I've purchased the original Halo campaign six times now — the original Xbox version in 2001, the PC version, the Anniversary remake on the Xbox 360, as part of The Master Chief Collection on the Xbox One, the Master Chief Collection on Steam, and now again as Halo: Campaign Evolved on the Xbox Series X. (Only half of these were full purchases on release, and Campaign Evolved I only purchased the Premium upgrade so I could squeeze in a couple days of play in early access before a business trip.) As such, I have some thoughts on this newest re-re-re-release.
For reference, I've settled on some abbreviations that I may or may not make throughout this post.
- H1
- The original Halo release on the Xbox/PC from 2001. (I've never gotten used to calling it "Combat Evolved" or "CE", partially because the subtitle was an unnecessary corporate addition, and partially because I was aware of the "Custom Edition" PC mod and found it confusing.
- H1A
- Halo 1 Anniversary, released on the Xbox 360.
- MCC
- In this context, the Halo 1 portion of The Master Chief Collection released on the Xbox One.
- HCA
- Halo: Campaign Evolved, the latest iteration.
- Halo
- When referring to the campaign as a whole (gameplay, lore, etc.) that's not specific to an individual version, I'll just use the word Halo.
Graphics
First off, I have to say that the new Unreal 5 engine visuals are stunning. Back in 2001, limitations of graphics engines and hardware meant your brain had to fill in the gaps. For better or worse, graphics have gotten to the point where imagination is less of a requirement than it used to be; and HCA's visuals are pretty faithful to what my rose-tinted nostalgia goggles remember of the H1 campaign.
There are a couple complaints, to be sure. For one thing, the enemies don't seem to stand out as clearly as they did in older versions. This may or may not be related to the other complaint, that there's a "film grain" texture applied to the screen that blurs details a bit (and a "chromatic aberration" effect that also affects the visual quality) that can't be turned off via normal settings. PC modders have already found a way to disable that, and it looks much better; hopefully Halo Studios will add that setting.
There may be an issue with optimization, or it may just be an issue of the Xbox Series X being just a little underpowered to run Unreal Engine 5; but I've discovered that setting the graphics mode to "Quality" will cause the console to "overheat". (At least, that's what the console reports when it shuts the game down. My unscientific analysis of putting my hand over the exhaust fan doesn't feel like it's all that warm.) "Performance" mode seems to work fine, and I'm not picky enough to notice the difference.
Gameplay
For the most part, the gameplay is pretty faithful to the original. There are some level redesigns that make the original "copy-paste" hallways less repetitive, and they add a bit of much-needed variety. While it does interfere with some muscle memory, it does help the game feel like it's more than just the same old thing over and over again.
One common criticism is that the game now features a lot more "hand-holding". Waypoints constantly appear to direct you where to go next, and enemy markers appear towards the end of many encounters that give a "shoot here to continue" feel. Probably the most egregious of these are the moments when stealth Elites make an "appearance" — an NPC will call your attention to their existence, and they will get the enemy markers at the (in)appropriate time, making their camoflauge meaningless. (The worst example of this is in the prison area where you rescue some trapped UNSC personnel; only 3 stealth Elites spawn in, so they immediately get the enemy markers.) As a veteran player, having stealth Elites called out is completely unnecessary, and this deprives new players of that magic moment where they first get killed by something they couldn't see and have to learn from experience.
My personal opinion is probably a little more charitable from most veterans. I don't have the H1 layout memorized to the point that I could do it in my sleep — I can still get lost from time to time. And when I'm trying to find the last couple enemies that may be hiding somewhere (or stuck behind some level geometry that their AI can't figure out), I find the hunt more frustrating than rewarding — I just want to kill them and move on. So, I don't completely mind the additional targeting and destination helps. The waypoints could use a (default) option to not be quite so constant, to give newer players the sense of discovery but impatient players more hints.
Story/Cutscenes
The cutscenes have all been redone, along with most of the voice acting. My biggest complaint here is that the cutscenes are now all prerendered. They look like they were rendered and recorded by the actual game engine (or something close to it), so the style is more consistent with the rest of the game. (Contrast this to the Halo 2 Anniversary cutscenes in the MCC, which, while an extremely high quality overall, made for a bit of a jarring transition from gameplay.) But having them prerendered means any environmental changes, custom skins you might be wearing, weapons, etc. don't show up at all. Part of the charm of H1 was that the cutscenes were dynamic.
They also altered the pacing of the cutscenes. Lines of dialog are often followed by long pauses. It's as if every line must have a pause to consider what was just said. This may be a consequence of H1 moving at an almost hurried pace through the dialog, but HCA feels too slow.
My second-biggest complaint is the voice acting. It feels like most of the actors are just reading their lines and not acting as the characters in the moment. It's most notable in Jen Taylor's portrayal as Cortana — there's a lack of energy and urgency in a lot of her delivery that was present in H1. A lot of her lines just drop off at the end. The fact that this is the same veteran actress that has voiced Cortana for 25 years and has never sounded this bad makes me think it's probably a problem with how the actors were directed, and not the actors themselves. Sergeant Johnson's VA, Keston John, sounds like every line delivery was made for the benefit of the player, as if he's saying "Wasn't that a cool like I just had?" with a wink to the camera. David Scully's performance in H1 felt much more natural, like he was Sergeant Johnson motivating the marines in his command, and the lines were cool because they just were.
One change I've seen criticized online is Keyes' final words after the first cutscene with him and Master Chief. Keyes hands Chief a pistol and says the iconic line, "I don't keep it loaded, son; you'll have to find ammo as you go." In this remake, Keyes hands Chief a pistol and asks Chief to promise to deliver it to his daughter; so the pistol Chief fights with is not the same. While the line in the original is cool, I'm ok with its removal. Even in 2001, it didn't make sense to me that Keyes would hand Chief an unloaded pistol to go fight the Covenant with. Chief would be more likely to grab a weapon from a weapons locker, ammo and all. (He probably would have grabbed one on the way from the cryo bay and fought his way to the bridge instead of just running past the action; but that's probably just a gameplay conceit — introduce you to the game and movement mechanics without confusing you with fighting mechanics yet.) But having Keyes want to give Miranda a pistol just seems… weird. Nothing in the lore that I can remember would indicate that a pistol would have any meaning between this father/daughter relationship. I guess Halo Studios just wanted to keep the gun handoff, but give it a different meaning; and to me, it just fell flat.
Unreal Perks
One of the stated reasons for building on Unreal Engine was that a more commonly-used engine means more available developers. Institutional knowledge can transfer over to Halo development without a lengthy education on the custom Blam! engine that powers most every Halo title. It may be an unintended consequence, but it's already proving to be a bonus to the modding community. I've already seen samples of modders importing existing Unreal assets into the game — playing the game as Iron Man or Grand Theft Auto characters using existing models, for example — and using commonly-available tools and techniques to tweak the engine — disabling the distracting film grain effects or adding day/night cycles. If Microsoft chooses to embrace the modding community like they did with MCC (eventually), this could allow that institutional knowledge present in the modding community to expand on Halo in ways never before possible.
Bonus Missions
The idea of adding bonus prequel missions sounded cool. The books touch a little bit on the relationship that Johnson and Chief had prior to the events in Halo, so it was nice to see that fleshed out just a little bit. And the mission levels were beautifully rendered. Environments are much larger than most of Halo (large, sprawling hangars; high ceilings; that kind of thing). The story that's told, though, doesn't seem to really fit with Halo's story. It's very disconnected and seems to only have a couple tenuous connections to Halo lore — the Chief/Johnson connection, and the fact that ODSTs had an animosity to the engineered Spartans. On the latter note, there is an ODST lieutenant that is just nasty in her interaction with the Chief. But the rivalry doesn't feel earned; the character just ends up being mean for the sake of being mean, and it just comes off as annoying. I know there are better ways to act out that dynamic, where rivals have to put aside prejudices and work together; but this had all the nuance of being rubbed with steel wool.
The prequels introduce a new San'Shyuum, the Minister of Harmony, who acts in what feels like a lore-breaking manner to the heroes. From what I remember in Halo campaigns and books, the Covenant leadership treat humanity like an infestation, something that is barely considered except to be exterminated and swept aside as an inconvenience along their Great Journey. Harmony, however, stops a fight and acts like a cartoon villain, taunting his foes like old frenemies ("If you had told me you were coming, I would have given you a tour"). It felt very out of place for the established Halo universe, and makes me wonder if they are going to perpetuate that tonal shift into future remakes (if they are released).
Gameplay is also very different to the rest of the campaign. In Halo, your goals were pretty straightforward, and you could control the pace, whether you want to slow down and fight with every last bullet or just run from objective to objective. The prequel missions have a lot of forced stops for exposition and "wait here while I open this door, oh look here come waves of enemies". (Yes, the Library level of Halo suffers from this as well, but that's just one mission; this applies to the whole prequel campaign.)
Final Thoughts
I don't dislike HCA. The game is familiar, but not a 1-to-1 copy of what I've already played countless times over 25 years. In some ways, it feels better; but in other ways, there are changes that leave me scratching my head wondering why. If you look at it as a test case to see if Halo can survive the transition to Unreal, then I feel like it's a success. On the other hand, if it's being used to test consumer interest, I worry that it will fail — reception has been lukewarm, in no small part that it's (more or less) the same game that's been around for a quarter century, and that they've made enough questionable changes that have turned off some very strict fans that don't want anything changed.
