As skyscraper-sized warship Pillars Of Autumn pops out of sub-space like a supersonic choc ice, Captain Keyes calls action stations against fanatical enemy alliance The Covenant and our veteran hero Master Chief gets thawed out to take on the hell-hordes of Halo for a third time, you’ve got to be thankful for the endlessly rebootable nature of gaming. Core, franchise-launching classics (Resident Evil, Dark Souls, Tomb Raider and so on) worked for reasons that were most simple and pure in their initial form. Console upgrades continually offer them fresh new life.
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Take Halo: Combat Evolved, the first-person sci-fi shooter which put the nascent Xbox on the map back in 2001 with its relentless assaults on gruff, religious alien orcs and their quipping gremlin sidekicks across a ring-shaped wonderweapon world. It has defined the console ever since. This new Campaign Evolved edition is the third version of the game, following a 10-year anniversary upgrade in 2011, and similarly plays to the strengths of its generation. But while the anniversary edition dragged the blocky original graphics into uncanny valley and painted immovable worry lines across its face, Campaign Evolved is a grand rebuilding.
In short, Campaign Evolved looks spectacular. The Pillars Of Autumn sliding out of its wormhole is now a beautifully cinematic beast. The Covenant’s once matte-grey installations now glimmer with the antiquity of ancient temples. Beaches and snow-peaks are glorious things to pew-pew through. The clinging mists of the survival horror-style 343 Guilty Spark chapter are now as spooky as any FromSoftware poison swamp and to be inside the virtual memory of tragic marine Jenkins as he creeps Alien-like into a bunker full of mutant-making Flood bugs now ranks among the most terrifying new foe introductions in gaming.
All of which gives players old and new great reason to pile into this 10-hour hackathon, full of swarming warzones and satisfyingly weighty weaponry. You can choose from hardy military mainstays such as assault rifles and rocket launchers or arm yourself with fun plasma and ray-gun alien options like the Beam Rifle and the Needler. Old players may find this remake a little easier with the original’s health kits discarded in favour of automatically recharging shield and health bars which eradicate some of the cautious tension from your first playthrough. But with the game effectively unchanged, right down to the script, it’s like having your childhood memories upgraded to 8K.
The only major flaw is the transport. Everything drivable or flyable in Campaign Evolved still works to first-gen physics, when there was seemingly no such thing as grip or gravity. The Warthog truck appears to exist in its own mudpan world, its tyres bald and all surfaces pure waterslide. It’s so frustrating to control that often it’s quicker just to run where you need to go, and the drama of the final race for the escape pod is destroyed amid the sheer comedy of trying not to drive up every wall. Likewise, the alien Phantom craft you can pilot through mountain canyons manoeuvres like a drone you’ve bought on a beach in Phuket. It’s tragic that more care wasn’t taken with the vehicle upgrades, because it burnishes as good a brush-up as any classic title has ever had.
‘Halo: Campaign Evolved’ is out July 28 on PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X/S
VERDICT
The core, simple and colourful appeal of 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved – battling your way through chamber after chamber and canyon after canyon of ever-intensifying alien and mutant hordes with zero concern for XP, skill trees or equipment upgrades – brilliantly survives this stunning visual update. The drama and atmosphere of the original is hugely enhanced by its otherworldly textures and cinematic cut-scenes. It’s only let down by old-school transportation mechanics, so unwieldy that they drag you straight back to 2001.
PROS
A gloriously rendered yet otherwise faithful recreation of a formative gaming experience for millions
Challenging battlefields full of colourful enemies, but cowards can run straight through a lot of them
The drama is enhanced as much as the graphics
CONS
All vehicles – bar, perhaps, the tank – are virtually unusable
The invisible assassins with their one-shotting Energy Swords often – unfairly – ruin a perfectly plotted assault run
Fans of the original might find it a touch hand-holding
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