Halo: Combat Evolved is a landmark game that helped define the experience of early console first-person shooters. But with Halo: Campaign Evolved, Halo Studios has introduced a number of changes to bring the game into the modern era. Halo’s debut on PlayStation uses new mechanics, tweaked controls, haptic feedback, and adjusted weapons to make this a fresh spin on a shooter icon.
Here are 13 ways from throughout the 10 missions of the Halo campaign, as well as its three new bonus missions, that Halo: Campaign Evolved enhances and modernizes the classic.
Modern, familiar controls
Played today, the original Halo’s controls feel a little different, thanks to its release before shooters tended to have standard features and button layouts, and because controllers had fewer buttons overall. Halo: Campaign Evolved uses the kind of layout players expect, with adjustments like placing grenades on L1, weapon swapping on triangle, and reload on square, among a bunch of other subtle but welcome tweaks. Of course, you’re welcome to customize control layouts as you please.
Sprinting for speedy getaways
Campaign Evolved introduces a sprint ability you can activate anytime by pressing L3, making it possible to pick up speed at key moments when you need to get to cover or escape groups of enemies as they throw down against one another. It’s not drastically faster than Master Chief’s movement speed in the original, but it helps players control their pace.
New driving options
Another key change tweaks the controls to the iconic but sometimes imprecise Warthog vehicle. By default, Halo: Campaign Evolved gives the Warthog standard, recognizable vehicle controls, allowing you to steer it with the left analog stick, control the camera with the right stick, hit the gas with R2, and brake and reverse with L2. You can still use the classic look-based steering and analog stick-based gas controls if you want, but for those of us who constantly flipped Warthogs full of Marines, these controls will be an improvement — and most other vehicles, like Covenant Ghosts or the Scorpion Tank, have controls that are mostly true to the original.
A health system keeps you in the action
Recharging health has become a mainstay of many shooters, and while Halo always gave you a recharging set of shields, it originally required you to hunt for health packs to keep Master Chief in top shape. Campaign Evolved gets rid of health packs and instead makes both your shields and health recharge, but your health recharges at a much slower rate. The system keeps fights intense as you still have to keep an eye on your shields to stay alive, without forcing you to stop and hunt down health pickups in the middle of the action.
Enemy encounters get a remix
There are a lot of big battles in Halo, and if you’re a fan of the original, you’ll recognize where enemy waves will stream in or when dropships will deliver Covenant reinforcements. But Campaign Evolved adds slight tweaks to many encounters. For instance, when searching for escape pods when you first land on the Ring World, you’ll see Covenant deployments that now include Jackals wielding Beam Snipers, which are enemies that first popped up in Halo 2. You’ll also run into Flood-infected Hunters in later levels. These little changes to enemy force deployment will keep you on your toes, while still allowing battles to feel familiar.
Powered-up power ups
Like the classic game, Halo: Campaign Evolved includes the Covenant Overshield and Active Camouflage. Now, however, these aren’t activated the second you pick them up, but instead are stored; you can activate them by pressing R1. It’s a slight but impactful change that lets you save the power-ups for when they’re most useful.
New chances for vehicular mayhem
It’s not just new enemies that might appear in places you don’t expect. Campaign Evolved sometimes introduces different objects or vehicles in new locations. For instance, when boarding the Truth and Reconciliation through its gravity lift, you’ll find a Wraith tank waiting in the hangar with a turret you can use to wreck Covenant defenders. Those little tweaks make Halo: Campaign Evolved feel a little more realistic within the world of Halo even as they change up some fights.
Bumming a ride
In later Halo games, it became possible to jump aboard and hijack vehicles from their drivers. Campaign Evolved introduces this ability to the original campaign, so you can snag an enemy Ghost or Banshee if you’re quick and turn it against them. Just be careful — Elites can and will try to hijack your vehicles, too.
Aiming down sights
Campaign Evolved enhances all the game’s weapons with some new features and updates. You can now aim down sights with all the guns for a little extra precision. Weapons still handle the way they always have — the Assault Rifle still sprays bullets even when you’re tuning your aim — but the slight adjustment helps Halo’s shooting mechanics work and play similarly to other games in the genre.
Weapons get a glow-up
Speaking of weapons, Campaign Evolved also features reworked sound design for its guns, and coupled with the haptics of the DualSense controller, gives them quite a bit more heft. Especially with guns that felt a little lighter, like the Covenant Plasma Rifle, the adjustment helps make your shots feel like they’re truly doing damage, both from the punchier, more intense sound effects, and the rumble in your hand that conveys the kick of each gun. The shotgun in particular really feels like you’re wielding some raw Flood-dismembering power.
An enhanced arsenal
Halo: Campaign Evolved adds a number of weapons to your repertoire from other games in the series, such as the SMG, Needle Rifle, Fuel Rod Cannon, and Beam Rifle. The new guns give you a lot more options in many fights, while adding a different wrinkle to some battles. Flood charging toward you carrying SMGs can be particularly deadly, for example. You can now even pick up Elites’ Energy Swords and turn the Covenant’s most powerful weapons against them.
New missions and new surprises
While not every gun from later Halo games makes it into the main campaign, you’ll still get a chance to use some of them. Campaign Evolved includes three bonus missions set about a year before the events of the original Halo, starring Master Chief and Sgt. Major Johnson. In those missions, you’ll find the pulse-firing Battle Rifle, the Brute Plasma Rifle, and the Spike Rifle, which are handy inclusions since you’ll also face Brutes, the tough, gorilla-like enemies that first hit the scene in Halo 2.
Even more replayability
Halo: Campaign Evolved goes beyond remixing the original Halo to offer more new ways to play the game, and more reasons to explore it. Halo originally sported two-player couch co-op; Campaign Evolved offers that experience, plus four-player online co-op, so you can form a whole fireteam of friends to take on the Covenant and Flood.
You can also hunt down new secrets, including terminals that expand on the story and collectible Skulls, which unlock gameplay modifiers from fan favorites to all-new enticing takes. These might do anything from amping up the difficulty by removing your heads-up display, to making Grunts explode in a shower of confetti. And if you really want a challenge, try bumping up Campaign Evolved to the tough Heroic or downright ridiculous Legendary difficulty.
With these tweaks, Halo Studios does an excellent job of maintaining the feel of the original hit FPS, while introducing adjustments that make it even better than you remember. Halo: Campaign Evolved is available July 28 on PlayStation 5.
