This post is a tad late to the party because I was busy writing my three-part series on what went wrong with Halo, but I still wanted to share my thoughts on Halo: Campaign Evolved, the new remake of the first Halo game.
Campaign Evolved is the first game officially published under the Halo Studios banner. I have to be brutally honest and express that I don’t understand why this game is even being made. Not a single person asked for this, and I don’t recall meeting anyone who did. The first Halo game already got the remaster treatment back in 2011. Plus, the first game’s graphics, while dated, still look great for their time. It’s not like you’re taking a game from the 1990s that is virtually unplayable and bringing it into the modern era. When I’m playing Combat Evolved on the Master Chief Collection, I still prefer to play using the classic graphics simply because they are so charming to this day.
It seems like a massive waste of time and resources to retread familiar territory instead of moving the story forward or creating something new. With that said, I want to talk about some of the things from the remake that look promising, things they could do to improve the game, and things that I do not like at all.
The Positive:
First off, the graphics presented in the demo do look gorgeous. Obviously, video game graphics have come a long way in the last twenty years and it is cool to see the world of Installation 04 reimagined in Unreal Engine.
Aside from the graphics, however, not too much else looks promising.
The Negative:
Unfortunately, the graphics are also part of the problem with this remake. The Forerunner architecture of the Halo ring is almost too shiny, too polished. HiddenXperia pointed out in one of his videos that the remaster has removed the grit from the ring’s structures, generated from one hundred millennia of existence. This takes away the sense that the ringworld is technologically advanced, yet ancient. Not getting this aesthetic quality right negatively affects the atmosphere that the original game was trying to convey.
He also points out that Bungie’s Forerunner architecture was very pragmatic in its design, denoting its functional purpose. This is something noticeably absent in the remake.
The other problem is that it looks like both the Marines and the Covenant, as presented in the demo, are reused assets from Halo: Infinite. This was a complaint people made about Combat Evolved: Anniversary, where they plucked the Marine design right out of Halo: Reach. This is just lazy and it gives the impression that Halo Studios isn’t trying to recreate the vision of the original game as faithfully as possible, but rather are content with just recycling assets from their previous entry.
People are also negatively reacting to the lack of the original healthbar that could only be replenished with medpacks, and the fact that Elite shields are not demonstrating hit feedback in the same way.
What Could Help:
Now that it has been twenty-four years since the release of the original Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo Studios should be facing none of the barriers that held back Bungie from including all of the things they wanted to add to the game. I am referring to all of the cut content from the original, and I mean ALL of it.
I want to see all of the alien fauna native to the ring that were supposed to feature in the original; the blind wolves, the thorn beast, the doberman gator, the thorax, the vulpard, and the three-leg.
I want to see the Sharquoi and the Huragok from the Covenant reinstated.
As far as vehicles go, I’d like to see Halo Studios add the ones that were cut and make the sandbox even larger. These would include the amphibious vehicle known as the “Doozy,” the Kestrel, the Stealth Tank, and the Covenant Shadow.
This remake is also a great opportunity to connect the game to other parts of the lore that take place simultaneously, most notably from the novel Halo: The Flood. Major Antonio Silva and his ODSTs, as well as the events at Alpha Base, could play a prominent role in the campaign. HiddenXperia suggested that in the level “Truth and Reconciliation,” the Marines who accompany you should be replaced with ODSTs, as it was depicted in the novel.
It would also be interesting to include a few levels from the Covenant perspective in the game. Why not a level where you play as Zuka ‘Zammamee and Yayap as they hunt the Master Chief, as they did in the novel? Or how about playing as the legendary Rtas ‘Vadumee as he leads his spec ops team against the Flood infestation aboard the Infinite Succor, as we saw in the Halo: Graphic Novel?
If they’re going to remake the game, why just give us the exact same product all over again when we can just go back and play the original? What Halo Studios should do is take the classic game we all grew up loving and expand upon it by adding all of the things Bungie didn’t have the capability to include back in 2001. Otherwise, I don’t see the point in giving us a carbon copy when they already did that in 2011.
What do you want to see in Campaign Evolved? Do you think they should even be making it? Let me know in the comments!
Raithwall 