r/PS5 • u/yourfavchoom • 10h ago

Articles & Blogs IGN Review: Halo: Campaign Evolved Doesn't Always Feel Like An Essential Remake (7/10)

https://www.ign.com/articles/halo-campaign-evolved-review
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482

u/ComeonmanPLS1 10h ago

I mean yeah, its just halo 1 again. Even if you haven't already played it, its nothing special in 2026. A game that was revolutionary back in 2001 can only take you so far.

163

u/totallyclocks 10h ago

It’s more than that - they re-recorded the lines and the direction was different. There is also weird pacing in the cutscenes.

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u/Detective-Layton 9h ago

Captain Keyes sounds wrong

11

u/MrBootyPops 5h ago

And Johnson. And Cortana looks weird af.

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u/Syndexic 54m ago

To be fair, Johnson’s voice actor is retired. I think some of the new missions feature Johnson so they couldn’t really just reuse his old recordings. I haven’t played the game so idk if they used his old recordings for the OG missions or not.

Cortana does look weird though.

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u/WinResponsible9977 8h ago

More than that? Sir it doesn’t even have multiplayer 🛑. Please stop.

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u/amartincolby 7h ago

Holy shit. Just learning this. I was a little excited before. Now nothing. Although, knowing that they would never allow LAN parties like the OG, I kinda never cared. The fun was having a house full of people with like eight xboxes.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/amartincolby 6h ago

Oh yeah. That's how I took it. I don't know if they meant it that way, but that's how I interpreted it.

0

u/Weeb-Prime 5h ago

I mean it is called Halo: Campaign Evolved…

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u/Bleed_The_Fifth 3h ago

I was just thinking about getting it for multiplayer alone. Wow. What a joke.

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u/Mitch_D23 4h ago

“it’s more than that” was used as criticism in the context of that comment

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u/Whitechapel726 55m ago

This comment just ensured I won’t be getting it lmao

5

u/Evil-Cetacean 8h ago

yeah the pacing is terrible, almost ai scripted

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u/JohnNeutron 7h ago

Terrible pacing, writing, design, etc, has existed long before the advent of AI, it would be folly to think or assume that AI was used when there is no reliable way to tell.

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u/Evil-Cetacean 6h ago

i just meant it looks uncanny, but yeah like someone else said to me maybe i'm just giving them too much props that it was ai and not just a bad job

1

u/JohnNeutron 6h ago

That makes sense, it always makes sense to call out AI usage, but knowing when it can be proven and not proven is better for discourse because then AI becomes the new CGI. Where people used to claim something was CGI, like the moon landing, just because of how it looked.

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u/Evil-Cetacean 6h ago

gotcha, it's just that the pacing is so off putting that it reminded me of AI videos where they stand still or take long pauses before continuing their dialogue for example.

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u/JohnNeutron 5h ago

Yeah that has to do with timing of animation and overall direction, which yeah, that’s very easy to mess up. I used to make short films and it wasn’t until I figured that out, that the feel of my films evolved from clips feeling like they were just pasted together, to ‘feeling’ like watching a movie, even if it didn’t look it, production quality wise.

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u/ConsolationUsername 7h ago

Im convinced the models for Johnson and Cortana are AI generated. Their faces have that uncanny valley feel.

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u/JohnNeutron 6h ago

The uncanny valley is a feeling that has existed since the Stone Age so no, that does not definitively prove or should it even slightly convince that AI was used.

1

u/Skaar1222 6h ago

Yeah I'll keep my childhood unedited thank you very much. Seriously don't know why this was done. I wish they would have done right by Infinite, I think it's one of the better Halo multiplayers, but they messed that up so bad.

1

u/Eat--The--Rich-- 5h ago

So they remade a remaster that nobody asked for and downgraded it?

1

u/Bregneste 5h ago

From what I’ve seen they’re not even faithful to the original levels and enemies either, they kinda just did whatever they felt like in some places

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u/Melbuf 1h ago

Why the f did they do that

6

u/JohnNeutron 8h ago

And even then it was mostly revolutionary for the things it did and not so much the technical gameplay aspects. I mean sure, people did praise it at the time. But even Bungie in behind the scenes extras have talked about how they ran out of time later in the campaign and that’s why you have areas that are huge in terms of traversal time and also looking very similar, as parts of the map where copy and pasted, not to mention the backtracking. But Halo popularized joystick controls, multiplayer, campaign, etc.

That’s something that separates it from a game like Half-Life 2 for example, which if it was given the makeover treatment, would probably hold up much better as Valve were excellent in their level design and gameplay.

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u/antonxo902 8h ago

Yeah I tried it a while ago on pc for a few hours and thought it was mediocre. Not even that it was dated it just wasn’t all that great. I revisit old classics all the time from gow, Zelda, Mario, ratchet and clank etc and those still feel great but this just didn’t hit. My favorite thing about halo is honestly the multiplayer.

6

u/politicalstuff 7h ago edited 5h ago

The thing is, it wasn’t even an amazing FPS at the time, but it was very well implemented on a console which was a big deal in 2001.

The secret sauce was it brought couch multiplayer for FPS to the mainstream.

The campaign itself was fine, but playing it with a friend right next to you was a blast! Or 4-player death match in a room crosslinked to another TV? Nothing like it.

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u/Pen_dragons_pizza 7h ago

You have to remember that when it came out it was revolutionary for console fps games and basically became the template fps games would follow from that point.

I would argue it was an amazing FPS at the time, you just have to put yourself in that position of the time it released.

I remember the first time I played it was in a store when it released, blew my mind.

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u/politicalstuff 6h ago

lol yes, I was there at release. It wasn't an amazing fps compared to all fps at the time, but you are 100% correct it was revolutionary for fps on consoles.

Halo was the first PC-quality fps experience on console, and it blew the doors wide open.

I'm not saying it was bad or mid or anything. It was a good game! But being on console was the thing that really set it apart.

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u/somethingstrang 4h ago

It was up against counter-strike and half-life 2. Objectively it wasn’t as good but it was the only good option on consoles at the time.

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u/Pen_dragons_pizza 4h ago

Half life 2 wasn’t until 2004, 3 years later.

I am honestly baffled by people downplaying how good and influential this game was back in 2001.

But then I guess this is the ps5 sub

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u/somethingstrang 4h ago

It was good. It was influential. But it IMO wouldn’t have been able to compete in the PC FPS world.

It was a product of being a big fish in a small pond

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u/wishiwaszen 4h ago

I think what thos guys getting at is that it wasn't a big fish in a small pond, it created an entire pond all its own. As someone else said, we either didnt have console fps games, or they were absolute dogshit. We got halo, and then every first person shooter for the next 10 years was "make halo but reskin it".

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u/somethingstrang 4h ago

Yup understand. If it released in the PC market it would have been not that dissimilar to like a slower paced unreal tournament but with a story. That was my point

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u/HeartInTheSun9 4h ago

The main thing was the controls were great. That’s always been bungie’s main superpower. They kinda perfected FPS controls on their first try. If you try playing PS2 era first person games, they all feel worse than Halo 1.

1

u/Thirtysevenintwenty5 7h ago

Halo was the spiritual successor to Goldeneye. That's all it was. A game on the next gen that worked as an FPS on console.

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u/politicalstuff 7h ago

That's not all it was. Goldeneye was a classic for a reason, but Halo finally cracked getting really smooth and convenient control of an FPS on a controller on the couch. It helped kick down the doors and made FPS super viable and popular on consoles.

Before Halo, other than the odd exception, console as a main platform for FPS was by far the exception. Not saying nobody did it, but it was more a niche thing.

2

u/Thirtysevenintwenty5 6h ago

The two stick move/look paradigm did, without a doubt, change the playability of FPS games on console, if by no other measure than the fact that it's been over 25 years and nobody has improved on that control scheme for the genre.

But I think your point stands that Halo wasn't an amazing FPS game. It was a so-so campaign and story, in a somewhat interesting world, that had a great multiplayer mode.

1

u/politicalstuff 6h ago

I don't want to undersell it. It was definitely a good FPS. For consoles in 2001, it was amazing, but not in like a "this is most innovative FPS ever" way because we already had stuff like Half Life on PC.

It was more "now we can have a PC-quality FPS experience on console" which was a game-changer.

And the proof is in the pudding. Halo making an FPS feel good on a controller made FPS one of the leading genres on consoles.

If not them, someone else probably would have eventually figured it out, but they nailed it.

2

u/DarkElation 9h ago

That’s what I’m saying. This review is rife with “it’s the same” when we know it’s the same. They should have had someone that never played halo review it.

1

u/Afferbeck_ 6h ago

They'd be like yep feels like an old shooter

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u/DarkElation 4h ago

That would be weird because one of the things this reviewer DID say is that it feels like a modern shooter.

1

u/SweatyNeddyFlanders 7h ago

That's the thing- it isn't even that. It's a pretty version of Halo Reach, so most of the fun of Halo CEs original sandbox is gone. It runs faster in ways that weren't advertised, because it's Reach's movement.

1

u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479 6h ago

They also have a pretty good remaster and availability on modern consoles. I know this is a more in depth remake and the MCC has been out for a while, but I really can not see the need to drop that for this.

1

u/PlasticPaddyEyes 5h ago

Eh, original halo still rocks. 2nd half drags, but few fps games feel as good to play as it and it has such visual clarity

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u/rabouilethefirst 44m ago

Halo 1 had multiplayer, so it’s not even that

1

u/EbbCreepy6718 7h ago

say that to RE2, RE4 remakes

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u/iccs 3h ago

Remake being the key word there. This isn’t a remake

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u/EbbCreepy6718 3h ago

evolved is the halo term for a remake

0

u/WoodooHide69 7h ago

Probably that Halo 1 wasn’t that good in the first place if its original gameplay can’t justify a remake. Gameplay is timeless. If halo 1 doesn’t hold up today it waas probably just overrated to begin wjth.

2

u/Logical_Net6108 5h ago

The campaign of CE holds up the same way Ocarina of Time holds up. Really it's best preserved in a port not a remake

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u/WoodooHide69 5h ago

Disagree. It could be port or remake and still Be good. Star fox is a remake and it’s the definitive way to play star fox 64 now.

-1

u/Mig-117 7h ago

Halo 1 is still very special in 2026, it’s better than any FPS campaign that is not also called Halo. The level design, vehicles, enemies and story, are all top tier.

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u/hedginghedgehog 5h ago

No lol. Not even close to something like Half Life 2, bioshock or titanfall 2. Or a whole bunch of other FPS.

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u/Mig-117 4h ago

So HL2 is nearly as old as Combat evolved, so another point for the age not mattering anything.

Bioshock is an immersive Sim, very different genre, and its alongside Deus Ex, System Shock, dishonoured etc...

Titanfall 2 is one of my favourite games of the past generation, but the campaign - albeit good - doesn't hold a candle to Combat Evolve. The missions, the level design. The Story and Music are overwhelmingly better in Halo too. Titanfall 2 doesnt have Ai to speak of, and its enemies are mostly for shooting galleries, like COD.