Following Halo: Campaign Evolved’s big announcement last Friday, we’re starting to learn more about its creative ambitions and where Halo Studios is pushing the remake label the most.
The single-player-only, Unreal Engine 5-powered remake of the original Halo game will arrive in 2026 to PC, the Xbox ecosystem, and PS5 (yes, really). Before we dive into Xbox Wire’s chat with “several key leads at Halo Studios,” check out the reveal trailer and gameplay demo below:
“Starting here means people that have never played the game before will be able to understand the story from the very beginning, and that can help us chart a course forward with new Halo stories,” Executive Producer Damon Conn explained. With 2021’s Halo: Infinite already serving as a new entry point of sorts that 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) and Xbox have seemingly brushed aside, it’s hard to imagine how returning to the very beginning can help plan out a path forward which isn’t replaying the old hits.
There are a handful of reasons to be somewhat interested in what comes out of Campaign Evolved regardless. For starters, the entire journey will now support 4-player co-op like the latter entries. That, of course, presented an extra set of development challenges: “As we’re building the technology for this game, we’ve had to do it piece by piece, which included reevaluating all of the individual elements as we’re revisiting them in the original game… And now the campaign supports up to four-player co-op, we had to think about how all of the original encounters and spaces can scale to accommodate that many players,” Max Szlagor, Creative Director, revealed after diehards spotted a number of notable changes to the Silent Cartographer level. For example, you can now bring the Warthog into an area that was previously restricted to infantry combat.
Like it or hate it, at least Halo Studios is committing to the project’s “remake” label in the age of publishers and studios alike struggling to define what remasters and remakes are. With the Master Chief Collection-included Anniversary Edition remaster of Halo: CE still holding up perfectly, yet another rework of the FPS legend will need to make big changes to justify its existence and entice sceptics.
Big tweaks are also coming to the dreaded Library level that players must navigate halfway through the game, though we’ve yet to see how those look like: “In The Library specifically, which features several Flood encounters, we wanted to reevaluate the pacing and enhance the environmental storytelling. We’ve added new lines to Guilty Spark, which guide players through the level, and there’s new dialogue that gives more insight into the narrative as it plays out,” Szlagor teased.
The developers are also trying to make sure longtime fans are aware that they’re “not changing the stories” like other big-name remakes, instead choosing to rework and improve on what’s already there for both returning and new players. No word yet on an accompanying multiplayer component, but word on the street is something on that front will be revealed in the near future too.
And in case you were wondering: Yes, all future Halo games will be on PlayStation moving forward as Xbox rethinks its publishing strategy to make up for recent its struggles and up profit margins. We live in strange times.
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