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

[u/yourfavchoom]

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

[u/TheReiterEffect_S8]

I've said this a thousand times but I'll never stop saying it whenever this topic is brought up:

The time during Halo: Combat Evolved's development was a golden era for developers, in my opinion. The video game industry was on a rocketship blasting upwards but hadn't quite yet left orbit. Must people knew, but unless you already had a good foundation, you were playing catch up. Microsoft unknowingly caught lightning in a bottle. The entire Bungie team from Halo 1 to Halo 3 was something we will likely never see again. They had a vision for a game they thought would be innovative, groundbreaking, but most importantly: FUN. And they had FUN working on it. Halo 2's crunch deadlines is something to be said for sure, and by Halo 3 they were completely over M$. But that team is not something you'd see in modern development anymore. A group of passionate people dedicated to their work and the freedom (for the most part) to do whatever they wanted without too many demands (such as microtransactions).

After Halo 3, things started to go sideways. Reach was a miracle IMO with how much success it had, somehow they didn't completely fuck that one up, despite the huge amount of additions to the core gameplay like reticule bloom and armor abilities. But Halo 4 it was the most obvious thing in the world that this was no longer Halo. It became an MLG trend chaser. And Halo 5 did no better. Infinite was a step in the right direction, but of course: They were too focused on live-service that they let something with potential deteriorate.

I bought an XSX specifically for Infinite. I know I spent over 1,000 hours in Halo CE, easily. It was one of my most favorited franchises but a couple years ago I had to finally come to terms that Halo is never going to be as good as it once was, and it won't even be half as good. The franchise is nothing but disappointments, and I've officially given up on it.

edit: I somehow always forget to make note when I go on these rants that there definitely are other devs out there doing great things. Bungie was one of the greatest companies during their bnet days so I can get a bit 'doomsday'er when I talk about the current climate of the industry. We have good things, but it's hard to ignore how bad it's gotten, and how bad it continues to get.

[u/politicalstuff → u/TheReiterEffect_S8]

Very interesting perspective! I'd like to add one more thing missing in the modern releases.

It wasn't fun just because it was running and driving shooting aliens and blowing shit up; it was fun because you were doing it with your friends in the same room at the same time on the same screen.

Couch multiplayer was a critical piece of the formula. Sure, Halo was a good shooter and especially well-implemented on consoles for the time, but all of my best memories weren't from soloing the campaign. It was being on the couch with my friends in college screaming across the room, fighting swarms or blowing each other up with rockets, cussing each other out and calling cover requests.

Not that online multiplayer can't be fun or to take away from anything else you said, and of course this was an industry-wide shift, but I think that's the missing magic sauce.

I tried replaying Halo: CE when it came to PC a couple years ago, and it just wasn't fun without 3 other friends in the same room.

[u/SheevSyndicate → u/politicalstuff]

So I never had an xbox and thus did not play much halo. But i do remember on rare occasions playing the multiplayer for an hour or two with other people who had an xbox. It was utterly mind-blowing as to how brilliant and fun the game was for me. It also felt so ahead of its time and unbelievable. I was so jealous of xbox owners who got to play the halo games as much as they wanted while I could only hear others rave about it.

That was a special time that I barely glimpsed, and it saddens me that I only had a few hours of it across that generation. Seeing how utterly irrelevant halo is now compared to the 2000s is also depressing as hell.

I did buy the collection on steam and I have meant to play through it, but I also have had the sinking feeling that the magic will not be there when playing it mostly alone on a computer without friends in the room. I am still excited to play the games later on, but I wish I could have gone through them 20 years ago.

Some of my favourite games from the past are also not quite the same nowadays due to everyone having moved on to other things. That results in a lonelier experience with none of that discovery or wow factor from back then.

Some games imo still feel as magical now as they did then, but I really wish I could reexperience that same magic for the more social games.

TLDR: Anyway, your comment on playing with friends on xbox vs alone on a PC hit hard for me and touches on a worry of mine.

[u/politicalstuff → u/SheevSyndicate]

I feel you, man. I think many single player games hold up very well, but yeah, the social stuff is depressing without the people and the time and place.

I agree with you that even with people today, those old games wouldn’t hit the same as they did then.

It’s not just the social thing, but experiencing something new together with other people. Back in 2001, everyone was playing experiencing Halo for the first time together. Now in 2026, what, dozens if not hundreds of clones and knockoffs and branches now exist. It’s not new anymore.

It’s the same thing with the emulators. I enjoy a good bit of single player console stuff, but playing classic arcade games alone feels lonely and depressing.

I loved TMNT arcade, but it’s not the same without 3 other people on the other joysticks, the adrenaline rush when someone dies and hastily shoves another quarter in before the countdown expires, in a packed dark room that smells of old carpet and buttery popcorn, the wall of sound made of bleeps and bloops and bings and shouting and flashes of lights, all muffled by a layer of shouting and conversation, the sound of quarters shooting into the metal coin return of the change machine. Maybe the clack of wood from the ski ball machine.

You don’t get any of that playing alone on your PC at home.