Halo: Campaign Evolved, the ground-up remake of Combat Evolved, is out on July 28. The headline isn't the new coat of paint. It's the platform list. This is the first mainline Halo campaign to ever launch on a PlayStation console. If you'd told 2007 me that, I'd have laughed you out of the room.
When you can actually play it
Full launch is July 28 at 8am PDT across Xbox Series X/S, PC (Steam included) and PS5. Premium and Collector's Edition owners get in five days early, on July 23. It's on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass day one, so if you subscribe, the standard version costs you nothing extra.
Pricing, per Xbox Wire: $49.99 standard, $69.99 Premium with the early access, and a $199.99 Collector's Edition for the shelf-display crowd.
What's new
It's the original ten-mission campaign rebuilt, plus Operation: METEORITE, a new three-mission arc set a year before the first game, with Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson raiding a Covenant research ship. There are nine extra weapons pulled from across the series, new enemy types including a Brute Berserker, vehicle hijacking, and a stack of optional Skull modifiers if you want to make your life harder.
Co-op is four players online with cross-play and shared progression, or two-player split-screen on console. Split-screen surviving into 2026 is a small miracle, and I'll take it.
The catch
Remakes of untouchable classics carry real risk. Get the feel wrong and you've annoyed the people who loved it most. The open question is whether the rebuilt sandbox still handles like Combat Evolved or just looks like it. We'll know on the 28th. On paper, though, "the whole campaign, four-player co-op, on Game Pass, and on PlayStation" is a hard offer to argue with.
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