The co-creator of Halo and designer of Master Chief, Marcus Lehto, has weighed in with his thoughts about the latest Halo remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved.
Posting on social media, Lehto said he has been slowly playing through the game on the Heroic difficulty and he has some issues but mostly he’s having a great time and is happy with the game.
“Overall, I really love the upgrades: movement, cinematics, visuals. Damn, the lighting is brilliant,” he said. “Do I have gripes? A few, but they are taking a back seat to the fun.”
As for why he played on Heroic, Lehto said this was the difficulty level that the original team at Bungie used to test a level for its “fun factor.” The Legendary difficulty level is only for those “who love punishment,” he said.
Lehto shared a number of other insights in his social media posts. He said the team at Halo Studios deserves credit for making the game run in the Unreal Engine, saying this took “real effort” to do.
In terms of his gripes, Lehto said a few of the newly added cinematics are “absolutely cringe,” including the new outro cinematic for Assault on the Control Room. Lehto said he “can’t un-see” that. But overall he said he enjoyed many of the creative liberties taken and new additions.
Lehto also addressed the improved lighting, saying the original lighting in Combat Evolved for the Flood missions was “f**king awful,” going on to call it a “mountain of sh**.”
He added that the Assault Rifle in Campaign Evolved “feels great,” and he was also impressed by the Covenant weapons. “Much more brutal with a solid punch,” he said.
In terms of Campaign Evolved’s new system that gives players hints about what to do and where to go next, Lehto said, “I think the hints are too heavy-handed–pandering to a new era of players with 0% attention span.”
Also on social media, Lehto addressed the online negativity surrounding Campaign Evolved, saying a platform like X/Twitter “fosters that hate.” He said if people got together in the same room to discuss Campaign Evolved and play it, “I bet we would all eventually have a pretty damn good time playing the game together.”
Campaign Evolved is notable for being the first Halo game on PlayStation. Early sales data suggests it’s not doing great on Sony’s console, in part because it’s too expensive, according to one analyst.
Campaign Evolved is just the latest remaster of the first game, following 2011’s Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. Campaign Evolved, as its name suggests, is a campaign-only game with no multiplayer support. It also features three new prequel missions as part of the Operation Meteorite story arc.
Remakes of Halo 2 and Halo 3 are coming next, according to reports, along with reportedly a brand-new Halo game that is “like Fortnite.”