Xbox’s remake feels brand-new after 2 hours

After 25 years of playing the first-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved, I recently had a chance to play the third-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved. It was revolutionary.

Halo: Campaign Evolved, planned for a July 28 release on PlayStation 5 (a series first), Windows PC, and Xbox Series X, is a remake of 2001’s wildly influential shooter Halo: Combat Evolved. Developer Halo Studios is rebuilding the game’s entire campaign in Unreal Engine (also a series first) but won’t be including any competitive multiplayer component (another series first).

Following Sunday’s Xbox Game Showcase, Polygon played a remote preview of Halo: Campaign Evolved running on an Xbox Series X. The demo consisted of two levels: the beach island “The Silent Cartographer” (a portion of which comprised the game’s October 2025 previews) and arctic canyon “Assault on the Control Room.” It also included 18 skulls — gameplay modifiers that allow you to customize variables in the game. Typically, you have to discover skulls hidden in campaign levels before you can activate them, but the Campaign Evolved demo made them available from the start.

One of those skulls, Perspective, allows you to change the camera from a first-person view to a third-person one. Though Halo Infinite eventually toyed with third-person, it started as a multiplayer foray and wasn’t fully available until years after release. For decades, players have played through Halo campaigns behind the visor of supersoldier Master Chief. This is the first time players have been able to experience the world beyond his boots. And frankly? It rules. Viewed from third-person, the unique magnetism and slippery rules of physics that define Halo campaigns carry an entirely different weight. You feel less like you’re acting in an action film and more like you’re directing one.

Image: Halo Studios/Xbox Game Studios

In addition to Perspective, I also activated Grunt Birthday Party, which triggers a “yay!” every time you land a headshot on a Grunt; Boom, which doubles the sizes of explosions; and Cowbell, which significantly reduces the mass of in-game objects, because I think it’s really funny when things explode with twice the intended velocity and send other things flying past the horizon. When Halo: Campaign Evolved is released, it will feature 42 of these skulls (a series record).

That’s not all that’s new in Halo: Campaign Evolved. If you’re familiar with the original game, Halo Studios has implemented a number of changes that are bound to divide players. You can sprint. You can board vehicles. You can now use the energy sword, an action that was only possible in the original game through the use of mods. Though all of these actions make Campaign Evolved feel faster minute-to-minute than its source material, the levels don’t feel any smaller as a result. In fact, the slate cliffs of “Assault on the Control Room” still impart the same level of awe they did 25 years ago; the isolated island of “The Silent Cartographer” still feels like an entire world you can get lost in.

And yes, the Halo 1 pistol still kicks all kinds of ass.

Image: Halo Studios/Xbox Game Studios

In many ways, Halo: Campaign Evolved legitimately feels like a modern shooter. But there are a handful of quirks that bely the age of its fundamental design — for instance, you can’t mantle or slide like you can in many FPS contemporaries. And that’s the uphill battle it faces. One part of its audience will be coming for the nostalgia factor. The other part, the PS5 ride-or-dies, will be coming at this as if it’s a brand-new game. I have also only played two levels — and it’s certainly not lost on me that the two levels chosen for the demo are widely considered by fans to be two of the best levels from any Halo game.

That’s to say nothing of the matter that Combat Evolved’s campaign famously loops unto itself; several levels in the back half of the game were effectively regurgitated versions of earlier levels that you ran in reverse. It was part of the limitations of the era; with its back against a tight deadline, original developer Bungie wisely reused environments for multiple levels to maximize the game’s length. But how will that design choice scan in 2026? Will modern audiences, who have become accustomed to games of staggering scope and now largely prefer delays over what they view as incomplete projects, be able to look past that?

Without seeing the full game, it’s impossible to say. (The full release of Halo: Campaign Evolved will include three new prequel levels, but those were not available in the demo.) But I have faith — and not just from the demo I played.

This is not the only time publisher Xbox Game Studios has released a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, and the parallels between re-releases are unmistakable. In 2011, as its first project, and as a marker of Halo’s 10th birthday, 343 Industries released the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary remaster. It was largely well-received, and kickstarted an uneven era for the series that was marred by some misfires, yet nevertheless resulted in two of its best-ever games. 343 Industries is now Halo Studios. The developer has confirmed multiple Halo games are in the works. If history repeats itself here, we all win.

Halo Campaign Evolved will be released on July 28 for PS5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.