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So, Microsoft and Halo Studios just revealed four new trailers and gave us a 28-minute gameplay demo for Halo: Campaign Evolved. Now, I watched them, and ladies and gentlemen, the game looks it looks they're actually decent. What? Now, don't get me wrong. It is not a faithful remake of Combat Evolved at all. It is nowhere even close. And in that regard, it is kind of a complete dumpster fire. However, looking at it as just a game where you shoot aliens, it looks kind of fun. A lot of the skulls look really cool, especially the one that swaps enemy spawns. This game is kind of like a Frankenstein crackpot
science experiment as it's less of a remake of CE and more of an amalgamation of every other game. It's built on the Reach engine, so that alone means it doesn't feel or play like Combat Evolved. If you asked any Halo fan how they would remake Combat Evolved, I don't think anybody would say, "Yeah, I'd take the Reach engine, use the Reach AI, put it in the Combat Evolved levels, but use the Halo 3 Flood, reuse weapons and assets from Halo Infinite with the Forerunner architecture and design of Halo 4 and 5." I don't think anybody would say that. So, there's two ways I look at this remake. If I look at it as a super mega fan of Combat Evolved, oh yeah, it looks like a dumpster fire.
It's clearly non-canon because they're adding the pure forms from Halo 3, which are fun to fight, but those only appear in the later stages of a Flood outbreak, which never occurs in Combat Evolved. So, the game at least is non-canon. Oh yeah, and the Halo 4 Elites, yeah, they snuck those in there. So, I kind of see this as more of a fan project that's trying to be as crazy and wacky and random as possible. It looks like it'd be fun the same way Skyrim is fun when you install like 200 different mods that have no coherency or unity amongst them, and it's just kind of a crazy random chaotic experience. I mean, take for example, the flood. Now, 343 had always strayed away from adding the flood and
we saw what they did with the Prometheans and making a new faction. You know, as lazy as it is to just copy the Halo 3 flood, it probably would have been worse if they tried to make their own version of the flood. So, so at least they're copying good parts of other good Halo games. Now, is that incredibly cheap? Yes. Should they be charging $50 for this? Probably not. Do they digital deluxe edition skins look like cosmetics they never sold for Halo Infinite? Absolutely. Are there some actual good things about this remake? Well, we'll find out. It looks like it plays way better than it did when I tried the demo back in October of 2025. So, at the very least, I think everyone, even their biggest haters, can say like
progress has been made. Just as a big example, like in the demo, the elite shields did not light up much and now clear visual feedback. Now, today we're going to talk about and break down each of these trailers. I'm going to go through, give you my thoughts on the good, the great, the bad, and the why the [__] did they change that? Now, for those of you unaware, Halo Combat Evolved has my favorite FPS campaign. I think in that video, my top 21 games of all time, I put it at number two. This is the one game I have replayed and beaten more than any other. I think it's the best Halo campaign in terms of difficulty, balance. It has a perfect self-contained story. You've got the
nostalgia factor of it being the first Halo that I played with the launch of the Xbox. It's a game that means a lot to me and I've come to appreciate so much of it. Now, I do apologize in advance because my Combat Evolved ADHD and autism is going to kick in any second now. Hey little studios, how dare you change the iconic door opening sound effect? Now, I'm going to be completely honest. I thought they were going to don't [__] it up. Like, I thought this was going to be like a three out of 10 remake. It's looking more like a six or a seven out of 10. SIX OUT OF 10. SO, maybe I was wrong to be as pessimistic as I was. You know, when I saw that they were adding sprint to combat evolved, that was kind of a red
flag to me, but I at least thought, "Hey, you know, maybe if they offer some kind of explanation or give an argument for how sprint would make the remake better, maybe I could get on board." Uh to this day, the developers, to my knowledge, have offered no logic, reasoning, or insight into why this movement mechanic was added into a remake of a game that was not designed around it. The only justification is that uh if you don't like it, you know, you can turn it off. So, they took that red flag, set it on fire, and said, "If you don't want your house to burn down, there's a water hose uh in the backyard." This decision begged the question, just how much spaghetti are you going to throw at the wall? There is
quite a bit of spaghetti that just kind of, you know, you got to clean off the walls cuz it just looks like [__] but some of the spaghetti sticks. You know, there's a fair amount of things that I appreciate about this remake. Some attention to detail, restoring cut content, attempting to recreate Bungie's original vision. I respect that, and I think that was the route to go. In some ways, they have restored that vision. You know, if you check out Nerdy Destroyers playlist on Halo CE cut content, you will see that Bungie had a whole lot more envisioned for this game that they just didn't have time to properly implement. And so, you know, there's a lot of cut dialogue, and
hearing that with the original Marine voice actors is just like This is Fireteam Zulu. Can anyone hear me? We got Covenant ALL OVER US. CAN ANYONE hear me? Over. I Oh god, it's this game I've played a hundred times, but there's something new in it. What? I don't believe it. Now to just quickly get sprint out of the way, it seems like they included it to make the game a lot easier. It seems like overall the design has been made to, whatever reason, make Combat Evolved a lot easier and more accessible as if it wasn't already. I'm not sure why you would try to lower the difficulty of the Halo campaign that
already has the best and most balanced difficulty out of the entire franchise. I mean, sprint 100% breaks uh certain encounters in the game. So, it's really odd that there's a skull that disables the game-breaking mechanic when the game-breaking mechanic should be enabled by the skull, right? It's It's like they designed the game backwards in that way. I None of us know why until they give an explanation. So, I mean, that's the end of the sprint debate. There's really no debate because there's They offer no reason for sprint. That's That's it. That's the last we'll say about sprint. Maybe. Now, even if you're someone who looks at this remake and thinks everything about it is [__] is awful, the one objectively good thing
about this remake is it gives us all an excuse to look back at Combat Evolved and point out all the reasons it's a masterpiece. There's a lot of stuff they messed with and got rid of that I never appreciated before. Don't know what you got till it's gone. This remake is so bizarre because they will go through the trouble of restoring dialogue that Bungie cut from the original game, but then they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, we And we also got rid of the health pack system with That was entirely unique to this game for no reason." You know, every other shooter has regenerating health, and there really wasn't anything special about Halo Combat Evolved, so we wanted to make it feel like every other
shooter. You know, so it's like dumb [__] like that. Like, you could have just kept the health pack spawns in the exact same places they were. I mean, Bungie already designed it. Anyways, tangent over. One last point is that I imagine people are going to watch this video and some of you might say, "Oh, Act Man, you're you're just nitpicking and biased. You're you're talking about all these superfluous details that don't really matter." I encourage you to go back and watch any of the ViDocs for Halo 2, 3, ODST, or Reach and see how much the designers themselves nitpicked their product. It is incredibly rare to hear them give each other genuine compliments because they held their work
in such high regard and I see no reason why we shouldn't hold it to the same standard that its creators did. Part of why these games were masterpieces to begin with. With that being said, let's finally hop into the new missions trailer which features the return of a classic beloved character. Okay, you got the classic Pillar of Autumn alarm sound effect. Bonus points. You've heard the story. Halo, the Chief. Predator bro shake. You son of a [__] But that's not the story I'm telling today.
This one you haven't heard. Okay, so elephant in the room. Sergeant Johnson is a one-of-a-kind performance. David Scully, his original actor, retired. So, of course they had to get someone new. What's strange is that the replacement for Johnson in Halo Wars 2, that was like the closest you could get to the original. Like, it genuinely sounded like him. And some Hannibal Lecter, just the way I like it. Or at least talked like him. This performance isn't terrible. I think it's just that the dialogue for him is really bad. Say what? The difference is that Johnson was a cocky character. He was confident in himself, but here it sounds like he's cocky in the product of Halo campaign evolved.
This one you haven't heard. I appreciate the effort in recreating those old Sergeant Johnson promos for Halo 1 and 2. Like, I appreciate that. I started simple enough. Drop in. What the [__] is that? WHAT IS THAT? WHAT THE [__] IS THAT? SO, IN the prequel missions, there's three of them. They take place a year before Halo CE. So, there's at least an excuse for all of the designs of the Covenant to be radically different. And some of these are not that bad. However, I am not a huge fan of the purple spiky Needler afro on the Jackals. I think it looks ridiculous and stupid. These sort of like more religious honor guard type
Grunts are kind of cool. Get out before anyone noticed. Well, guess what? They noticed. I never thought I would see the day where I would call a line of dialogue uttered by Sergeant Johnson cringe. But that was cringe. You know, it reminded me of that uh old Destiny 1 quote. I didn't even know someone with the Traveler's gift could die until they did. The thing about Johnson is that he just naturally sounded cool. In this, it sounds like he's trying to sound cool. Now, this Scarlet Forest looks pretty cool, actually. I like that there's verticality. I think it's cool that the weapons are stowed like that. You know, it reminds me of the barracks in the Pillar of Autumn. It's a similar
kind of concept. I think it works really well. Now, you ready to get to it? No. You hear that war? That's a good sign. Bonus points right there. You serve long enough, you learn to read a battlefield. What? When I joined the Corps, we didn't have any fancy schmancy tanks. WE HAD STICKS. TWO STICKS AND A ROCK FOR A WHOLE PLATOON. AND WE HAD TO SHARE THE ROCK. This place, more of a freak show. And trust me, I know freaky.
Oh, that's what Okay, I would like to point out though, I think Hidden Xperiaz pointed this out, but these Elites in these like cryopods are the Halo 4 design. And I love the implication that uh these designs are like failed experiments. And also might be the reason why the designs changed in 4 cuz there really was no explanation when that happened. So, this is like this is cool. It's like we're canonizing the reason why the designs of the Elites in Halo 4 were horrible. Cuz they were failed experiments. It's very fitting. The Prophet design, I'm really not used to seeing a Prophet that's not encased or wearing some kind of gold or something that looks like it has religious significance like a Pope hat.
You know, the Prophets were basically Popes. They had like funky clothes and ornaments. He looks like the species, but just yeah, kind of generic. I'm being honest. I like the white and gold aesthetic though. I like that. Should have kept it with the Grunts and the Jackals, too. Make it uniform. Have you enjoyed your stay so far, demon? Sorry to interrupt. Okay, this is a minor point, but when you say "Sorry to interrupt", uh usually you say that as you are interrupting someone, but cuz he's like standing there with his gun already aimed, it
looks like he already interrupted the Prophet. So, Please, don't shake the light bulb. Yeah, that's a better way to interrupt the scene. This Brute design, uh you know, it's fine. It's in the prequel mission, so Plans change. By the way, this Spiker looks fantastic. If you slow it down, it looks like all the metal is like moving, like the weapon itself looks like it's going to break apart. I really think that orange-red lava kind of cylinder barrel, whatever, it looks like a better Spiker than uh Halo 3, if I'm being honest. Odds get worse. That is also one of the original Halo CE Hunter death animations. So, that's cool. I think they should be remaking all of the death animations
from the original game, and if they add a few new ones in, that's that's that's awesome. They're adding space battles. That's what I asked for. That's what we've been waiting for. All right, yeah, see, it's not all bad. Also, the Warthog run. This is an area you could actually improve upon the original because, you know, logistically the Warthog run, as cool of a set piece and a climactic finale as it was, it really did not feel like you were driving through a ship. It felt like you were driving through uh I don't know what. A long hallway that was kind of like a ship, but no ship would ever realistically be designed like that. In any case, this is really cool to kind of add some realism to the warthog run while keeping it this is
like a vehicle bay. I think that's that's really cool. Gee, if you ever get tired of being the strong almost silent type? No. Yeah, see what like why would Johnson ask that? A lot of the dialogue from Johnson felt self-indulgent like within the product itself whereas Johnson was a character who would be cocky about himself. You know, he'd be like We've all run the simulations. They're tough but they ain't invincible. It feels like he's more absorbed in the product. Okay, so like that's that's definitely a mixed bag. So now we're moving on to the cinematic story trailer. Those were the prequel
missions. This is the main campaign. Now that effect looks pretty good. Slipspace rupture detected. Now move it out. Double time. You can see that marine has the green eyepiece. The it looks like they have the armor design of Halo Reach but at least they got the green eyepiece, you know? How dare you 343 remove the green eyepiece from the Halo Combat Evolved green screen? I have yet to see any pilots on here. So I'll be interested to see if they add those.
We were losing the war. Pushed to the edge of extinction. You know, having those long swords actually be like rendered. They're improving the story in a way that was limited by the technology of the time cuz if you watch those old vidocs, uh Joe Staten will talk about how they basically kept the Pillar of Autumn and the long swords static and then just moved the camera to give the illusion that the ships were moving. So, that looked great. The exterior of the Pillar of Autumn looks pretty great if a bit over complicated. It wasn't refuge. That's that's a great shot.
Beautiful. See, this right here, it took me a second to figure out where this was because they've butchered the Forerunner architecture. This is actually Silent Cartographer if I'm not mistaken, but it does not look like it at all. And dangerous. We got a Halo game with Flood in it. That's that's crazy. So, I think this looks [__] fantastic. However, because this is the start of the Flood outbreak, this seems like the infection itself has grown way faster. Like, it should be a progressive thing where after the Flood are introduced, every mission after that the infection gets much worse within level design. And this looks like it gets really bad right away. I mean, Flood lore boys can correct me in the comments, but I would
prefer a more gradual build up to this kind of stuff. If they claim this place. Cortana looks kind of weird in this game. Now, to be fair, she's never really had a consistent design between any of the games except, ironically, Halo 5 and Infinite, but this it just feels like her face is too long. I'm not sure. She should also be purple. She's not purple. Oh, look at that. Look at that red lighting. They Okay, they got some really good shots here. They got some really good shots like this I'm looking forward to it. So, the way this Elite throws the grenade is pretty bad because the player, whoever's playing as Master Chief, does not really move laterally much. So, it looks like the Elite just
missed. He's not even looking at Master Chief. He's looking over here. Halo 1 had some really good animations, you know, the way the Elites threw their grenades, they threw them really, really fast, but they had a long build-up, so it was a And this is kind of just like uh like throwing a baseball, right? When they threw grenades in CE, they threw fastballs, man. You had to dodge that You are more than your armor. More than your mission. And more than they can handle. I don't know that I really like this sort of self-indulgent, you guys remember how cool Master Chief is? We entrusted everything to him. This is the story you've heard before, but this one
you haven't heard. Uh Chief, you ever get tired of being the strong, silent type? Chief, why are you so cool? Can I suck your dick, Master Chief? Like Halo 1 was very reserved. Master Chief didn't feel like the most important part of the game. Like the most important part was the ring and sort of the awe and wonder it inspired. This is kind of like taking that in a different direction to remind us, "Hey, is it Master Chief the [__] greatest?" And yes, you know, he is, but you don't need to tell me that. You just need to show it to me. Okay, so this part of uh Assaulting the Control Room, this is supposed to be the rock bridge near the control room, but for whatever reason, they have sterilized it, and turned it into a
generic Forerunner structure, and robbed it of all personality, and gotten rid of the rocks. I don't know why they made this part of the game less of visually appealing because the cool thing about Halo 1 is that the design of the ring was both artificially natural and ancient futuristic technology. It's like imagine you added futuristic elements to ancient Egypt, but that futuristic technology was set thousands of years ago. Like what would ancient Egypt look like if they had the technology of aliens? It would still look ancient and it would have that sort of worn weathered look to it, but it would also have like an air of mysticism and like this is a place that despite its age is
still above our understanding. It shows how advanced the Forerunners were that they that you know these rings were created thousands of years ago and yet they're still considered to be such an advanced technology. It's it's like they they have completely [__] up the Forerunner architecture in this game. I will say that outright, they completely [__] it up. YOU DON'T [__] IT UP. Like it looks like Halo 4. It looks like Halo 4, it looks like Halo 5, it looks like Halo Infinite. It should look like Halo Combat Evolved, like it is so sleek, modern, and shiny, and convoluted in places it really has no reason to be.
Now here's the thing. They don't know how to remake the Forerunner architecture, but the UNSC This is perfect. This is per- Look at the red sirens blaring. You got fire in there. You got corpses with blood. There's little barricades set up. Like this I don't understand how they can nail the UNSC aesthetic and then just totally miss the point of the Forerunner aesthetic. Not a big fan of the fuel rod sound effect, but the explosions are pretty. Also, this is great cinematography the way that they cut the shots based on when they swap weapons.
Okay, now this is huge. One of my biggest complaints when I played the demo back in October is that the elites felt like statues who were locked to a grid, okay? You look at the Halo Combat Evolved elites, they move, dip, dive, duck, dodge, and dodge like true agile soldiers, but they also packed in a surprising amount of bulk, right? All the moves that they had and in the demo I played it they were really bad and this one moment right here gives me hope. It gives me hope. Look at this. Look at the distance he covers. Look, he squats down to get power generate power through his legs and then he tries to jump out of the way in a way that looks very alien, but he still gets
stuck and that's totally fine. Now, here's what's really funny about this moment. They create this incredibly cool moment with an elite, but then followed up with something that immediately sucks ass. Did you see it? Did you see the thing that sucked ass that needs to change? It was from Halo Reach. I have I hate this. I was a martial artist for many years and we choreographed fights and so I'm I'm just going to try and show you the difference between a bad looking melee attack and a realistic melee attack, okay? Let's squat down for this. Okay, so in Halo Reach and now in the Halo CE remake when the elites attack you with their sword, it's it's that. That's it. Right? You'll
notice he doesn't switch feet, right? He doesn't switch feet. He's not generating any power through his legs. He's It looks like [__] okay? This is not necessarily a dig on Halo Reach because they are reusing some Halo Reach animations. This is more so to praise how [__] good Halo CE's animations were. I'll put them on screen, okay? But the difference is this versus What? You'll see in Halo CE the momentum of the Elite's melee attack actually moves them forward. They step forward into their melee attack and it makes it feel real. It gives it weight and impact. This I hate this [__] so much. This sucks. Please
change this, right? Or they would do rah They would do one of those. Or they jump and slice, right? So it's this versus that. That's the difference. That's the difference here. The sword Elites look really bad. Okay, so like the first trailer, decent, not without its flaws. What's also cool is that there are a whole bunch of skulls in the CE remake including one that creates a third-person perspective which I think is super cool. Like why not, you know? If you're going to sell people skins, offer a way for them to see those skins. Yeah, it's it's It's just good business. Park your rear and lend an ear. What Not only is it something Johnson would never say, but I just
As a way to start the video like god damn it. It's your favorite lean, mean man in green, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson. Uh See, he just sounds like he thinks this game and this remake is so [__] incredible. It's There's just something off about it. We got all the bits, bobs, levers, and knobs to tweak and tune your experience. First up, skulls. Turn on one, turn on two. Hell, turn them all on if you think you can handle it. 42 unique skulls. That's That's no small potatoes. You feeling proud of those headshots? How about celebrating with a front birthday party? That sounds like a Johnson line. You feeling proud? Yes. That sounds like an actual Johnson line. I'm
surprised. How about infinite ammo? Let me say that again. Infinite ammo. I heard you the first time. Look at them fly. That's glorious. That's the reason I keep living. You know, it's just to see tiny little stubby aliens who need methane to breathe just get launched 100 m into the air flailing their limbs. That's Like that's it. That's That's it right there. That's perfect. Do you believe you can fly? Do you believe you can touch the sky? Um So, I regret to inform Halo Studios that although that song is [__] amazing, the guy who sang it is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence for crimes which I cannot iterate here.
Probably should have cut that. You wouldn't admire that sleek new Mark V armor. I sure do. perspective skull to pull those eyes out of your head and see things in third person. Then again, sometimes you just want some old school vibes. Yes. Well, I mean, there's a weapon zoom functionality. Yeah, why? At least they're including this. AR holds 60-round magazines. It looks like the AR is way too accurate to function the same role that it did in the original as sort of a SMG assault rifle a hybrid, even though it was called an assault rifle. It just looks like the game should have been designed around this and then you should have introduced skulls to break the already established game design,
right? So, the skull should enable sprint and the skull should lower the capacity of the mags and the skull should add weapon zoom functionality and the skull should add UNSC vehicles to be damaged, right? It's It's like so weird that they designed the game kind of backwards like this. In my day, the MA5B held 60 rounds. Preach! Thank you, Johnson. Okay. God damn it. Whether you want to play OG or OP. Yeah, yeah. Stoic reload, so they got backpack reload as a skull is kind of cool. Again, it's something that I don't think Bungie intended, but it's like a mechanic that you can introduce the option to break.
And that's not all. Can't decide what route to take Campaign remix. Also, they have the original uh Halo CE main menu. It's It's got the Halo Infinite UI aesthetic, which So, it looks like the remix campaign adds some replay value in kind of randomizing the skulls, which I think that's that's a cool idea. I also wonder if they're going to have campaign scoring and medals? Also, why the [__] is there no multiplayer? Like, there's not a good reason to not have multiplayer, you know? Imagine if the Resident Evil 4 remake Capcom was just like, "Yeah, I know. We're just not making the mercenaries mode. No, sorry.
No assignment Ada. No separate ways. Sorry, none of that. Nope." Even despite how they've kind of recovered in my eyes based on like how bad I thought the remake was going to be, it's still half of a remake. It's still half of Combat Evolved and that's hard to reconcile that because I went to all those HCS events and I got to know a lot of the pro players and the pro scene for Halo has basically evaporated. All those players who dedicated their lives to getting really good at Halo Infinite have gone to other games because there's no job security within the Halo competitive esports scene and now we don't know have any concept or idea of what the future of Halo multiplayer is going to be. I feel like if at least we
had Halo 7 on the horizon or a teaser or something or multiplayer in Combat Evolved remake, like what reason is there to neglect the multiplayer side of this franchise? I don't get it. So I don't want to be a negative Nancy with a bunch of sand in my vagina. It's just I can't get over the fact that it is also just they're remaking half of the game and not all of it. And yes, they're adding a bunch of cool new whistles and bells. Hey, what are these guys doing here? All right, you got me with that one. Halo Campaign Evolved. Pre-order now. That's an order, soldier.
See, they kind of recover with Johnson a little bit. He's got a few moments, but overall is I He's He's very far away from the original David Scully performance. All right, so those are my thoughts on Halo Campaign Evolved. I think I've said pretty much all I needed to say for the moment, but uh let me know if you enjoyed the video. Leave a like if you did and subscribe to the Act Man for more awesome content. Don't forget to sub to my second channel, Act Man TV, if you want to see more Halo Campaign Evolved content. And you better purchase that deluxe edition, Spartan. All right, let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. All right, everyone,
that's all I got for today. This is the Act Man signing out. Peace.
