I still remember the first time I woke up from cryo-sleep.

Explosions popping off left and right, enemies rounding corners with glee and surprise, laughing at my expense as they fill me with needles and energy blasts.

I’m, of course, talking about Halo, and that original campaign. The dramatic music flaring in the background, the freedom and flow of movement that just felt unlike anything else at the time. And the beginning of something truly special for console gamers.

And now, all these years later, that very same campaign has had a full remake for modern platforms. While I loved revisiting this a while back in the Master Chief Collection, this is an honest to goodness retooling of everything I had loved about this game, trying to rebuild that magic from scratch with new cut scenes, dialogue, updated weapon sets and more.

Halo had this energy back then that could barely be matched, and while I still got some of that magic back when playing Campaign Evolved, something felt a bit different this time. Not that it was necessarily worse or better, but I didn’t have those same feelings to Halo when I booted up Campaign Evolved.

I think so much has changed for FPS games since Halo first came on the scene. They’ve reinvented themselves so many times that the general content of Halo, while still exceptionally solid and engaging, doesn’t really stand shoulder to shoulder with today’s greats anymore.

Which does bring the question of who this is for. Especially with a devoid lack of multiplayer out of the box – a real shame as Multiplayer has clearly been the shining beacon of light for the franchise over the years.

And here’s the thing….on Xbox, as mentioned you’ve already got the exceptional Master Chief Collection, which gives a lot more for a lot less .. all with that same multiplayer. Which makes this doubly confusing.

But this is also the first time Halo is playable on PlayStation….which is where I’ve been spending my time…and as an introduction to this series, if you’ve been unable to play it any other way, this is a fantastic starting point. It looks great, the feel is there, there’s new content to explore for prior fans – though maybe not quite enough to off-set some of the things taken away.

And not just that, it’s been smartly modernised for the modern day with sprinting, and weapons that came in later Halo games like swords and certain types of rifles. The models are shinier and bolder, the environments are richer and more dense. Voice acting is sharper and more focused, less scattered and tinny. You can also play the campaign in four player co-op – with cross-play – which is such a refreshing way to experience the game, especially with changes to Skull locations and tougher difficulties to suit a fire team.

Seeing Campaign Evolved on a 4K TV, with the DualSense purring in my hands, oddly feels as right as it did wrong. Halo is a game that has desperately needed a reset and while there are ways this could have been further improved, there’s a good package here to get your feet wet with the series.

Before long, I was doing distance sticks, leaping into action, steering Warthogs around tight corners and fighting off multitudes of enemy dropships, happily firing away with the Assault Rifle not giving a second glance to anyone or anything.

It’s an odd thing, though, because for as much as I enjoyed this, I felt like they modernised Halo a bit too much. Making it a little too easy – highest difficulties not permitting – and by adding in mechanics and weapons from later games, actually removed some of the tension from the game’s better scenes, like when fighting the Flood for the first time.

Also, the fact there’s more checkpoints now and some of the levels have been a bit more streamlined, means there’s a little something that’s missing from the challenge of the original game.

This looks absolutely stunning and you can see that from the trailers and all other footage. An incredible amount of work and attention to detail has gone into Campaign Evolved to truly make this Halo feel next gen and modernise Master Chief for the future. And the idea of mixing up the skulls and giving us campaign co-op is a master stroke in itself, truly suits Halo and the ambition for the franchise.

I think the problem with Campaign Evolved is it’s a bit confused about the identity. It’s trying to appeal to new fans and reset Halo, but it’s doing so by taking out a decent slice of what made the game Halo in the first place.

The trademark humor is still there, the familiar environments, the great cinematics, the epic battles, but between that some unnecessary filler, a bit of performance incompatibility, and no multiplayer is a real shame as this has been the game’s bread and butter for so long. We love Halo campaigns, of course we do, but playing some vintage maps in this engine with these weapons….would have been a long time for this series. And the shot in the arm it needed.

Fireteam at least gives us something to do with friends and for the most part works well, though I wasn’t an enormous fan of the newer machines which felt a bit stagnated and stale….and almost more fourth wall breaking side-notes that didn’t really feel like they fitted in the wider narrative.

This probably makes it all sound like I hated Campaign Evolved – I didn’t. And I’m trying not to base this game on what it isn’t, rather on what it actually is. And that is a solid reimagining of a classic game, that has tried some new things, given a fresh lick of paint to an incredible game to make it look better than ever, and even thrown in some new content for good measure. In many respects, this is one of the best remakes I’ve ever seen in terms of just how massive the changes are visually and to the feel of the game. They’ve truly gone to town to make this feel special and shown a great deal of care and consideration for the sourc material.

Yet, it’s a tough ask at the price, being honest, but for those who’ve waited 25+ years to finally play this and see what the fuss is about….I’d both say this is worth your time….and to be cautious because, actually, an older game may be a better representation of what the classic Halo is truly all about.

Verdict

Halo Campaign Evolved looks incredible and plays as slick and as good as the series ever has with a stunning visual upgrade and a good feeling environment sandbox to explore. But despite including new weapons, levels and the fire team option, as well as rejigging skulls, I kept wanting to play multiplayer which isn’t possible, and I kept finding myself confused that I was missng certain things about the original and Master Chief Collection. I both had an incredible time with this one, but oddly it made me want to go back to MCC for certain aspects. The modernisation both works to Halo’s advantage but in many regards also exposes the game’s campaign for not really being enough to fully justify the price tag.

Pros

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Halo Campaign Evolved is out now on Steam, Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation 5 

Code Kindly Provided by Xbox for review purposes