Halo: Campaign Evolved

Based on the 5,184 most recent Steam reviews · updated 2 Oct 2026

• English reviews: 5,000, 30 Jul 2026 – 2 Oct 2026
• Russian reviews: 184, 23 Jul 2026 – 21 Sept 2026

• ▼ Not recommended

  14 h at review50 h total

  2 Aug 2026

  After our second or third session playing through the Legendary campaign, a friend and I started discussing what a fair assessment of this remake would be without turning it into full-on hate. We finished our 4-man campaign tonight and we'll be tackling the remainder of the achievements in coming days. We landed on these questions for it based on the current experience of Halo CE in MCC and answering NO on at least 3 of them wouldn't make it worth a purchase: 1- Does it play better than CE in MCC? 2- Does it look better than CE in MCC? 3- Does it run better than CE in MCC? 4- Do the cutscenes, writing and narrative adjustments add anything substantial compared to CE in MCC? 5- Does it justify the current price tag? This is gonna be a slightly long review, so I'm leaving a TL;DR at the end. 1- Gameplay's fine, it's still CE at the end of the day but I don't think it plays better than CE . We found out that some weapon changes and enemy behavior are a bit out of line, though: -The AR is pretty much the Jack of all Trades of this game, it does everything. It's probably the best gun and it's such a stark contrast from its CE iteration. -Not being able to shoot a gun right after swapping is wack. -Elites are not a menace, they take a long while to take notice that you're shooting at them and barely react up until they're almost dead. -Jackals are pretty much the most dangerous units with their shields withstanding even Scorpion cannon shots and being able to use the Plasma Pistol at top efficiency. -We were very surprised at the Flood's ability to use shields on Elite corpses and sometimes even cloaking as well. At the same time, the Flood is very easy to manage because of the innate speed the game has, not even considering sprint being added to the equation. -We were getting deleted by Sentinels in the reactor section of The Maw and I started thinking..."this is pretty much Reach's engine...and that same engine was the base for Destiny and Destiny 2...and those games had wacky interactions with damage tied to frame rate on a very specific faction. What happens if we cap our frame rate?" Sentinels stopped dealing ridiculous damage and we all said "Of course...". 2- This topic is such a mixed bag because it is probably the main selling point of this game. Based on the quite different setups we all have (a PS5, a recently released laptop, a recently built PC and my almost 5 year-old PC), we all agreed that the game looks decent for all of us but it has a weird film grain and chromatic aberration that can't be turned off that ruin the experience a bit. Cutscenes are blurry as well. I personally think that these issues are detrimental and hardly justify the use of UE5 for its graphical side . 3- NOT AT ALL , this game was clearly rushed to be released before GTA6 even if I think they don't share demographics. It's one of the most unoptimized games I've played in a while. We all have experienced technical issues on every single mission we've played: textures popping up out of nowhere, key bindings getting reset every session, frequent stutters and frame drops during heated combat, cutscenes not playing for some of us in the group, achievements not popping up (we cleared The Maw 3 times because the achievements only pop up for the host in that mission...), frequent disconnects and the cherry on top is that lobbies don't have a Back or Disband options...you cannot leave a lobby unless the host closes the game. 4- Some cutscenes are really cool but the charm of cramming a warthog or banshee into them is lost. The Flood sections are probably the best part of the game and the remake of The Library is really good. However, the pacing of the dialogue is bad and the constant handholding doesn't help. Sadly, the new missions are nothing special with the exception of the Seraph section à la Long Night of Solace in part because Williams is awful. She adds nothing to the narrative of the game. Also, whose idea was to give Johnson the Deadpool treatment with his constant 4th wall breaking behavior? It's incredibly out of place. I'm undecided on this front because I'm not exactly Halo's most fervent fan, but I'd say it's a 50/50. 5- This should've been a $30 to $40 USD game, especially considering they didn't want to implement the PvP multiplayer. TL;DR: 1- Does it play better than CE in MCC? No 2- Does it look better than CE in MCC? Sometimes 3- Does it run better than CE in MCC? No 4- Do the cutscenes, writing and narrative adjustments add anything substantial compared to CE in MCC? At some points 5- Does it justify the current price tag? No Getting Halo MCC for like a 1/4 of this one's asking price that includes 6 games, score attack, time attack, medals, multiple game modes including PvP multiplayer is such a better choice. The only acceptable reason to get Halo Campaign Evolved is to play it in a 4-man group. That's it.

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  1,311 found helpful · 18 found funny

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  Games owned: 155 · Reviews written: 52

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  5.7 h at review8.5 h total

  30 Jul 2026

  I finished Halo: Campaign Evolved and I still do not really know who it is for. New players and PlayStation players, maybe. But for everyone else, why buy this over The Master Chief Collection, where you get the original campaign and almost the entire series? There are times when it looks incredible. Some environments look like the version of Halo my adolescent brain thought I was seeing in 2001, and it is much better than the previous Anniversary remake. Unfortunately, getting it to look good on PC required multiple mods and messing around with ini files. Out of the box it was blurry, had strange input delay, and covered the screen in UI that you cannot properly disable through the normal settings. Opening an ini file and beginning negotiations with Unreal Engine should not be part of setting up a major PC release. The art direction is also very uneven. Forerunner structures are often too bright, clean and shiny, losing the ancient mystery of the original. Covenant interiors can look like a science fiction themed bowling alley. It is technically impressive, but often feels expensive and sterile. The weapons have lost some of their punch too. The Magnum still works, but sounds like a wet noodle being slapped against an Unggoy’s face. The AI is also strangely dim. Enemies hesitate, fail to pressure you and are far too easy to funnel. They preserved the Halo brain and apparently gave it a minor concussion. Sprint is fine outdoors, but inside Forerunner structures it lets you rush past the atmosphere, environmental storytelling and sometimes entire combat encounters. The problem is not that Chief can sprint. The old levels simply were not rebuilt around the fact that he now can. The bonus missions are supposed to justify the remake, but they added very little for me. They are poorly written, full of awkward cutscenes, and mostly involve running through corridors shooting enemies until your brain quietly leaves the room. Their main purpose is showing the history between Chief and Johnson, which is a good idea, but the game mostly mistakes placing them beside each other for developing their relationship. The small knocking gesture they share does more to sell their history than the missions themselves. The ODST storyline also had potential. Williams disliking Chief makes complete sense within Halo lore, despite the embarrassing culture war outrage around her. The problem is not that she dislikes him. The problem is that the writing does almost nothing interesting with why she dislikes him. The newly recorded dialogue is very hit and miss. Captain Keyes does not sound right for the character, and while Steve Downes is still unmistakably Chief, you can clearly hear his age. That is obviously not his fault, but it feels strange hearing such an old sounding Chief at the beginning of the series. The music is still excellent, but its placement often feels disconnected, as if someone pressed shuffle on the Halo greatest hits and trusted nostalgia to handle the rest. There are also hints towards a Halo 2 remake. That should excite me, but after playing this I am mostly wondering which beloved weapon will sound damp and which ancient alien structure will be renovated into a luxury kitchen showroom. More than anything, I do not understand why this project needed to exist. Microsoft spent years and an enormous amount of money developing Slipspace, used it once, then abandoned it for Unreal Engine 5. Building this in Slipspace, continuing to improve MCC, or finally adding Halo 5 and releasing the complete collection everywhere would all have made more sense. I do not hate Halo: Campaign Evolved. It has beautiful moments and clearly had talented people working on it. But it recreates almost everything from Combat Evolved except the thing that mattered most. Its charm.

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  859 found helpful · 18 found funny

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  Games owned: 808 · Reviews written: 27

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  11 h at review14 h total

  1 Aug 2026

  Personally I don't think this is worth the asking price if there were more modes like firefight or something I'd easily recommend this. As it stands this is a 50% off or gamepass type game. Don't get me wrong it's fun but you get much better value out of MCC than this single game.

  843 found helpful · 8 found funny

  Value

  Games owned: 1,859 · Reviews written: 98

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  5.7 h at review11 h total

  16 Aug 2026

  I really dislike this game. I just can't understand what the thought process of this game was aside from "Making halo for a modern audience". Pros: Graphics: The game is gorgeous. The world is unbelivable to look at and the enviornments really come together beautifully. The technology of the covenant, the armor of the spartans, the weapon effects; all of it truly looks incredible. Whoever did the graphical and artistry work in this game definitely nailed it. The skybox and the halo ring itself look beautiful as well. Gameplay - realistically the weapons and gameplay itself is still fundamentally halo, but moreso focused on "clear enemies and enter the next room to clear enemies" trope that original bungie was trying to avoid with their design. The guns feel good, they sound good, they have impact. The warthog feels good, physics are typical halo, it all feels and sounds good overall. Music - The music is really good in the game, but thats because its all ripped from previous halo games. In the new missions, they just steal music from other halo games and plant it at random moments in this game. While the music is great, its only great because greater people made it. Cons: New Missions - The new missions are absolute trash. You can see the stark difference between the story pacing, story elements, character dialogue, mission structure. All of it is modern halo studios and you can clearly see they dont have the creativity or capability to properly do a halo game on their own. They botched three missions in a game that they otherwise just had to copy someone elses homework. Its a joke. LT Williams is insufferable and they try to mask it under the lore of the ODST but truthfully it all just feels out of place, forced and overall a massive joke to this franchise. The new missions themselves are also buggy. The game bugged out with johnson literally ten MINUTES into the first mission and 30 minutes into the first mission, resulting in a reload and progress reset multiple times. I cant even imagine what a full halo new game would look like under a studio this incapable. They cant even copy homework. Glitches and Bugs galore - As mentioned previously, this game actually feels broken sometimes. You will go a while with nothing then all of a sudden, get bugs back to back and you wonder WTF did they do with their time. They literally designed these new missions while copying everything else and still somehow botched it. New Mission Story - As you can see, a lot of my issues are with the new missions. They fundmentally ruin the experience of this remake. The story is garbage and is simple there to shoehorn in this new character williams for the few moments she is there. She purely exists only to completely ♥♥♥♥ on Master Chief and the spartan legacy under the guise of "lore" reasoning. They could have made this so much better but the mindset was clearly in one direction and it wasn't in the direction of respecting halo or master chief in any capacity. They probably hated remaking this game without being able to change the core experience so they added these PREQUEL missions to get a one up on the original. No Multiplayer - They sacrificed multiplayer in this game, a fundamental core aspect of halo, for these new missiosn that serve zero purpose and overall ruin the remake more than its already ruined. I dont get it man. Overall Halo Campaign Evolved is a BEAUTIFUL game, with the skin of halo but at its core, is anything but Halo. I highly recommend you play Master Chief Collection instead, as you will get way more of your money worth and actually have multiplayer plus MULTIPLE games for a CHEAPER price. This remake is a joke. Only buy it as super sale when it eventually gets there. Thanks for reading.

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  821 found helpful · 15 found funny

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  Reviews written: 115

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  0.2 h at review0.2 h total

  1 Aug 2026

  Let me get this straight. I must LINK my Microsoft account to my STEAM account to play a SINGLE PLAYER GAME..... On top of that.... "Once linkmed, this aciton cannot be reversed." Yeah....... Are you going to come after me if I refund the game? Go after my steam library or something? ♥♥♥♥ YOU MICROSHIT. Linking my Steam acct to microsoft for LIFE??? Not happening. You can go monetize someone else steam acct for life. SAD what you think you can get away with. Alt - F4 to get out of the game too? Dont want us to leave? This is a whole nother level of ridiculous. REFUNDING

  739 found helpful · 53 found funny

  Value

  Games owned: 1,116 · Reviews written: 114

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  1.2 h at review1.2 h total

  2 Aug 2026

  What do you get when you take a beloved game that holds so many memories and is the gold standard for the video game industry, and try to add modern writing, modern monetization, modern gameplay design, and modern game development methodology? You get the ironically named Halo: Campaign Evolved, which should really be named Halo: Campaign Regressed, as there is no evolution over the original or the Master Chief Collection versions of this game. For the TLDR, buy the Master Chief Collection, as it is, in my opinion, a far easier entry point to the series than this is. The only downside is that the graphics may not look as nice in some places, but at least that collection still has most of Halo’s soul, whereas this remake is soulless for reasons I will note below. Firstly, I do have to ask, why do we have to connect a Microsoft Account to our Steam Account for a single-player game? I do not understand why this was seen as necessary in any way, other than to harvest our data or some other nefarious reason. I kept getting errors 400 or 500, which, from what I've read online, indicate an account session issue or an Xbox Services issue. Why was adding another point of failure necessary to a single-player game? In terms of pricing, with the premium add-on, which are just skins if that is your sort of thing, it comes out to almost 100 CAD before taxes, and the base game, without any multiplayer, is nearly 70 CAD. This is all for a single-player game. Compared to the entry point of all the games in Halo MCC, they cost 50 CAD, or, for the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition, a mere 13 CAD. Who thought these prices were reasonable? From a design standpoint, the soul has been unceremoniously ripped out of this remake. You cannot just make a game under the Halo IP without giving it the proper respect it deserves and having it made by people who understand the setting correctly. The game babies you every step of the way, and makes it so that even when you are fighting stealth elites, they have to be pointed out on the UI. You cannot explore anymore, as you will often die or get an out-of-bounds warning, which was not present in the original. I remember exploring and discovering new ways to approach missions when I played the original game when I was younger. Such a shame that experience has been stripped out. The game experience in meme form: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3776908332 I really did not think the writing would be this bad. Yet again, 343/Halo Studios continues to impress me with the unnecessary additions to games. Lieutenant Williams stands out as the worst addition by far, and I noticed she was suspiciously absent from all the marketing materials for this game. Basically, she goes around the whole game as an ODST ‘girlboss’ trope-type character talking down to Master Chief for nearly all of the game. I have seen people say it's because it is a loreful ODST/Spartan rivalry, but if you truly know your Halo lore, this is not true. In the novel Fall of Reach, Master Chief did injure two and kill two ODSTs when he was boxing, but the event was covered up so that it would not breed animosity. My opinion is that her insertion into the game was just an excuse to add another unlikable girlboss character and shows how little Halo Studios understands or respects its audience or setting. This game is one of the best examples of toxic feminity in recent memory. I found the whole Triumph Of Tolerance to be way too on-the-nose and unnecessary as well. The replacement of characters with women was unnecessary, and I saw some videos where you can kill the male NPCs but not the female ones. Some say it was hitbox-related issues that were patched after the preview. I find that very curious. They also replaced some of the characters that were facial scans of the original developers with more ‘diverse’ choices. Did I mention more than 50% of marine NPCs in this game are now women? How is that change aligned with existing lore? I do not understand why, from a lore perspective, any of the changes were necessary, or how they contribute positively to the game at all. It is just shoehorning modern sensibilities into a game to try and placate a modern audience that does not exist. The cutscenes have lost their magic and seem drawn out. I do not understand who wrote the lines and why so many lines were changed. The changes were unnecessary and take away from the setting and world-building Halo is known for. Cortana now has male facial features as well, which I found odd. What was wrong with the more feminine Cortana from the original games? Another strange choice. Performance-wise, my keybinds would never carry over from session to session. If you turned off DLSS, you would get ghosting. I had one crash as well, which I could not replicate. On Steam Deck, even with tweaks in ProtonDB, getting it to run at 30 fps was difficult. It ran at around 40-50fps on my 3070 on my other PC. Why was it released this buggy? Why are the developers that Halo Studios outsourced to relying on DLSS to pick up the slack on their inability to optimize UE5 properly? Also, shout-out to Microsoft for not refunding people like me who couldn't access the game during the paid pre-access period due to the server-related errors I mentioned earlier. Thank goodness I bought it on Steam. Lots of people on other platforms are SOL. Overall, I give this game a 2/10. It looks a bit nicer in some areas than the MCC collection, but is worse on every other metric. I have heard they are planning more remakes like this, and that Halo 2 is supposedly next. I hope they do not outsource so much and instead get competent people who will port the original over without making any unnecessary changes or unlikable character inserts. Even at a steep discount, this is garbage in gaming form. Do not buy this game, and support Halo Studios and their destruction and disrespect to gaming history. It will poison your childhood memories of what is a great game originally before this garbage remake. Some videos for you to watch with more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiJLKMN_wjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tksxmWQNIyI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXmOIBSwSLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__aC9FQ5YRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxm8SwPaobs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noV78cLkyJo

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  669 found helpful · 16 found funny

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  Games owned: 8,298 · Reviews written: 69

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  25 h at review59 h total

  1 Aug 2026

  The bonus missions suck. They are just one kill room after another with bad writing and a dog fighting mission that bored me to tears. The CE campaign and the visuals are cool, but not 50 dollars cool. I'd say wait for a sale and skip the bonus missions if you do plan to get this game. It is fun, just not at all worth its price.

  332 found helpful · 4 found funny

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  Games owned: 538 · Reviews written: 17

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  0.1 h at review0.1 h total

  26 Aug 2026

  Bought it, installed and ran it then it asked for an xbox account sign in to play it, i asked for a refund instead.......

  179 found helpful · 28 found funny

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  Reviews written: 7

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  11 h at review11 h total

  15 Aug 2026

  Everything you heard is true, the dialog sucks, the pacing is horrid, the "new" elements are not that extra. Buy it when its on sale, its not worth the full price, its hardly going to be worth a sale price. Save your money and play CE Anniversary on Master Chief Collection. Absolutely insane how hard Microsoft fumbled Halo yet again.

  171 found helpful · 1 found funny

  Value

  Reviews written: 43

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  43 h at review58 h total

  16 Sept 2026

  I don't care about the bad voice acting or stilted cutscenes. This game is nothing. Halo has had so much continuity between 2004 and now and almost none of it was used. Even barring Fireteam Raven there was not a single ODST in the game aside from one single character in the bonus levels which exists solely to berate the player and spout insipid banter. The bonus levels themselves are utterly devoid of interesting content or routes to take, featuring 90% reskinned enemies and the single worst implementation of brutes I have ever seen in a Halo game. Sure the space section is nice, except that it's ripped from Halo Reach. And it's even more boring and repetitive than it was in Reach. Which sums up the majority of new and changed content in this game. This game doesn't feel like Halo Combat Evolved. It feels like Halo Reach wearing the skin of Halo Infinite, which is effectively all it is. Don't think it gets by me that the new campaign weapons, the sentinel beam and energy sword, are ripped from Halo Infinite as well. Campaign Evolved is just boring. There's nothing to sink your teeth into. There's no score, there's no time attack, there's no playlists or online or firefight. It's just campaign. Campaign Evolved, that is. And those campaign levels are almost entirely unchanged except for The Library. The Library is fine, I guess. Except for tank forms which can't fight you on top of a slope and just sit there eating way too many bullets. Sure, it's nice to rip tank forms from Halo 3 with shiny new graphics, but there was zero consideration for how they might interact with Halo CEs level structure. In fact, there was little consideration for anything but producing a minimum viable product that could be pumped out for a quick buck. If you want a passionate reimagining of Halo CE, play Ruby's Rebalance. If you want to play Halo CE levels in Halo Reach's engine with pretty graphics and a choppy framerate then go ahead. I'm genuinely happy for you. I wish I liked this game. I wanted to like this game so bad it's unreal. I paid full price for this. Hell, I DO like this game. It's fun to click heads and make enemies explode. But it's impossible not to think about what could have been and be disappointed with what is. Halo has so much unused content that was just ignored in favor of spamming spec ops elites and removing hallways in Assault on the Control Room. The bonus levels are blatantly tech demos for what a Halo 2 remake might be. And it's all but officially confirmed a Halo 2 remake is in the works. If the brutes are anything like they are in this game going forward then Halo Studios will have failed to learn a single thing. But then again, when have they?

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  159 found helpful · 5 found funny

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  Reviews written: 77

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  12 h at review12 h total

  16 Aug 2026

  You are paying £50-70 for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cTrHhYF_N8 Go watch the Blur Studios remastered Cutscenes on Youtube, then if you feel up to it, buy the Master Chef Collection instead. It's cheaper and comes with all the Halo Games up to Halo 4 (plus multiplayer for all those games, plus mod support). I have saved you £50-70 on a completely pointless product.

  111 found helpful · 35 found funny

  Value

  Reviews written: 7

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  26 h at review34 h total

  1 Aug 2026

  Для кого делался этот ремейк? Microsoft и 343 Industries… ой то есть Halo Studios уже в третий раз пытаются скормить нам первую часть серии Halo, но в немного другой обертке. Конечно же, как истинная фанатка, я схавала этот ремейк в надежде на то, что может быть в этот раз разработчики смогут подарить нам воистину классную игру серии, а не игру, в которой на каждый плюс найдется минус. Как же глупо это было с моей стороны АХАХАХАХАХА. Halo: Campaign Evolved по сути разделена на две части: ремейк оригинальной сюжетной кампании и микрокампания на три миссии с предысторией Мастера Чифа и сержанта Джонсона. Ремейк оригинальной игры Оригинальная Halo: Combat Evolved для многих является шедевром в жанре шутеров от первого лица, да и на деле это воистину знаковая для жанра игра. Я же первую часть люблю не так сильно, у меня самая любимая часть - это вторая. Но все равно я считаю, что оригинальная Halo CE даже по сей день играется приятно, пусть и не без оговорок. Ремейк же мало что поменял в геймплее. В игру добавили бег, добавили прицеливание у всего оружия в арсенале, добавили из последующих частей возможность угонять транспорт у противников. Уровни при этом в большинстве своем структурно не поменялись, кроме Библиотеки, добавили лишь пару новых комнат. Меняет ли это восприятие игры? Практически нет. Когда впервые видишь новую комнату в структуре уровня, то конечно есть мимолетное ощущение новизны, которое пропадает очень быстро, ведь это по сути та же самая игра. Справедливости ради, больше всего новизна ощущается во второй половине игры, особенно на уровне Библиотека. В оригинале это был апогей репетативности, зачищать 4 этажа говна в однообразных декорациях было не очень весело. В ремейке же этот уровень подвергся полной переработке, и я бы даже сказала, что за всю игру это был один из лучших уровней. Пропала репетативность как визуальная, так и геймплейная. Визуальная репетативность пропала вообще у всех уровней игры, за это ремейку плюс. А вот минус можно влепить за то, что искусственный интеллект врагов заметно деградировал, они регулярно просто пялятся в стены, стреляют очень медленно, не уворачиваются от гранат. И это все на легендарной сложности. Визуально вообще вся игра ощущается довольно странно, местами это просто пик графического и арт дизайна, а местами все выглядит как дженерик UE5 слоп с крайне сильным эффектом зловещей долины. С катсценами точно такая же ситуация, они поставлены очень странно, хотя сам CGI выглядит потрясно. Отдельно хочу поговорить про звуковое сопровождение, в частности про озвучку персонажей. Это какой-то кошмар, реплики практически всех героев звучат максимально неестественно, особенно это заметно у Кортаны, где звучание оригинальных реплик намного превосходит ремейк. Со звучанием всей остальной игры тоже есть проблемы, многие виды оружия звучат просто нормально, не хуже оригинала, но вот некоторые просто по всем фронтам проигрывают звукам как оригинала, так и ремастера из 2011 года. Операция “Метеорит” Разработчики делали немаленький акцент на том, что ремейк будет включать в себя новые сюжетные миссии в формате приквела. Назвали они все это дело “Операция “Метеорит”, и честно скажу, это было по большей части плохо. Плохо сюжетно, плохо геймплейно, с катсценами вообще полный ужас. В этой микрокампании всего 3 миссии. Первая миссия - это просто кусок третьей миссии из основной игры, разбавленный парой новых комнат со своим визуальным стилем. Поначалу эти новые комнаты выглядят прикольно, но потом замечаешь, что это просто перекрашенные комнаты, которые мы видели раньше. Более того, разработчики решили, что будет классной идеей внаглую взять и запихнуть арены и комнаты из основной кампании. Играется при этом все очень плохо, репетативность зашкаливает, баланс некоторых боев вызывает огромные вопросы. Плюсом именно в дополнительных миссиях нам впервые показывают обновленных бугаев и вводят в первую часть боевую винтовку, которая впервые появилась только во второй части. Оба этих нововведения ужасны, бугаи нормально не реагируют на попадания, визуального фидбека вообще нет, а боевая винтовка в этой игре - это просто шутка. Она слабая, она звучит ОТВРАТИТЕЛЬНО, мне так обидно блин, это было мое любимое оружие со второй части :( Вторая же миссия меня порадовала, она и визуально выглядит необычно и уникально в целом для серии, и геймплейно разнообразия тут хватает, я нисколько не скучала на протяжении всей миссии. Третья миссия по сути вобрала в себя по чуть-чуть из первой и второй, получилось буквально 50/50. Плюс тут добавили космические сражения на кораблях, как в Halo Reach, но секция эта оставляет желать лучшего. Не плохо, но и не вау что-то крутое. А, еще в этой миссии была секция с моей “любимой” поездкой на гондоле как в миссии "Зона карантина" из второй части, спасибо большое разработчикам за такой прекрасный опыт! Порадовало в этих миссиях меня то, что разработчики взяли саундтреки из прошлых игр серии, в частности Halo 2, 3 и Reach. Но эти треки - заслуга оригинальных композиторов. Про сюжетную составляющую миссий даже не хочется говорить, если честно. Диалоги между персонажами ужасные и кринжовые, фокус всей истории идет на персонажах, которые ничем особенным не выделяются, и раскрыть их за полтора часа у сценаристов не вышло. Общие проблемы всей игры. Техническая составляющая игры - это полный кошмар. Я устану перечислять абсолютно все баги, но больше всего выбивало из колеи то, что при смерти тело Мастера Чифа испарялось в воздухе, то же самое касается противников, причем замечала я это в определенных местах, а не случайным образом на протяжении игры. Выбивают из колеи кринжовые регдоллы, у которых ноги и руки выгибаются под ненатуральными углами, как это бывает обычно в дешевых поделках на UE5. В кооперативе у того, кто присоединяется к лобби, некоторые катсцены не проигрываются. Ну и общая производительность игры страдает. Да, красиво все выглядит, не спорю, но выдавать 30 кадров в некоторых сегментах на средних настройках с dlss на балансе это просто непозволительно. Ну и ко всему прочему, в игре просто до отупения много туториалов и подсказок там, где они не нужны. Возможно вы слышали от каких-нибудь ютуберов этот пример, но в ремейке Кортана не только подсказывает, как определить, где находится невидимый элит, но и в некоторых моментах у них над головами МАРКЕРЫ ЦЕЛИ ВИСЯТ. Пожалуйста, научитесь уважать умственные способности своих игроков, ради всего святого. Мне страшно. Я правда искренне не понимаю, для кого делался этот ремейк и почему он вышел в релиз в том состоянии, в котором вышел. Фанаты оригинала недовольны ремейком, потому что оригинал действительно превосходит его по многим параметрам. Такие люди, как я, которые не питают особо теплых чувств к первой части, просто не увидят смысла повторно играть в ту же самую игру с минимумом изменений, пусть местами они действительно хороши. Новички серии? Я не могу за них ничего сказать, но уж точно могу посоветовать за те же деньги купить Master Chief Collection, или даже отдельно первую часть, которая стоит в 4 раза дешевле. Обновленная графика, чуть-чуть измененный геймплей, новые миссии и "ремикс" кампании с прикольными черепами, увы, не могут оправдать покупку ремейка. В финале ремейка нам недвусмысленно намекнули на то, что в будущем выйдет ремейк второй части. Halo 2 - это моя любимая игра среди всех тайтлов, что я когда-либо проходила, и мне очень страшно, что разработчики могут отнестись к ней так же, как отнеслись к ремейку культовой Halo: Combat Evolved. Пожалуйста, оставьте игры эпохи Bungie в покое и делайте то, что вы не успели сделать со своими прошлыми детищами. Продолжения Halo Infinite мы не видели уже почти 5 лет.

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  81 found helpful · 2 found funny

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  Games owned: 917 · Reviews written: 208

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  3.9 h at review26 h total

  23 Aug 2026

  343/Halo Studios misses the mark again. Unreal Engine 5, the engine that they touted as being the thing that would refresh and revive Halo, ironically, is the thing that kills this game for me. The Slipspace Engine in Infinite ran so well, and had Infinite FEELING like Halo. Unreal Engine leaves Campaign Evolved feeling like its missing something. Every aspect of this game feels like a pulled punch. The music just isn't quite there. It's too quiet and lacks soul. It feels like they just used AI to make the score. The guns feel just not quite right. There is no oomf in the gunplay at all. The enemies' AI feels not quite there. There is no satisfaction in headshotting grunts and jackals. This game feels like there was no unifying vision. It feels like everything was outsourced to the cheapest labor. OH WAIT! IT WAS! Unreal Engine 5 is all flash and no soul. Every single surface in this games is reflective and shiny, and every single particle effect is dialed up to 12. It makes this game incredibly difficult to run without tuning all your graphical settings down to Medium at minimum, and the sensory bombardment does little to hide what lies underneath. Campaign Evolved feels like a literal polished turd, except the polish makes the game not even playable. They gave this game the landlord special and just painted over all the rust and dirt with Unreal Engine 5's graphical choices. 343 decided they'd make a playable benchmarking program rather than a game. The input lag and stuttering this game has is inexcusable. Was I excited for this? Yes. I was excited for a reboot where some of the choices Bungie made during Halo 1's development could be righted. Things like the Library, and the warthog run's infamous tiny bridge on the Pillar of Autumn. We received those things, but it came in a crusty cardboard box that they decided to paint gold and call a treasure. I haven't beat this game yet. I will, and I will see if this review changes. If 343/Halo Studios likewise releases performance patches, too, I will also change this review. Halo games are supposed to be easy to run, and always have been. At what point do we have diminishing returns in graphical fidelity to game playability? This culture of trying to make games shinier and shinier with tech that is sooo resource-expensive to run is hurting gaming. This game does not look that much better than Infinite or even Reach for that matter, yet it is 100x more difficult to run.

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  71 found helpful · 2 found funny

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  Games owned: 748 · Reviews written: 9

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  4.7 h at review4.7 h total

  15 Aug 2026

  When I heard they were remaking the first Halo game, I was thrilled. Halo holds some of my fondest childhood memories, particularly during a difficult time when my parents split up. I remember going into an HMV store, where they had a demo booth for the original Xbox featuring Halo: Combat Evolved. I'd never played anything so engaging! I spent hours playing while my dad did his shopping. When other kids showed up, I let them take a turn and patiently waited until they finished so I could play the demo again. That Christmas, my dad surprised me with an Xbox for both of us. Looking back, I know he couldn’t really afford it, but he got it for me anyway. We received one game each with it, and I chose Halo. I played it non-stop every weekend I spent at his tiny apartment. So, having the chance to replay it with modern graphics in a new engine should have been worth every penny, right? Unfortunately, I’ve never been so disappointed in my life. I really tried to like this remake. I gave it all the patience I could muster, thinking maybe my memory was flawed or that the controls weren't as good as I remembered. But the game feels heartless and like a soulless cash grab. Sure, the graphics look nice, but they aren’t outstanding and don’t look that much better than the anniversary edition that had the upgraded graphics engine layered over the old one. All of the weapons feel off; they don’t hit as hard as I remember. There are many small details missing, like the plasma sword not having its iconic charge, which makes it frustrating to use. The vehicles, especially the Warthog, control poorly and don't have that familiar feel. The Marines' AI is terrible, which, while it was bad in the original, I expected improved AI in this remake. This isn’t a budget title priced at £20; this is a £50 game, and I expect significant improvements for that money. Also, some of the extra dialogue feels out of place. The grunts and elites say lines that I don’t remember from the original, and while they’re not terrible, they seem awkward. There are also questionable character redesigns, particularly Cortana; why does she look like a man in a wig? She’s an iconic character, and I don’t want her to look different. Chief is a faceless character, but Cortana is the face of Halo, and changing her feels entirely wrong. Additionally, there’s an introduction of a female trooper who was not in the original and has a lot of dialogue, saying things like, “I don’t need no Chief.” Who thought that was a good idea? Why would we want a character that hates the Chief in a scenario where they’re behind enemy lines with limited resources and the Chief is their greatest asset, having saved most of the surviving Marines? I was discussing this game with someone else who mentioned that if you try to kill the bridge crew at the beginning, you can kill everyone except the female crew members. Why? Is that supposed to make some sort of statement? It feels strange that they went through the effort to include this but neglected many important elements that would make the game feel like the original. In conclusion, I honestly recommend not buying this game. It's a massive waste of money, and even if it's on sale, I wouldn't suggest purchasing it. Play the anniversary edition instead; it offers the original game with all its charm and a visual overlay that makes it look nicer.

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  67 found helpful · 5 found funny

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  Reviews written: 20

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  65 h at review69 h total

  10 Aug 2026

  My opinions on this game as a longtime Halo fan are mixed. On paper, this is a pretty decent way to play the original Halo game, updated to modern standards. I feel it is a better attempt than their previous remaster, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. I would rate it a 7.5/10, but laterally to the original game, this game have both positives and negatives compared to the original game. Pros: - This game is faithful to the original campaign's vision, down to extremely finite details. - Guns that originally sucked in the Xbox original title are now finely tweaked to be more useable in this remake. As such, I feel inclined to use various weapons in this game, where in the original, I stuck to the same four weapons, the entire time. - There is new cinematography to the cutscenes that I feel provide better clarity to the intent of scenes and what they decide to show, at face value. They bringing extra focus to signature movements that weren't necessarily well focused-on in the original game. As such, the plot is more easily understood for newbie players (such as Cortana absorbing the Index, and giving a more proper intro to the Monitor in a brand-new cutscene). - I would argue there is more replay value to this version of the game than there is with the original, and I say that as a huge fan of the original game. The remix function in particular is an absolutely great addition, as are the new skulls. - Sections of this game (including entire levels) are changed up to be less repetitive and more recognizable. There is not a single section of the campaign that doesn't look unique, and I applaud this remake for that. Campaign missions that were originally repetitive in level design now take every opportunity to remain unique and recognizable. - Aside from the bonus missions (we'll get to that later), the way this game's pacing was re-imagined is such a welcome adjustment. Waypoints (which are toggleable) are great for newbie players that might otherwise get lost in the level designs. Anyone telling you that it was the point of the original game's design could be right (as it was easy to get lost in the original game, and thus, a bit more anxious), but that doesn't mean it's good design for everyone. - Four-player campaign is a massive benefit to this game's experience, and the difficulty modifiers make this version of the Campaign such a welcome version for new and old players alike. (It's nice that I can play Legendary difficulty while another player is on Easy difficulty.) - Most of my notes that are pros to this game's notes are pretty much summed up to it's accessibility options. They do a pretty good job ensuring this game is accessible to many players. - crab rave (if you know, you know) Cons: - The stark use of AI generation in this game's development cycle is very apparent. While the cinematography in this game's cutscenes are fantastic, the animations of some of the pre-rendered cutscenes look strange and unnatural. - There are so many re-recorded lines from various voice actors and actresses that really didn't need to be re-recorded, and as such, they feel out-of-place as a longtime fan. This mixed with the rough animations make the cutscene performances feel very disconnected from one-another. This is most noticeable with the performance of Jen Taylor. She's doing a great job on paper and is a fantastic voice actress, but it's so drastically different from the original game that it feels like an over-acted stage play of the original game. - While not advertised initially on announcement, this is the second time the original Halo has been re-released to the public, completely lacking an in-engine multiplayer. The first Halo re-release had a multiplayer but it was an off-shoot of the Reach engine. There was a very specific atmosphere in the original game, a cold alien uncanny landscape, that I feel the remake excels in emphasizing, and the fact that it's not accessible in this game is a massive letdown. - Bonus missions are unfortunately not very interesting or engaging. The main campaign fixes a lot of level design flaws that were present in the original game (repetition and monotony), but they're oddly present in the bonus missions - often locking the player behind firefight sections. These are easily the longer missions in the entire game. - This game's use of AI generation also comes at the cost of performance on so many systems. Don't get me wrong, this game is visually stunning at times, but the motion blur and frame-gen are settings I almost immediately turned off, because they look god-awful in this game. The optimization of this game is so bafflingly high-cost, that the fact this game went gold (with so many issues on launch with NVIDIA cards) was very annoying to deal with. - The sniper rifle's firing sound effect is just... not good when compared to every other Halo game's sniper rifle, and I have enough experience with sound design in videogames to know what I'm talking about. Add a bit of low end sub-harmonic frequencies, compression, and a bit more reverb... Hopes (wishful thinking): - Multiplayer PVP implementation, complete with maps. Again, this was a huge missed opportunity to go all out on a remake of a 25 year-old game. It's absence is noticeable and the only way to reliably play an active multiplayer Halo is with Infinite (which is rich in microtransactions) and MCC (which this game should be striving to be an improvement of). - Toggleable 3rd person perspective (non-skull) per player. While 3rd person gameplay is somewhat new to the Halo franchise in this type of execution, I feel that this form of gameplay is so commonplace with other games that locking it to the entire parties' gameplay experience is cool, but limiting in execution. Some folks prefer 3rd person while others prefer 1st! I don't see the reason people can't just choose their own preferences. - More customization concerning "Campaign Remix." Campaign Remix is an awesome feature, but like a lot of aspects of new additions to this game... are critically under-baked. For instance... it would have been awesome to experience the game where every enemy was Hunters, or flipping factions (humans are the enemy players while covenant are allies). - That sniper rifle firing sound effect has to be updated. It's so lacking in oomph. ----- Ending this out with... This game is a serviceable re-imagining of Halo: Combat Evolved, but it's not worth it's full retail price, not even the standard $50 price tag. What it makes up for in improvements upon the original game, it lacks in it's flexibility to properly utilize the new features. The lack of multiplayer PVP is such a missed opportunity. Wait for a price-drop (I would say $30 is a far more fair price).

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  52 found helpful · 11 found funny

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  Games owned: 254 · Reviews written: 1

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  16 h at review16 h total

  25 Jul 2026

  Мастер Чиф против пришельцев Ремейк одной из старых игр Halo. Меня данная серия игр обошла стороной, так что игра была в новинку. Занятный космический шутер от 1 лица, довольно короткий, можно пройти за вечер, так что цена за кампанию точно не оправдана. Играть можно в соло или коопе до 4х человек. Были некоторые проблемы со входом (как обычно в последних играх Microsoft), графика во многих местах кажется "мыльной" даже на ультрах. Но в целом игрушка годная. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3770758007 Сюжет Описывается будущее, 2500+ год. Главный герой - Мастер Чиф, человек, постоянно носящий космический костюм, не показывающий лица. Вместе с командой они путешествуют по космосу на корабле. Внезапно на них нападает Ковенант - враждебные пришельцы. Он осуществляет экстренную посадку на ближайшую планету, взяв с собой ИИ ассистентку. Планета оказывается также населена другими инопланетянами - заражающими паразитами. Сражаться придется против всех сразу, иногда происходят массовые перестрелки между пришельцами. На этой планете оказывается огромный ореол "Halo", который служит грозным оружием. Чтобы остановить распространение паразитов на этой планете герои пытаются уничтожить его и улететь. Кампания довольно короткая, линейная, хоть и небольшое пространство для перемещения иногда дается. Также в ремейке добавили абсолютно новые 3 миссии. Проходится за пару часов примерно. Там описываются события за год до событий основной части. В пространство земли вторгаются иноземные корабли. Мастер Чиф на пару с сержантом Джонсоном отправляются на вражеский корабль, чтобы узнать координаты их базы, а заодно спасают союзный отряд. Под конец даже дают полетать в открытом космосе. Геймплей Довольно необычный шутер от 1 лица. Тут далеко не всегда нужно полностью зачищать местность от врагов, кроме тех мест, где это прямо говорится в задании. В большинстве случаев можно просто пробежать до нужной точки и скрипт запустится дальше. Карты в игре нет, но практически всегда имеются отметки, куда нужно идти. Фоторежима в игре нет, а он мог бы тут зайти, планета сама по себе красивая. Щит и здоровье восстанавливаются сами по себе, со временем. Как я понял, это изменили в сравнении с оригиналом - там нужно было собирать аптечки. Много автоматических чекпоинтов, можно не бояться умирать. От гранат умираешь буквально сразу, их легко не заметить. При себе можно иметь 2 оружия, заменяя каждое из них на любое выпавшее из врагов. На энергетических пушках вместо перезарядки идет перегрев. Герой бегает быстро, но можно перемещаться еще быстрее по планете - брать транспорт. В том числе и приспособления пришельцев. На некоторых можно даже летать по полю боя. А в конце бонусных миссий так и вообще дают летать и перестреливаться в открытом космосе. Плохо то, что в машине нельзя пересаживаться на другие места, для этого нужно вылезать и отдельно садиться на нужное место. В игре нет никакой прокачки, к сожалению. Зато есть модификаторы в виде коллекционных предметов - черепов. Их можно использовать для уникальных бонусов или дебафов в игре, но с этим осторожнее - некоторые ломают достижения и с ними они просто не будут выбиваться. Графика во многих моментах кажется размыленной даже на ультрах. Поэтому пришлось привыкать где-то пол игры. По оптимизации в целом все неплохо, но один раз спустя несколько часов игры начались просадки фпс до перезапуска. А вот обязательная авторизация через майкрософт аккаунт, даже для одиночной кампании как всегда доставила проблем. Запускаться игра изначально не хотела, но на опыте форзы 6 уже знал фикс этой ошибке и пришлось менять IP адреса, чтобы пустило. Забавно то, что после прохождения игры я снова сменил IP адрес и все мои сохранения стерлись после входа. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3771383069 Итог Интересный космический футуристичный шутер от 1 лица, много массовых замесов против инопланетян. Гибкие настройки сложности и модификаций игры за счет бафов от черепов. Имеется русский язык в субтитрах, в старых частях его вроде не было. Графика конечно улучшилась, но часто сильно мылится на любых настройках, пришельцев толком не рассмотришь. Вероятно интересно проходить в коопе, катаясь на транспорте и зачищая локации, но можно спокойно пройти и соло. Как для знакомства с серией - отличная часть. Но, конечно, своих денег за 8 часов кампании и несколько новых миссий на пару часов не стоит - лучше подождать скидки в 70%+. ✅ Понравилось: - Геймплей - Массовые перестрелки с пришельцами и между ними - Приятный интерфейс ❌ Не понравилось: - Мыльная графика - Обязательная авторизация через сторонний лаунчер, который может нормально не заработать - Цена

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  52 found helpful · 2 found funny

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  Games owned: 10,521 · Reviews written: 376

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  39 h at review40 h total

  31 Jul 2026

  Didn't expect much from a third release of this campaign but they nailed it. It actually feels like Halo. Silent Cartographer's beach and the swamp in Guilty Spark look Unreal (:)), and the level tweaks cut most of the tedious backtracking. The remastered soundtrack is good, the remix campaign encounters keep fights chaotic and random in new ways, and the gunplay is (IMO) the tightest it's ever felt. Somehow they made a 25 year old campaign feel fresh without sanding off what made it great. Now for the bad: Launch had some bugs. Uncharged plasma pistol shots were one-tapping people, which was funny for a day before they patched it. Jackal aim assist is still weird, the reticle keeps sliding off their shields. Honest complaints: the new prequel mission cutscenes are a bit cringe, too quippy for classic Halo. And some of the re-recorded lines fall flat. Cortana sounds weirdly casual in moments that are supposed to hit hard. If you know the old lines and how they read it's quite noticeable. None of that ruins it. Best this campaign has ever played or looked, and co-op with crossplay is a blast. Easy recommend, even at full price.

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  43 found helpful · 52 found funny

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  Reviews written: 2

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  47 h at review47 h total

  2 Aug 2026

  I cannot recommend this game in it's current state or for it's asking price. There's nothing major wrong with it and I found myself having fun because at it's core, it is Halo. However there are many little things that interrupt the fun I'm having and remind me that this game was done better 25 years ago, many times it felt like I was playing an overhaul mod instead of a remaster. I think this game would be fine for an asking price of $20, maybe and once they fix all the issues going on with it $30. I would honestly just stick to MCC and download mods. Controls: They have fixed the issues they had with it but they still need to add a separate vehicle sensitivity slider because vehicle sensitivity is slower than on foot. Armor Customization: They have made it to where we can change the armor for Master Chief, which I enjoy to be honest. However why can we only change the entire armor set instead of individual pieces, which goes back as far as Halo 3, a 19 year old game. Just another legacy mechanic we have lost. AI: The marine AI is atrocious, they clump together and when you're leading the pack and get into a firefight they stand right in front of you. Also when you free marines from prison cells (especially on the new mission) the marines don't pick up weapons and just follow you with nothing in their hands, they did this same mechanic in Halo 2 and the marines actually picked up weapons and helped you. They also shoot dead bodies way too long and if you happen to be in their line of sight as they do it they will hit you. The enemy AI is fine and the one issue that I had with them has been patched, so well done on that aspect. The Flood are great, they did a fantastic job updating and designing the flood and they knocked it out of the park. My only gripe is that infection forms cannot infect regular dead bodies and can only reanimate already infected bodies. Mission Redesign: I have to give them praise on this, the mission remasters are great and the missions they redesigned are fantastic, I have nothing but good things to say about this and they did a phenomenal job. Graphics: When the game works it looks beautiful, they did a great job on keeping the spirit of the original intact but giving it a modern paintjob with UE, however the optimization was poor. Inside Forerunner structures, especially when going from outside to the inside there is very bad shimmering on the walls and floors of the Forerunner structures. Outside, especially in shaded areas there is a very very bad shadowing effect that is distracting at best and nauseating at worse. I've tried fixing this with an Engine.ini file and was able to, however the colors were washed out completely defeating the purpose of the remake. It's nothing they can't patch but they certified this game gold and ready to go, it is not. Cutscenes: They look great, my only issues is sometimes there are things shown which look awkward and out of place, for instance in the very start of the game, the marines and Johnson are attempting to hold back a Covenant boarding party and the gun fight looks terrible and it's just strange that Johnson is monologuing during this firefight. People are complaining that the cut-scenes are locked to 30 fps which on my monitor (1440p, 180hz) still looked fantastic so I'm not going to complain about that personally but I understand where they're coming from. Voice Acting: Captain Keyes voice actor did a fine job and good direction. Johnson's new VA did a fine job and I don't have anything bad to say about him in the core game, the new missions however, I think he talks too much. Chief and him have a buddy cop dynamic going on which didn't land for me but it wasn't horrendous. Master Chief, he sounds old, he did fine. Steve Downes is in his 70s and it really sounds like it, he sounds tired and compared to his performance in the 2000's and even in Infinite, he just sounds tired and old. Cortana, holy cow Jen Taylor's direction was terrible, she's easily the worst of the new VA in this game. I know she's better than this and I'm not going to blame her, I'm going to blame her director because she sounds so bad and her inflections and tone sounds off compared to the situation going on in game. Personally, I think they should have just used the old voice lines. The New Missions: Inherently there is nothing wrong with the new missions in my opinion, I know a lot of fans have very strong feelings about them but I think they're fine. They feel like Halo and play like Halo so as far as that I don't have a problem. My problem with these missions is why do they exist, they do nothing to add on to the existing remaster, the missions are not long enough to tell a good story, there's no story here and the writing is not that good to be honest so in the end nothing matters. While I'm playing and when I'm finished, my only thought is "Why did they waste resources on this when they could have been restoring cut content by Bungie" These missions in my opinion add nothing to this game and should not be included when considering to buy this for the price.

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  42 found helpful

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  Reviews written: 4

  On Steam
• ▲ Recommended

  12 h at review12 h total

  29 Aug 2026

  First of all, I must say that my opinion of 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) is very biased. I am talking exclusively about the campaigns here. After Bungie stopped making Halo and handed it over to 343, I was initially neutral. Halo 4 came out. It was "okay". Neither really bad nor really good. But given that I am used to higher standards from the Bungie Halos, I was very disappointed. It had a few cool ideas and moments, but on the whole, it was just run of the mill. Halo 5 was, for me, the absolute low point. It had terrible levels and the absolutely abysmal AI of the Spartans who accompanied you. On top of that, you had to fight the Warden, or whatever that thing was called, two or three times. Then Halo Infinite came out, and it was the first Halo game I didnt even buy. I just played it on Game Pass. It wasnt quite as rubbish as Halo 5, but I really didnt take to the open world with its endless repetition of the same tasks. Now, on to Halo: Campaign Evolved: First and foremost, the price is far too high. In my opinion, 25% less would be fair. The game itself, however, contrary to my expectations, has turned out to be a really good and enjoyable remake. The graphics are stunning, the controls work flawlessly with a controller, the sound effects are powerful, and the music is, as is typical of Halo, once again very well done. The levels are very similar in layout to the original, but they arent always a 100% exact replica. The best example is the Library, which has been made visually more varied, and the layout is also less annoying. What I found a bit unnecessary were all the waymarkers and the markers for enemies when only a few were left alive. There are probably people who like that, but I found it unnecessary. I appreciated the new weapons they added. Unlike the original, there are now also many weapons from other Halo games, such as the SMG or the Needle Rifle from Halo: Reach. Speaking of Halo: Reach: I reckon the enemy AI is the same as in Reach. You notice this particularly with the Elites. I didnt find it annoying, though, it behaved quite cleverly on Legendary. (Maybe it isnt the Reach AI at all, but it reminds me strongly of it. Its definitely not the original Halo: CE AI, in any case.) So, if Halo Studios were to remake all the Bungie titles in UE5 now, I would be absolutely delighted. They are doing a pretty good job of it, as you can see from this remake. They should just include the multiplayer parts of the games as well, though. Or, they could offer the campaign without multiplayer mode for less money. If someone were to ask me whether I would recommend the original Halo CE or the remake, I would recommend both. The remake is by no means a replacement for the original. It is best to start with the Master Chief Collection first, and then you can decide for yourself whether you want to play the remake. Oh, and this remake also has three bonus missions set before Halo 1. Yeah, they are awful. It just goes to show once again that Halo Studios dont actually know what they are doing when they start to design their own campaigns without a bungie blueprint. You just run from room to room killing waves of enemies. Then, at the end, there is a flight mission that could have come straight out of Reach. I was glad when that rubbish was over. So, Halo Studios: go and make remakes of the Bungie games. You have already proven time and again that you dont understand Halo when making your own content, so just give it a rest.

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  38 found helpful · 19 found funny

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  Reviews written: 40

  On Steam
• ▼ Not recommended

  9.7 h at review13 h total

  30 Jul 2026

  As much as I wanted this game to be a solid remake of a legendary title, I ultimately finished it thinking, I probably should have just played the original. The visual overhaul is incredibly impressive from a distance, but once you take the time to look at the environments and assets in detail, you start to notice areas that feel surprisingly lacking. For a game built around such a significant graphical rework, some of the visual shortcomings are difficult to overlook. Performance is another major issue. Despite being built in Unreal Engine 5, the game can perform surprisingly poorly. Frame-rate drops, cinematic stuttering, crashes, and co-op desynchronization issues can all take away from the experience. There are numerous other technical problems as well, many of which have already been documented by various YouTube channels. For a remake whose goal is to modernize the original experience, having these kinds of technical problems is difficult to justify. Halo Studios did add some new weapons to the sandbox, and I actually think that was a good decision. However, I don't understand the decision to nerf so many of the existing weapons as though this were a competitive multiplayer game. Weapons that were originally fun and satisfying to use can feel almost useless at higher difficulties. The changes to the Magnum and Plasma Rifle are two of the most noticeable examples. The voice acting is another area where I think the original did a better job. Some of the performances simply don't have the same delivery or character as the original, and the removal or alteration of music in certain sections also takes away from the atmosphere. Music was an important part of Halo's presentation, especially during major moments and cutscenes, and some of these changes make scenes feel less impactful than they originally did. The replacement for David Scully as Sergeant Johnson was, in my opinion, a good attempt, but the way the character is written and delivered sometimes makes him feel too self-aware. Instead of feeling like a character who exists within the Halo universe, there are moments where he comes across almost like an actor who knows the audience is watching him. That repeatedly pulled me out of the immersion that the original Johnson provided. The new bonus missions are a cool addition, and I appreciate Halo Studios trying to expand the campaign rather than simply recreate it exactly. Unfortunately, the dialogue in these sections can feel forced, and the storytelling is noticeably less natural than what we experienced in the original games. There are plenty of other issues I could spend time discussing, but I'll leave it at the overall experience. The gunplay is generally good, but there are occasional instances where shots simply don't seem to register, and grenades can seemingly disappear into the void. The graphics look great from a distance, but closer inspection reveals lighting inconsistencies and a lack of detail in relatively simple environmental elements, such as gravel. The voice acting and delivery could have been considerably better, especially when compared directly with the original. The weapon balancing is also a major disappointment. Halo's sandbox was never supposed to feel like a carefully balanced competitive playlist. It was about having fun, experimenting with different weapons, and enjoying the campaign with your friends. Instead, some weapons have been nerfed to the point where, particularly on higher difficulties, only a handful of them feel genuinely effective. Enemy bullet sponging is another problem, and some enemy encounters feel unnecessarily excessive. Enemy spawns can also become ridiculous in certain levels, turning what should be challenging encounters into repetitive waves of enemies. Ultimately, Halo: Campaign Evolved isn't a terrible game. There is clearly a lot of effort here, and some of the additions are genuinely enjoyable. But when you put everything together—the technical issues, inconsistent visuals, weaker voice performances, questionable weapon balancing, bullet sponging, excessive enemy spawns, and changes that don't always improve the original experience—I have a hard time recommending it at $49.99. For me, this is a game that feels much easier to recommend at a significant discount. At full price, I would rather go back and play the original.

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  37 found helpful

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  Reviews written: 2

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