Halo: Campaign Evolved Brings Microsoft’s Blockbuster Game To Sony’s PlayStation

In a bombshell announcement, it was revealed that Halo: Campaign Evolved would be a multi-platform release and that it was coming to the PlayStation 5, of all platforms. Following ports of Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War Reloaded on PlayStation platforms earlier this year, it would seem that all of Xbox's exclusive franchises are now well and truly third-party, a move unprecedented since Sega ported Sonic Adventure 2 from Dreamcast to Nintendo GameCube in 2001. Unlike that historic mascot migration, Halo: Campaign Evolved is at least still coming to Xbox platforms and Microsoft still insists another Xbox console is coming, but the comparison has not been lost on the wider Internet. But before we get into that, let's talk a bit more about the actual Halo remaster.

Attentive readers will know that this is not the first time that Halo: Combat Evolved has been remade for modern platforms...and no, this is not simply a re-release of 2011's Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary or its 2014 Master Chief Collection port. Halo: Campaign Evolved looks like a full Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original, but supposed leaks indicate that it may actually be running atop a codebase based on Halo Reach. Official comments indicate that the game is "created in Unreal Engine 5 layered on top of code and systems carried directly over from the original games", which indicates that one or more games' code is being used under the hood, not simply the original Combat Evolved. This lends credence to the leaks that the game is actually based on Reach in some way, and would explain several features from later in the series that Combat Evolved didn't have, including taking weapons from fallen enemies and sprinting.


Campaign Evolved is looking pretty good, all things considered. Extra prequel missions will be coming to the package and the new Unreal Engine 5 visuals are gorgeous. As long as the game runs at a stable 60 FPS (or more) on consoles and can be pushed farther on PC, we doubt there will be many complaints about what's on offer here. The original and Combat Evolved Anniversary will always be around for people who want a more authentic experience, after all.

But let's not ignore the industry ramifications of a move like this. Recently, we covered leaks indicating that the next Xbox may be as much as twice the price of the next-gen PlayStation 6, and other outlets covered subsequent comments from Microsoft confirming that Xbox and its studios are now expected to hit a brutal 30% profit margin on all projects. Halo now going third-party is not only a full culmination of past comments of "everything is an Xbox", but to some almost seems like a full concession of the console race to the PlayStation.