Halo: Campaign Evolved Review: Still Iconic, But With Several Caveats

4 days ago 5

Published Jul 23, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT

Ethan Krieger is an Editor at DualShockers, where he covers reviews, guides, lists, features, previews, interviews, and gaming news. He began writing professionally in 2017 as a sports writer before moving into games coverage with DualShockers in 2024.

Before joining DualShockers, Ethan wrote for the FanSided Sports Network, including 8 Points, 9 Seconds, where he covered the Indiana Pacers, and Pelican Debrief, where he covered the New Orleans Pelicans. His background in sports writing, editing, and content strategy now informs his approach to gaming coverage, especially around reviews, rankings, guides, and event reporting. Ethan studied English at Arizona State University, with a focus on writing and text editing.

It's an unusual time to be alive right now. It doesn't take much effort to glance around the world and start to think everything feels like it's a bit turned on its head these days, and the world of video games isn't excluded from the constant cycle of (at the very least) weird news. Need an example? Well, Halo is on PlayStation now.

Personally, however, as weird as it feels to boot up a PS5, download Halo, and still see an Xbox Game Studios splashscreen pop up on your television, I also find it very exciting. I am, in my heart, a PlayStation gamer. I've had every console from every generation. At the same time though, I genuinely do love Halo and think it's easily one of the coolest franchises in all of gaming.

Don't get me wrong, either; I've owned and loved several gens of the Xbox too, but it's just not my personal preference, and I don't currently own a Series X or S. As such, one of my favorite FPS campaigns coming over to the Sony side in the form of Halo: Campaign Evolved was super exciting. And after playing through the game on PS5, it's all a little bit surreal still.

On the unfortunate side of things, this first foray into the PlayStation ecosystem has also left me fairly disappointed in its actual execution. It's not all bad news, however, so let's break it all down before you decide to hop back in.

Right off the bat, let's just lay it out there: the original Halo: Combat Evolved, despite originally launching in 2001, is still, to this day, one of the best and coolest FPS campaigns in all of video games. Yes, the game shows its age in several ways, but at its core, the level design is spectacular, the combat is bang-on, and the story, while fairly basic here compared to subsequent games in the series, is a lot of fun and filled with several iconic, surprising moments.

In Campaign Evolved, all of this still rings true, and most everything holds up tremendously well. Sure, I've grown to have a fondness for certain levels compared to others in the ten-mission story, but by and large, it's a banger of a video game from stem to stern. If you really don't know anything going into this one, you play as Master Chief, the Spartan super soldier, gunning down swaths of a couple races of aliens, The Covenant and The Flood.

Alongside your trusty AI (before it was problematic) sidekick, Cortana, you'll infiltrate a mysterious planet-sized object in space, the titular Halo Ring. From here, it's a lot of campy Marine Corps "Ooh Rah" combined with extremely cool sci-fi, and it works tremendously. At least, in theory, and as long as the game is functioning as it should be (more on this later).

For this new take on the original Halo, Campaign Evolved has brought plenty of new things to the game as well. The hallmark here is three new buddy cop missions alongside Johnson, and well... they're alright. The visuals and stage design are perhaps cooler than anything in the original game, but in actual experience, I felt these new missions left a lot to be desired.

The original Halo: Combat Evolved, despite originally launching in 2001, is still, to this day, one of the best and coolest FPS campaigns in all of video games.

Much more so than the OG missions, these new ones often turn into really long arena-clearing fiascos that can quickly wear out their welcome, made worse by a new enemy type that isn't interesting to fight, and is absurdly spongey. You'll also spend a weird amount of time standing around waiting for Johnson to turn on a terminal or open a path, and I really don't know why. These new levels feel riddled with outdated game design, and as cool as it is that they're here, they don't end up truly standing out.

Additionally, however, we've got more fun things, like new skins, a remix mode for the main campaign, 42 gameplay-modifying Skulls to collect, tweaks to movement, weapons from later Halo titles brought over, up to four-player co-op, redone/tweaked cutscenes, a remastered version of the 10/10 soundtrack, and more. All of this is positive.

Looks Better Than Ever

Of course, the most obvious difference from previous versions of the game is that Halo: Campaign Evolved looks like a brand-spanking new shooter developer for the current gen of consoles and PCs. From a pure visual fidelity standpoint, the team did a really nice job here.

It's not the most photo-realistic game I've ever seen in my life, but it's still exciting to see Combat Evolved reimagined like it is here. For the most part, all the old style and design of the game feels like it's preserved and respected, despite the nearly 25 years difference between versions.

Taking your first steps onto the ring in the game's second mission, "Halo," brought back both waves of nostalgia, as well as just being sincerely impressed by how nice things look in this game. The Covenant ship in "The Truth and Reconciliation" has a sort of sheen/texture to every surface that makes it feel more believable than ever.

Enemy designs, weapons and their sounds/animations, and everything else in this regard is done really well to the point that I didn't really have any personal complaints. Unfortunately, looking good and running well are two very different things, and that's where we start to run into some big issues with Campaign Evolved.

Some Major Issues

For all possible transparency/clarity, I played through Campaign Evolved on a base PS5, not a PS5 Pro. According to Xbox, the game does feature some Pro-specific perks, but I still obviously expected to have a solid time on my original PS5 too. I'm not sure what happened here, but the first iteration of Halo on PlayStation did not run well for me. At all.

At first, everything seemed fine, but very soon into "The Truth and Reconciliation," I started to notice. Enemies, vehicles, and projectiles in Campaign Evolved operate with dynamic framerate, meaning they can adjust their individual frames on the fly to keep the game itself running smooth and steady, even if these objects need to slow down a bit in demanding areas. This is nice in theory, but Halo suffered often for me as soon as the action on screen became too hectic (which was... regularly), leading to really bad object slowdown.

It's a bit hard to explain, but once the bullets and bodies started flying in more intense sections, everything would begin to move as if it were a stop-motion film, with enemies, teammates, vehicles, explosions, and projectiles alike all very noticeably stuttering for a frankly unreasonable amount of time. It was bad in "The Truth and Reconciliation," worse in "Assault on the Control Room," a bummer in "The Library," and downright disastrous during both "Keyes" and "The Maw," the game's final two missions.

After noticing this issue the first time, it became easier and easier to spot it, and at least for me on my PS5, it was a big, consistent issue. This is, of course, made even worse once The Flood are introduced in the game, since you're often mowing down dozens of them at the same time as they swarm around you. Framerate issues are a problem in any game, but they're the worst in FPS titles, especially when they're this bad.

The first iteration of Halo on PlayStation did not run well for me. At all.

I can't stress enough that "Keyes" and "The Maw" were slowing down and chugging so badly throughout that I really couldn't enjoy them at all, and they felt borderline unplayable. Thankfully, overall, I was still able to have a fun time with other parts of the main mission list of Campaign Evolved, but far, far too often was I completely taken out of the experience by this subpar, truly abysmal performance.

Additionally, there were extra little quirks along the way. A mouse cursor was in the corner of my screen for hours for some reason. I fell through a light bridge over and over that wasn't actually activated despite being illuminated. The objective markers and descriptions are often finicky and slow to update. Upon respawning, the game goes live while your screen is still blank for a couple seconds, resulting in some immediate deaths unless you just run around blindly till the picture pops in.

All of this, alongside the truly awful performance many times on PS5, is bad enough. And then, there's the issue with the backend.

PS5/Microsoft Headaches

To play Halo: Campaign Evolved on PS5, you still must have both an active Microsoft account, as well as an Xbox Gamertag. Upon launching the game, you'll be prompted with a QR code to (permanently) link your PSN to your Microsoft, which while a bit odd, worked fine for me initially.

The immediate problem for many right off the bat, however, is that this means you have to be online and successfully connected to the network in order to play Campaign Evolved. You cannot even access the game's menu unless you're online. For a campaign many of us will play alone or in couch co-op, this is frankly insane to me. Of course, it makes sense if you're linking up via Cross-Play or with other friends online, but it's ridiculous that if the network or your internet connection goes down, you can't play the game at all.

Speaking of not being able to play the game at all, I tried to test the campaign in local co-op, but the game doesn't allow a Player 2 to just hop in as a guest. Instead, they also need to connect a PSN account to a Microsoft account and Xbox Gamertag. This is already an absurd layer on top, compounded by the fact that my partner kept getting a "Failed to Login" prompt over and over while trying to connect everything to play with me, despite doing everything correctly.

This led to me closing, then relaunching the game to try to fix the issue. Instead, upon reboot, the game prompted me to link my PSN to my Microsoft account. Again. And I tried! But I was then met with an "Account Link Failed" prompt because "my player profile was already linked to another platform account," even though it absolutely was not. With no way to get into the game's menu, and no feasible way to unlink my account from a web browser or phone (believe me, I tried everything), I was quite literally locked out of the game.

My "work around" was to create a whole new PSN account, log into it on my PlayStation, create a brand-new Microsoft account and Xbox Gamertag, and try to get back in that way. This did work, but only after a literal hour of captchas, endless email verification codes, eight different tabs, and constant juggling back and forth between my phone and laptop just to finally get the game to let me back in.

I was quite literally locked out of the game.

Of course, now signed in under a new PSN/Microsoft/Xbox account, I had to start the game back over from scratch. In a moment of desperation, I decided to try my original, real PSN/Microsoft/Xbox account one last time, and... it let me back in, for no rhyme or reason other than it apparently felt like it this time. This entire process is cumbersome, isn't user-friendly, and has too much potential to go wrong, apparently.

I pray this is ironed out before the game gets into the hands of the public, because all of this was one of the most unnecessary and ridiculous experiences I've ever had on a console. I knew there would be hiccups and hang-ups to a certain extent with this process, but the fact is, it can be a nightmare to just get this game to function on a base PS5 right now, and that's a darn shame. Halo is awesome, and this version of the game has the potential to be the best way to experience it. As it stands, however, between the poor performance and the account-linking nightmare, it's like they don't actually want me to play it.

Halo: Campaign Evolved brings back one of the coolest FPS experiences of all time, and it looks better than ever. Unfortunately, some PS5-specific headaches and bad performance issues are currently holding it back in major ways. At least half the missions on base PS5 have awful framerate issues, and the always-online, required linking of your PSN account to your Microsoft account to your Xbox Gamertag can lead to some truly migraine-inducing outcomes. I'm desperately hoping this is all ironed out ASAP, because this game will be a blast someday once it's all squared away. Until then, PS5 owners should be cautious.

Released July 28, 2026

Developer(s) Halo Studios

Publisher(s) Microsoft Studios

Multiplayer Online Co-Op, Local Co-Op

Cross-Platform Play Yes - all platforms

Pros & Cons

Still one of the best FPS campaigns of all time
Looks better than ever
Some nice new additions
Cross-Play with up to four players in a fireteam
Having trophies in a Halo game on PlayStation is rad

Many moments of rough framerate performance that are borderline unplayable
Some extra hiccups and glitches along the way
Cannot be played offline at all despite only being the campaign
Linking your Microsoft account/Gamertag to play on PS5 is currently leading to big issues
Not every new addition is worthwhile

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