

Then you get the new flying vehicle. The controls are not my favorite, and if you do not like flying in games you might struggle, but if you have spent a lot of time flying around in something like GTA, you will probably adapt a bit quicker.

For me, the story in these three missions is an 8/10. They are easily the best part of the campaign.

The Gameplay Is Good. The Problem Is How Long You Do It.

This is probably the biggest thing I want people to understand about my 8/10 gameplay score.

I like Halo’s gameplay.

I just don’t think Halo gives you enough variety over the full campaign to stop that gameplay from becoming repetitive.

The shooting feels good. The weapons work. Movement is fine. You learn pretty quickly that using the right weapon against the right enemy matters more than you’d think. The Flood also forces you to change things up.

But then you reach a point where you know exactly what you are doing.

You know how the enemies behave. You know which weapons you want. You know how the encounters are going to play out. And then the game starts taking you back through areas you have already seen.

That was the point where I started getting bored.

I also think a few modern movement options would have helped. Even something like sliding between cover points could have made the movement feel a little less dated.

The difficulty system is better than I initially expected, though. As you increase the difficulty, enemies are not simply practice targets. They become more aggressive and accurate, encounters can increase in size and the game becomes more demanding about your ammunition and positioning. It feels as if the increased difficulty affects enemy health, aggression and numbers, with higher difficulty also making enemy behavior more effective, at one point I thought shit this dude’s an NBA SG the way he lobs those grenades with so much accuracy.

The World Looks Fantastic. Going Back Through It Doesn’t Always.

This is probably where the remake looks its best.

The Unreal Engine 5 rebuild makes the environments, buildings, tunnels, enemies and weapons look considerably more detailed. After a quick Gemini prompt to confirm my suspicions, Halo Studios described the game as a faithful but expanded remake rebuilt with high-definition visuals, enhanced cinematics and refined gameplay.

I would give the graphics an 8/10.

The environments are genuinely nice to look at, and the new missions give you even more of those moments where you stop and look at the Covenant designs and think, ‘Now this looks good.’

The problem is that some of those beautiful environments are the same environments you have already been through.

That is where the level design gets a 7/10 from me. The different environments are cool, but when you start going backwards through them, especially in the icy sections, it feels like the game is stretching itself out.

Vehicles are another thing. The Warthog, Banshee, Wraith and other vehicles look great and are cool concepts, but I really struggle with the controls, maybe I’m the problem LOL. The vehicle combat is okay, but I expected something that should have a mounted machine gun to absolutely obliterate enemies, but instead it feels like another handheld weapon, all except for the rockets, those are, well rockets and they do what rockets do best, blow shit up!

The Soundtrack Does A Lot Of Heavy Lifting

The music is probably one of those things that you might not think about until you notice it and I noticed it.

The score changes depending on what is happening. When you are rushing to escape something, it becomes more upbeat. When there are loads of enemies around, it becomes more intense. When things calm down, you guessed it, so does the score.

That works really well because it helps tell you what kind of situation you are in without the game having to spell it out.

I would give the audio and music an 8/10.

Technical Performance

On Xbox Series X, Halo: Campaign Evolved ran really, really well for me.

I didn’t have crashes, and didn’t notice meaningful FPS drops. There was no major stuttering, no long loading times, no audio problems and no major visual glitches.

The only real issues I noticed were towards the end of the campaign, where a checkpoint would occasionally not load correctly and I sometimes had two waypoints appear when only one was actually relevant.

This was annoying, but not something that ruined the experience.

So for my Xbox Series X experience, performance gets an 8/10.

Replayability, Co-op and The Premium Edition

Would I play the campaign again immediately? No.

Eventually? Maybe, but only if there was a new storyline that actually continued the universe and gave me more character development.

There are other reasons to replay it, though. Campaign Remix, Skulls and co-op give players more ways to approach the campaign, including four-player online co-op.

That just did not change my personal feeling that I had already seen enough of the main campaign for one playthrough.

The Premium Edition is another thing I would think about before spending the extra money. It includes five Master Chief armor skins, six weapon skins, a digital artbook, a digital short story and a digital game manual.

Those are nice extras, but there is no additional campaign expansion in that package. So if you are buying the game specifically for the story, I’d stick to the base game and save a buck or two.

Final Verdict — A Beautiful Remake That Sometimes Feels Very Familiar

So, would I recommend Halo: Campaign Evolved?

Yes.

But I think it depends on why you are buying it.

If you have never played Halo before, absolutely. It is a very good way to finally experience one of the games that helped define the Xbox brand, and the remake makes it look like a modern game rather than something that has been dragged out of the early 2000’s and simply given a fresh coat of paint.

If you are a longtime Halo fan, there is also a lot you may enjoy here. The visual upgrade is sweet, the expanded arsenal is a welcome change, the new enemies are interesting and Operation: METEORITE is genuinely good.

For me, though, the main campaign becomes very vanilla.

Once you get to a certain point, you know the enemies, you know the weapons, you know what you need to do and then you start going through areas you have already been through. By the middle of the game I was honestly thinking, ‘Okay, cool, let’s just get to the end so I can finish the story.’

Hence my review title.

The new missions outshine the classic.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a very good-looking, very well-performing remake of an important game. It just tends to feels like the technology has evolved more than the campaign itself.