Halo: Campaign Evolved Review – An Iconic Campaign Expertly Reforged

Halo: Campaign Evolved takes us back to where Master Chief’s journey began. More than two decades after Halo: Combat Evolved helped redefine the console first-person shooter, Halo Studios has rebuilt its iconic campaign from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5 and replacing the Slipstream game engine.

However, as the name suggests, this isn’t a remake of the complete Halo: Combat Evolved package. Competitive multiplayer is nowhere to be found, with Halo Studios instead focusing exclusively on recreating and expanding the campaign.

So, does Halo: Campaign Evolved provide the definitive way to experience Master Chief’s original adventure, or does the missing multiplayer prevent it from reaching its full potential? Let’s discuss it all in The Outerhaven’s review of Halo: Campaign Evolved.

Game Name: Halo: Campaign Evolved
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Reviewed On: PC
Publisher(s): Xbox Game Studios
Developer(s): Halo Studios
Release Date: July 28th, 2026 (or July 23rd for Premium Edition)

What Is Halo: Campaign Evolved?

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a ground-up remake of the campaign from Halo: Combat Evolved. This isn’t simply the original game running at a higher resolution with improved textures. No, it is much more with the environments, character models, lighting, effects, and other visual elements have been completely rebuilt using Unreal Engine 5.

And yet, Halo Studios didn’t mess with the formula. The missions, the story beats, the encounters, the weapons; everything is intact, and pretty much exactly how you remember it.

That faithfulness is both one of the game’s greatest strengths and something prospective players need to understand before jumping in. Halo: Campaign Evolved might look like a brand-new release, but underneath that stunning new presentation is still the campaign that originally launched more than two decades ago.

The most substantial new addition is a three-mission prequel campaign set approximately one year before the events of the main game. These missions see Master Chief teaming up with fan-favorite Sergeant Major Johnson, providing something completely new for longtime Halo players.

Cooperative play also remains part of the experience, with support for up to four players. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test the cooperative mode during the review period, so I can’t comment on its performance or overall stability ahead of launch. However, I’m excited to return and experience the campaign with friends once the game is publicly available.

Still Feels Like Halo

Ever since Halo: Campaign Evolved was announced, it has felt like something of a test bed for Halo Studios as the team transitions the franchise into Unreal Engine 5.

If I were to measure the success of this remake based purely on whether Halo Studios has successfully adapted Halo to its new engine, then the team has absolutely nailed it.

Despite the huge visual upgrade, Halo: Campaign Evolved still feels unmistakably like Halo. Movement, shooting, enemy encounters, vehicles, weapons, and the general rhythm of combat retain the identity of the original game.

That was always going to be one of the biggest challenges facing this remake. Updating how Halo looks is one thing, but changing the technology underneath the game without losing the distinctive feel of its combat is considerably more difficult. Thankfully, Halo Studios has avoided that problem. Picking up the assault rifle, firing plasma weapons, throwing grenades, and fighting through groups of Covenant enemies all feel exactly as they should.

Combat still revolves around carefully managing your shields, choosing the right weapons for each encounter, and making use of the sandbox around you. Vehicles remain an important part of the experience, while the mixture of open environments and more confined combat spaces gives the campaign the same varied pacing as the original.

Halo: Campaign Evolved does not feel like another first-person shooter wearing a Halo skin. It feels like Halo.

A Faithful Recreation Of An Iconic Campaign

The main campaign remains largely a beat-for-beat recreation of Halo: Combat Evolved. The missions, major story moments, and enemy encounters will be immediately familiar to anyone who has experienced Master Chief’s original adventure.

The campaign took me around 10 hours to complete. Of course, the exact playtime will depend on your chosen difficulty, how much time you spend exploring, and whether you play alone or cooperatively.

There is a unique quality to the original Halo campaign that continues to hold up. The opening immediately establishes the threat facing Master Chief and the crew of the Pillar of Autumn before introducing players to the enormous Halo ring.

From there, the campaign moves between large outdoor environments, military assaults, vehicle sections, underground facilities, and increasingly unsettling locations as the true nature of Halo begins to reveal itself. That structure remains effective, even if certain elements naturally show their age. Some locations and mission layouts are still heavily repeated, while sections that frustrated players in the original release are unlikely to suddenly win everyone over here.

Halo Studios has remained so faithful to the source material that some of the original campaign’s less celebrated design decisions remain part of the experience. Whether that is a positive or negative will depend on how much you value authenticity in a remake.

For me, that faithfulness largely works. Halo: Combat Evolved did not need to be transformed into something unrecognizable. It needed a visual and technical update that preserved the atmosphere, gameplay, and sense of discovery that made it special. It’s here that Halo: Campaign Evolved achieves that balance remarkably well.

The New Prequel Campaign Is A Fantastic Addition

The biggest reason for returning players to experience Halo: Campaign Evolved is its completely new prequel campaign. Set approximately one year before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, this additional story follows Master Chief as he teams up with Sergeant Major Johnson across three new missions. I won’t spoil what happens during these missions, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. The campaign took me approximately three hours to complete, bringing the total amount of campaign content to around 13 hours.

These missions don’t feel like a minor bonus or a collection of disconnected combat challenges. They provide a meaningful addition to the package and offer an exciting look at what Halo Studios can produce when it isn’t strictly recreating the original game. The dynamic between Master Chief and Johnson works well, while the newly recorded dialogue and original music help the prequel establish its own identity without feeling disconnected from the main campaign.

My biggest complaint is simply that the prequel isn’t longer. By the time the story had fully captured my attention, the three missions were already coming to an end. That might sound like a strange criticism, but it reflects how much I enjoyed what Halo Studios created. These missions left me wanting a much larger original campaign developed with the same technology, presentation, and understanding of what makes Halo special.

If Halo: Campaign Evolved was intended to prove that Halo Studios is ready to create the franchise’s next major adventure, the new prequel campaign might be the most convincing evidence of all.

A Halo Game Has Never Looked This Good

Visually, Halo: Campaign Evolved is stunning. This is comfortably the best-looking Halo game to date. The improvements are immediately noticeable. Environments are significantly more detailed, character models have been rebuilt, lighting gives every location more atmosphere, and weapon effects make combat feel more visually impactful.

The surface of the Halo ring looks spectacular. Outdoor environments now feature far more vegetation, environmental detail, improved shadows, and distant scenery. The larger combat spaces retain the recognizable layouts of the original campaign, but they now feel like fully realized locations rather than enormous areas built around the technical limitations of older hardware.

Interior environments have also seen a huge improvement. Covenant architecture benefits from upgraded lighting and reflective materials, while darker areas feel more threatening thanks to the additional atmosphere provided by Unreal Engine 5.

What impressed me most is how Halo Studios has modernized the visuals without losing the recognizable art direction of the original game. Halo: Campaign Evolved looks exactly how your brain remembers Halo: Combat Evolved looking when you first played it, even though the reality is that the original game obviously looked far less detailed. That is one of the greatest compliments I can give a remake. It captures the feeling and visual identity players remember while delivering something that clearly belongs on modern hardware.

Weapons Sound Better Than Ever

Audio has always been core to Halo’s identity, and Campaign Evolved treats that legacy with respect. The assault rifle, plasma weapons, grenades, and the rest of the arsenal sound exactly as you remember, just cleaner and hitting harder. Halo Studios modernized the mix without touching the personality: every shot, discharge, and explosion has more punch and clarity, but nothing feels out of place.

The prequel content adds new music and freshly recorded voice lines, and both slot in naturally alongside the originals. That’s really the whole trick with the score. The familiar themes still hit the same nostalgic notes, while the new compositions make the prequel missions feel like a real extension of Master Chief’s story instead of a bolt-on.

Impressive PC Performance

My time with Halo: Campaign Evolved was played on PC, and performance held up well throughout my time with it. At native 4K on the Ultra preset, I got a near rock-solid 60fps, with only the occasional dip during heavier scenes. Nothing that ever actually hurt the experience. Impressive, honestly, given how good this game looks. But I ended up preferring DLSS anyway.

One odd wrinkle: Halo Studios didn’t use the naming conventions you’re used to seeing elsewhere. What’s essentially the standard DLSS Quality setting is labeled DLSS Ultra here. Switch to it, leave everything else alone, and you’re looking at 90fps-plus for the rest of the game, with image quality that barely takes a hit. If your hardware can handle it, this is the setting to use. That extra smoothness really shows up in the bigger fights and vehicle sections.

Halo has always been a game that rewards higher frame rates, and once you’re pushing past 90fps, aiming and movement just feel sharper. My one real gripe: cutscenes are locked at 30fps. Coming straight out of gameplay running at 90fps-plus into a choppy 30fps cutscene is jarring, every time. It’s not enough to sink the presentation, but it’s a weird inconsistency in an otherwise strong PC release. Giving players the option to run cutscenes at 60fps or higher would’ve tied the whole thing together.

The Missing Multiplayer Is Difficult To Ignore

As impressive as Halo: Campaign Evolved is, the absence of competitive multiplayer is a real letdown. Combat Evolved was never just about the campaign. Multiplayer was a massive part of the original package, and it played a huge role in making Halo one of the biggest franchises in gaming.

None of that has been remade here. No recreated competitive maps, no traditional matchmaking, no chance to see how the original sandbox would’ve adapted to Unreal Engine 5. The three-hour prequel campaign gives returning players something meaningful, sure, but it doesn’t come close to replacing what’s missing. Four player co-op campaign support is a welcome addition, though I wasn’t able to test it during the review period.

I’m looking forward to playing through it with friends at launch, but co-op and competitive multiplayer scratch completely different itches. Halo: Campaign Evolved succeeds as a remake of the original campaign. It just isn’t a remake of the complete Combat Evolved experience.

Verdict

Halo: Campaign Evolved is an incredibly faithful, visually spectacular, and technically impressive remake of Master Chief’s original adventure. Halo Studios has successfully moved the franchise into Unreal Engine 5 without sacrificing what makes Halo feel like Halo. The combat remains immediately familiar, the weapons retain their distinctive identities, the environments look better than ever, and the PC version delivers excellent performance.

The main campaign remains largely unchanged, offering around 10 hours of familiar but still highly enjoyable Halo action. Some of the mission design naturally reflects the age of the original game, but the atmosphere, combat sandbox, and sense of discovery remain as effective as ever. The additional three-hour prequel campaign is easily the standout new addition. Master Chief’s missions alongside Sergeant Major Johnson are entertaining, well-produced, and left me excited to see what Halo Studios creates next.

My only disappointment is that the new campaign ends far sooner than I wanted it to. Unfortunately, the lack of competitive multiplayer prevents Halo: Campaign Evolved from becoming the definitive recreation of the original package. Halo: Combat Evolved’s multiplayer deserves to be remembered and rebuilt alongside its campaign, and its absence is impossible to ignore. Even so, what Halo Studios has delivered is excellent.

Returning players will find a beautiful and faithful recreation of a campaign they already love, while newcomers, including those experiencing Halo for the first time on PlayStation 5, are in for a real treat. Halo: Campaign Evolved proves that Halo can look, sound, and feel fantastic in Unreal Engine 5. More importantly, it proves that Halo Studios understands what made Master Chief’s original adventure so special.

If you enjoyed this review, explore more of our in-depth video game reviews across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: A copy of Halo: Campaign Evolved was provided to us for review purposes by Xbox. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.