After more than two decades, Halo’s original campaign is getting a proper do-over. Xbox’s upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved is bringing 2001’s classic Combat Evolved story back with modern visuals, updated controls, expanded co-op support, and yes, it is finally coming to PlayStation. Built on Unreal Engine 5, Campaign Evolved faithfully recreates Halo’s first story, featuring every original mission (as well as three new prequel missions), new cinematics, faster movement, and more responsive combat.
The remake promises to stay true to what made Combat Evolved special while ironing out rough edges, like better mission progression, more precise gunplay and expanded co-op options. With its 2026 launch on the horizon, here’s everything you need to know about Halo: Campaign Evolved, including its release date, platforms, story, and more.
Halo: Campaign Evolved: Release date and Platforms
Xbox hasn’t shared an exact release date for Halo: Campaign Evolved, but the game is confirmed to launch sometime in 2026. Given that Halo will turn 25 on November 15, there’s a good chance the launch lines up around that time.
As for platforms, Halo: Campaign Evolved is set for a wide release across Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox on PC, Steam, and PlayStation 5. The game will also support Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Play Anywhere, allowing progress to carry over between console and PC. Halo: Campaign Evolved is slated to launch day one on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
What Will The Story of Halo: Campaign Evolved Be About?
Halo: Campaign Evolved takes the series back to where it all began, retelling the story of Halo: Combat Evolved with a modern presentation and a few meaningful additions along the way. Rebuilt from the ground up, the game revisits the campaign that introduced Master Chief, Cortana, and the mysterious Halo ring, while updating the experience to feel smoother, sharper, and more in line with modern standards.
The story once again follows Master Chief after the UNSC Pillar of Autumn crash-lands on Installation 04. Stranded after the Pillar of Autumn’s crash, Chief and Cortana start out just trying to regroup before uncovering the Halo ring’s true purpose and the threat it poses to the entire galaxy.
The studio has also expanded the narrative with three new prequel missions starring Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson. Set before the events of Combat Evolved, these missions explore the lead-up to humanity’s first encounter with the Halo ring, adding new locations, enemies, and context that were not part of the original release. The goal, as the studio describes it, is to honour the original while modernizing the experience.
For Halo Studios community director Brian “ske7ch” Jarrard, the project is as much about legacy as it is about technology. “For nearly 25 years, Halo has offered players an epic sci-fi universe to explore, unforgettable characters to meet, and exhilarating gameplay to experience together. From large-scale battles to friendships formed over late-night co-op sessions, Halo has always been more than just a game – it’s about the players who’ve made it part of their lives,” Jarrard said in a PlayStation Blog.
Halo: Campaign Evolved: Gameplay
Halo: Campaign Evolved’s gameplay uses the same core design as Halo: Combat Evolved, but it has been updated to play better by modern standards. The basic sandbox is still clearly Halo, with large, open-ended combat zones, a mix of infantry and vehicle encounters, and a strong emphasis on movement, positioning, and weapon choice. The major difference is that everything feels much smoother and easier to track this time around.
Movement is more responsive, aiming feels cleaner, and encounters are easier to keep track of, all while preserving the original campaign’s scale and pace. Halo: Campaign Evolved’s combat has been expanded with nine additional weapons from later Halo games, including the Energy Sword and Battle Rifle.
Vehicles continue to play a major role throughout the campaign, and for the first time in Halo: Combat Evolved, players can hijack enemy vehicles and even pilot the Covenant Wraith tank. These additions will give familiar missions a slightly different tempo and open up new ways to deal with challenging encounters.
If you remember how the original missions played, you’ll feel right at home here. Levels have been rebuilt with clearer navigation, improved pacing, and more varied enemy encounters. The Library, in particular, has received extra attention, with better wayfinding and additional dialogue from Guilty Spark to help guide players through the level without changing its story.
There’s also more room to customise how you play. Campaign Evolved features the largest collection of Skulls ever included in a Halo campaign. These optional modifiers will let you adjust difficulty, change combat rules, or add playful twists, adding replay value once the main story is complete.
Moreover, co-op remains a big part of the experience. The full campaign now supports four-player online co-op with cross-play across platforms, as well as two-player local split screen. Missions and encounters have been adjusted to scale properly with more players and all of this will run on Unreal Engine 5, layered over systems carried forward from the original Halo games.
Is There A Trailer for Halo: Campaign Evolved?
Yes, Xbox has already shared several trailers and extended gameplay videos for Halo: Campaign Evolved, offering an early look at how the remake is shaping up. The best look so far is a full work-in-progress playthrough of The Silent Cartographer, which was shown during the Halo World Championship 2025. Captured from a pre-release build running on Xbox Series X, the demo walks through the entire mission, highlighting the updated visuals, smoother movement, and refined combat flow.
Xbox has also released a seven-minute developer roundtable featuring members of the Halo Studios team. In the video, the developers discuss the overall vision behind Campaign Evolved, explain why the original campaign was chosen as the foundation, and outline several new gameplay enhancements and quality-of-life improvements.
Are There Any Other Games Like Halo: Campaign Evolved?
If Halo: Campaign Evolved has put you back in the mood for some intense, single-player FPS games, we’d recommend checking out Crysis 2 and Crysis 3, bringing together Halo-style open combat zones with a more grounded, modern military edge. Titanfall 2 is another great pick, featuring a campaign that feels like a faster, more movement-driven spin on Halo’s formula.
On the more traditional campaign side, Wolfenstein: The New Order, 2016’s DOOM and 2020’s DOOM Eternal are also solid picks. And if you’re open to a slightly older title, EA’s Battlefield 1 still holds up pretty well.
