Halo Studios rebuilt Halo: Combat Evolved's campaign as Halo: Campaign Evolved for Xbox Series X/S, Windows, and PlayStation 5, releasing it on July 28 as the franchise's first entry on a Sony console. Developers walked through the project on the Official Xbox Podcast, framing the remake as a way to mark the franchise's 25th anniversary while introducing Master Chief's original story to players who never touched the 2001 original.
The technical story is the engine swap. Halo Studios moved the project onto Unreal Engine 5, the studio's first game built on that technology after retiring the proprietary Slipspace engine used for Halo Infinite, according to background on the game's development. Rather than discard the original's feel, the team kept pieces of Bungie's Blam engine code running underneath the new graphics front end specifically to preserve Combat Evolved's physics and enemy AI behavior, while Unreal's Lumen and Nanite systems handle the rebuilt lighting and geometry.
Gameplay carries forward mechanics the original 2001 campaign never had: sprinting (toggleable for players who want the classic pace), Covenant vehicle hijacking, and a redesigned four-seat Warthog. Halo Studios also added three new missions, grouped under "Operation METEORITE," set a year before the original story, plus 42 collectible Skulls that alter run conditions, 26 of them returning from later Halo titles. Campaign Evolved drops the original's competitive multiplayer entirely, betting instead on four-player online co-op with cross-play and cross-progression across all three platforms, alongside two-player split-screen on consoles.
Halo Studios used the podcast to reveal a 25th Anniversary armor set players can unlock, and discussed the premium edition's early-access window for pre-order customers ahead of the wider release. Xbox has not detailed further post-launch content plans, but the platform jump alone marks a structural break from Halo's 25-year run as an Xbox exclusive.
