On Friday, Microsoft announced Halo: Campaign Evolved , a completely remastered version of the first Halo game. The Xbox parent company also confirmed that the remaster will launch on PlayStation alongside Xbox and PC in 2026, finally breaking the exclusivity of its flagship first-party series. Halo: Combat Evolved will feature the Halo: Combat Evolved campaign recreated in Unreal Engine 5.
Halo Studios confirmed the rumors of the remake at the 2025 Halo World Championship, which took place from October 24th to 26th. The developer (formerly known as 343 Industries) has debuted a trailer for Halo: Campaign Evolved, showcasing features in a 13-minute gameplay demo.
Halo: Campaign Evolved Features
Halo: Campaign Evolved is a complete remaster of the Halo: Combat Evolved campaign, built using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. The game will feature remastered 4K visuals, updated animations, familiar Halo weapons and vehicles, remastered music, remastered voice acting, and new story content. Microsoft said in an Xbox Wire post on Friday that the remaster will be a “modern evolution” of Halo Combat: Evolved’s story and include three new bonus campaign missions.
There are also some new co-op features. Halo: Campaign Evolved will support the original two-player local split-screen experience on consoles, and for the first time support up to four-player online co-op on Xbox Series S/X, PC and PS5.
“We wanted to start where it all began, with the original campaign that defined Halo,” said Halo Studios executive producer Damon Conn. “Starting here means people who have never played the game before will be able to understand the story from the beginning, which can help us chart the way forward for the new Halo story.
“Focusing on the campaign experience meant we could focus entirely on really capturing the atmosphere, tone and emotional impact that made the first campaign so special and iconic.”
The remaster will add nine weapons from the Halo series, including energy swords, battle rifles, and needle rifles. Players will be able to hijack vehicles and pilot Covenant Ghost tanks for the first time in Halo: Campaign Evolved. The game will also add an optional sprint mechanic.
Halo: Campaign Evolved will launch in 2026 on the Xbox app on Xbox Series S/X, PC, Steam, and PS5. It will support Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Play Anywhere, and will ship with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on day one.
Halo: Campaign Evolved will feature new 4K visuals
Image Credit: Microsoft/Halo Studios
Halo and other first-party Xbox games coming to PS5
At the Halo World Championship, Halo Studios also confirmed that in addition to Halo: Campaign Evolved, the iconic Xbox first-party series will also be released on PlayStation. Brian Jarrard, the studio’s community director, said Halo on PlayStation “has been a long time coming.”
“As a community guy, I know the Halo community is excited to welcome their friends as well. This means more Halo for everyone. It truly is a new era. Halo will be on PlayStation moving forward, starting with Halo: Campaign Evolved,” Jarrad said during the livestream.
Halo is Microsoft’s most enduring and popular first-party game series. When “Halo: Combat Evolved” was released in 2001, it almost made the original Xbox famous. While the Xbox parent company has been aggressively pursuing a multi-platform release strategy over the past year, bringing its exclusive games to PS5, Halo: Combat Evolved has held on even as legacy franchises like Gears of War and Forza Motorsport were confirmed for release on PlayStation.
However, the company has said that Halo will eventually be released on PS5 over time. In November, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer told Bloomberg that he wouldn’t rule out any games from Microsoft’s stable jumping to rival platforms from Sony or Nintendo. “I don’t see a ‘you can’t do this’ red line in our portfolio,” he said at the time, but added that it was too early to make any decisions about the next version of Halo.
Earlier this year, Spencer hinted at the return of Halo: Combat Evolved during the Xbox Game Showcase in June. The Xbox boss didn’t mention the game by name, but said 2026 will mark the “return of a classic that’s been with us from the beginning.”
