Halo: Campaign Evolved is the game that started it all, better than ever. CMoney says third person changes everything, and the remake hits hard.
Xbox provided a copy of Halo: Campaign Evolved.
Verdict Play It Now
Halo was the first game I played when I brought my Xbox home on day one. Twenty-five years later, it’s still one of my favorite games ever. So when Halo: Campaign Evolved finally landed in my hands, I wasn’t walking in neutral. I was walking in as a diehard.
And I’m going to say it straight. There was a lot of negative noise around this remake before it came out, and a lot of it felt overblown or flat out made up. Don’t believe the hate. This one hits hard.
Watch the RAW IMPRESSIONS
Halo: Campaign Evolved RAW IMPRESSIONS: Don’t Believe the Hate, This Remake Hits HardIt looks amazing, feels amazing, plays amazing, sounds amazing.
CMoney, OnPoint 4 Gamers
The game that started it all, rebuilt
Halo: Campaign Evolved is Halo Studios’ remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved campaign, rebuilt from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5. You get all ten original missions plus Operation: METEORITE, a new three-mission prequel arc with Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson. Before this session I’d already been playing those bonus missions, and they are phenomenal. This time I went straight into the main event: The Pillar of Autumn, then the mission called Halo.
A lot of people thought the move to Unreal Engine 5 wasn’t going to work. It works. The opening cinematic on the Pillar of Autumn, with Keyes and Cortana realizing the Covenant tracked them all the way from Reach, looks unreal. The lighting is insane.
The Marines finally get their moment
One of my favorite changes is what Halo Studios did with the Marines. In the original, you’re the Chief, you’re the boss and everybody else kind of stands around looking up at you. Here, the Marines feel like real soldiers with real attitude. Sgt. Johnson is in the building, the banter in the hangar is great and the voice work is excellent across the board.
And the sound. Make sure you’ve got a good headset or surround sound for this one. It sounds phenomenal. The second that music kicks in during the cryo wake up, it hits you right in the chest. Later on, hearing Covenant footsteps around a corner before you see anything is wild.
Waking up the Chief
The cryo sequence is a great reintroduction. You wake up, run through your calibration and get your energy shields online, and the screen reacts in a way that really sells being inside the suit. I played most of my session with the HUD off because I wanted to see this game in all its glory, and honestly, it’s doable. Your aim lives in the center of the screen, so you can still handle everything you need to handle.
Then the Covenant hit the ship and it’s go time. Captain Keyes on the bridge, the Cole Protocol, Cortana loaded into your neural implant. The facial work and lip sync in these cutscenes are excellent, and Cortana looks different but good. And the Chief’s suit? They nailed it. It looks so good.
Grunts, plasma and a classic opening
Fighting your way through the Autumn feels like Halo. I don’t know how you can see it any other way. The Grunts look amazing, the particle effects are wild and the plasma weapons have been completely brought up to date. The plasma pistol especially. Between the visuals, the sound and the way it feels in your hands, they updated the heck out of it, and I really like using it now.
By the time you hit the lifeboat and watch the ring fill the window, with the monks chanting in your ear, you’re reminded what an amazing opening mission this has always been. It doesn’t get better than that.
Halo in third person is a game changer
Here’s where it gets brand new. Campaign Evolved has a Perspective skull that puts the Chief in third person, and I wanted to play the rest of my session that way right away. After the crash on the ring, that’s exactly what I did.
It feels amazing. Seeing the Chief himself move through Halo’s valleys, with the light pouring through the rocks and the Banshees overhead, is something I never thought I’d get to do in this campaign. Zooming works just like first person too, so if your weapon goes full screen when you scope, it still does here. I’m not going to lie, there was a moment standing on a ledge looking out at the ring where I got a little choked up. I don’t think I ever imagined the original Halo looking this good.
Playing like this convinced me of something bigger, too. Halo has such a strong foundation that it could jump into any genre and just work. Halo Studios, if you’re listening, give me a horror Halo, because those dark maintenance hallways on the Autumn are already halfway there.
Warthogs, drop ships and Jackal snipers
The second mission is pure Halo sandbox. You rescue Marines scattered across the valley, grab a Warthog, fight through drop ship after drop ship, push through a Forerunner cave and deal with Jackal snipers on the high ground. The Warthog looks fire, the vehicle physics are as wild as ever and the Marines riding with you have plenty to say about your driving. It’s chaotic, it’s funny and it’s exactly what I wanted.
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It all wraps up with Cortana finding Captain Keyes on the Truth and Reconciliation, which is right where I pulled up. Trust me, I did not want to stop.
What I’d change
My wishlist is short. I’d love a mantle, so the Chief can climb up ledges instead of falling short of them, though I get that there’s a limit to how much they want to change the original’s feel. And switching on the Perspective skull mid-mission wasn’t obvious. I couldn’t find a way to trigger it on the Autumn, so I finished that mission in first person. Set it up before you start.
Verdict: Play It Now
Halo Studios absolutely crushed this remake. It looks amazing, feels amazing, plays amazing and sounds amazing, and it takes the 2001 classic that started it all and makes it feel brand new in 2026. Third person alone is worth the trip back. Coming from a diehard Halo fan who played it on day one in 2001: this is cinema.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is out now on Xbox Series X|S and PC for $49.99, with Xbox Play Anywhere, and it’s included with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
What’s working
- Unreal Engine 5 visuals and lighting that make the 2001 classic look stunning
- Marines with real personality, plus excellent voice work and facial animation
- Sound design that hits hard, from the music to the footsteps
- Updated plasma weapons that look, sound and feel great
- A third-person Perspective skull that makes the campaign feel brand new
What needs work
- No mantle, so you’ll still come up short on some ledges
- The Perspective skull isn’t easy to switch on mid-mission
Platform played: Xbox (performance mode, stated on video)
Screenshots captured by OnPoint 4 Gamers from gameplay. Featured image cropped from the same session (shot 4). Not a generic RAW stock image.
