Halo: Campaign Evolved launched just days ago, and it appears Microsoft is moving quickly to make cuts at Halo Studios now that the game is out. A number of developers who were previously employed at Halo Studios have posted on LinkedIn today confirming that some roles have been laid off. (via Insider Gaming)

Halo Studios producer Nick Treitman confirmed that he was impacted by the layoffs, stating that "after 6.5 years working on Halo and dodging just as many rounds of layoffs - it has finally caught up to me. I have nothing but love for Halo and the folks at the studio, this is just a tough reality in the gaming industry right now."

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Paul Morris, listed as Scrum Master at Halo Studios, also confirmed that his role had been impacted by layoffs this week. "Today, I learned my time at Halo Studios will be coming to an end following the successful launch of our latest game, Halo: Campaign Evolved. I know this is one of the most challenging job markets our industry has seen, and I know the road ahead won’t be easy."

A number of other Halo Studio employees have updated their LinkedIn pages confirming that they are now available for work. The layoffs come as new reports claim Halo: Campaign Evolved's development was troubled throughout, taking up more resources than originally planned and causing other projects such as a Halo multiplayer game to be canceled.

Halo Studios had confirmed plans to use Unreal Engine 5 in future Halo titles to help streamline development and make building Halo games faster. But for the Halo remake, it chose to use a modified version of the Halo: Reach engine known as Blam, but with Unreal Engine 5 graphics and assets on top.

Unfortunately for the studio, this led to development being more complex, with third-party studio Abstraction struggling to meet deadlines imposed by Halo Studios and being ultimately kicked off the project, forcing Halo Studios to scrap much of the work done by Abstraction and rebuild assets in the Blam engine instead.

If this story sounds familiar, that's because it closely mirrors the development of Halo: Infinite. That game also suffered from a troubled development cycle, with contractors struggling to meet deadlines and work in the Slipspace Engine (which was just the Blam engine with a new name.)

Now, with layoffs impacting Halo Studios, it's clear that Microsoft is moving forward with its confirmed 3,200 layoffs, 1,600 of which were already made back in July.

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Those of us old enough to have played Halo: Combat Evolved when it was first around (I think we're boomers now?) will have probably done so with the most legendary of all Xbox controllers.

The Duke.

The absolute goliath of a controller that back then, in my teenage hands, felt like a dinner plate. But what a thing. Hefty, sturdy, a real piece of equipment. I adapted pretty quickly, having been used to the equally sizable Dreamcast controller, and have many fond memories of one of Xbox's most iconic franchises.

I hadn't even thought of digging out my Hyperkin Duke for Halo: Campaign Evolved until I came across a thread on Reddit simply calling it a "nostalgia rush."

It just feels right.

The only trouble is that if you don't already have one of Hyperkin's remade controllers, they're not as plentiful as they once were.

Right now you can only buy the white Xbox 20th anniversary edition, with the original black and the crystal green ones no longer in stock (unless you hunt a used one down.)

The Hyperkin Duke is a perfect recreation of the original, except you can use it on modern Xbox consoles and your PC. The icing on the cake is the OLED panel in the giant center button that shows the OG Xbox boot-up screen when the controller is connected.

As my colleague, Jez Corden, wrote when first trying it out, this controller is built for nostalgia. Playing backwards compatible games with it just feels right. Halo: Campaign Evolved may be shiny and new, but it's as classic an Xbox game as you can get.

After all, the original incarnation of the game was the console seller back then. I'm not a massive Halo fan these days, but the original is the game that got me to buy an Xbox. The first time I played it at a friend's house with a Duke, all of my next paycheck from my part-time job was used to buy a console and a copy of Halo.

I haven't played Campaign Evolved yet, but suddenly I have the urge to dig out my green Duke from the box of many things in the attic and get to it. Better still, I guess, now we're also getting original Xbox backwards compatible games on PC, too.

Oh, and if the Duke is a little too big, you can still buy the smaller Duchess from Hyperkin, too. Same nostalgia, smaller size.

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Nobody could've seen this one coming!

Much has been said about Xbox's previous approach to its gaming portfolio. In a sprint to boost margin mandates seeded by Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, Xbox leadership put together a haphazard plan to publish icons like Gears of War, Halo, and Forza onto PlayStation. Forza has been an utterly resounding success, but ... the other two not so much.

It's arguably been particularly damaging with regards to Halo. Halo is to Xbox what Mario is to Nintendo, and for Xbox to put Halo on its arch-rival could be interpreted as a very visible signal that Microsoft isn't in it for the long haul.

Every hardware ecosystem tends to have some form of exclusive content, whether it's creative software on Apple products or native Google services on Android. Microsoft decided it wanted Xbox to be the only closed platform in history without any form of exclusive content. Was the juice worth the squeeze?

Well, the data very much says "not," I think.

According to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, on July 28th Halo: Campaign Evolved ranked 4th in US DAU on Xbox platforms (8% of total Xbox players on that date launched the game), while placing 14th on Steam (2% of actives) and 29th on PlayStation (1% of actives).

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-01T08:44:24.344Z

Despite some clear sales success, Halo: Campaign Evolved has hardly lit the PlayStation world on fire. Halo: Campaign Evolved defeated some service game staples on Xbox during its launch week, claiming the 4th highest daily active users across Xbox Series X|S consoles. It managed to rank a lowly 14th on Steam, and an even worse 29th on PlayStation, claiming just 1% of PlayStation's install base.

I would argue that the immeasurable brand damage putting Halo on PlayStation has wrought on Xbox is hardly worth this paltry figure. Circana senior director Mat Piscatella noted that the data shows "the massive challenge for new games in an environment dominated by the live service behemoths."

For Xbox, I would argue that Halo Campaign Evolved's performance represents a larger problem.

Halo Campaign Evolved has been generally controversial for its lack of multiplayer, perceived (or unperceived) "liberties" taken with the art direction and detailing, while accentuating a lack of visible roadmap for the future of the franchise. Sources familiar tell us that Halo Studios recently canceled a multiplayer-focused Halo game titled Project "Ekur," formerly "Tatanka," a short while ago, leaving the franchise somewhat adrift.

Microsoft's handling of Halo in general has been legendarily poor. The franchise was formerly a staple of the industry landscape and a cornerstone of Xbox's identity. In 2026, it feels like a shadow of its former glory, with a weak TV adaptation doing its own damage to the brand, and repeated "soft reboots" leaving the central narrative in a confused state.

The PS5 version doing poorly is a reflection on how much lustre Halo has lost in the wider gamer consciousness. Xbox fans have been jumping in for the nostalgia, but the fact nobody else cares is an indictment of how the franchise has been handled in general.

Putting Halo on PlayStation 5 did a ton of brand damage to Xbox in general, and I seriously doubt any future Halo will launch on PS5 given Xbox's shift back towards exclusive games. Gears of War: E-Day will be permanently Xbox exclusive, for example, and the E-Day previews have come in extremely positively recently.

Making Halo exclusive to Xbox again is low-hanging fruit ... delivering a Halo that can reclaim the franchise's lost glory is going to be much, much harder, as faith in Halo Studios seems to be in short supply, to put it politely.

As incoming Xbox CEO Asha Sharma seeks to reset the brand and double down on Microsoft's core IP library ... I think of all Xbox's problems, repairing Halo's prestige is by far the biggest challenge facing Xbox. What do you think?

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Halo: Campaign Evolved has launched in early access, which has been met with glowing praise from critics and scorn from Xbox players who are having trouble accessing the early access period due to technical difficulties.

However, if you're planning on playing this game on PC or Steam or Xbox on PC, but are stuck with old hardware thanks to rising prices on newer PC components caused by the ongoing RAM Crisis, we have good news.

Our friends at PC Gamer have discovered through rigorous testing that Halo: Campaign Evolved can be played at low settings and still look almost as good as it does on Ultra settings on PC.

For further context, PC Gamer tested Halo: Campaign on several PCs running NVIDIA RTX 3070, NVIDIA RTX 4070, NVIDIA RTX 5080, and AMD RX 9070 GPUs, and noticed there were very few differences between Low and Ultra settings when it comes to the graphics.

The biggest differences were blood textures and weapon lighting being slightly more detailed on Ultra, whereas foliage details, lighting softness, and shadow textures were only barely more detailed.

As for the game's framerate performance, PC Gamer noted that differences are much more prominent in this regard. Running Halo: Campaign Evolved on Ultra settings cuts the performance down by at least 20% across multiple rigs, particularly if the DLSS upscaling setting is set to Ultra.

Meanwhile, keeping the game at low graphical presets keeps the game's framerates somewhat high without a dip in their consistency, without the need for DLSS upscaling.

For example, running the game on Ultra graphical presets at 1440p with Ultra DLSS settings saw Halo Campaign Evolved achieve 60fps (RTX 3070), 84fps (RTX 4070 Super) , and 127fps (RTX 5080).

Whereas running the low graphical presets at 1440p with low DSLL settings saw Halo Campaign Evolved achieve 82fps (RTX 3070), 148fps (RTX 4070 Super), and 172fps (RTX 5080), giving much higher framerates with minimal changes in graphical fidelity.

PC Gamer even tested Halo: Campaign Evolved out on the Xbox ROG Ally X and discovered that running the game on Ultra or Native upscaling tanks its performance hard. PC Gamer recommends running the game using the Xbox Rog Ally X's Very Low preset option to get the performance out of it.

PC Gamer concluded that unless you have a monster PC rig that can push hundreds of frames per second or if you don't mind playing the game at around 30fps, they recommend playing the game on Low settings for the best balance of performance and appearance.

Though they also recommend turning off the motion blur, as it makes the game look pretty terrible.

Now, while I plan on playing Halo: Campaign Evolved on Xbox Series X after hearing how awesome it is from my colleague Brendan Lowry, who gave it 4/5 stars, I'm glad PC players won't be forced to upgrade their rigs to play it at acceptable levels.

We are living in a dire age of tech where it's getting harder for PC gamers to play the latest games without scouring the internet for increasingly scarce and pricey components needed to run them, so any AAA game that's optimized enough to be played on older hardware without losing too much graphical fidelity is a blessing we'll gladly take.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is available in early access and will be released to the general public on July 28, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Windows and Steam.

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Today should've been a joyous day for Halo fans as Halo: Campaign Evolved is now available for people who purchased the Premium Edition or Premium Edition Upgrade, and it's received many glowing reviews on Metacritic (including one from us, which gave it a high score of 4/5 Stars).

Unfortunately, people who bought the Premium Edition or Premium Edition Upgrade via the Xbox Series X|S's store or the Xbox on PC App aren't so lucky because they've been unable to access the game despite paying money for it.

This has been confirmed by Halo Studio's tech support team on X, which says they are aware of the situation and is working on fixing it. They will let players know status updates on their progress as soon as more info is available.

Fans are especially upset over this because if they couldn't get the Premium Edition through Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. You have to shell out $69.99 separately for it, and it promised players up to five days of early access to the game. This isn't the first time Xbox has failed to deliver early access for one of its products, and it's frankly getting odd at this point.

Since this is one of Xbox's flagship franchises, I have no doubt the developers are scrambling as fast as they can to fix this issue, and we'll be sure to let you know when they do, so stay tuned for further updates.

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A full 25 years after the launch of Microsoft's first-ever Xbox console, it's arguably quite fitting that one of the firm's largest new game releases in 2026 is Halo: Campaign Evolved — a remake of the original Halo title that launched with that system, helped propel it into the video game zeitgeist, and kicked off what would grow to become one of the most recognizable science fiction franchises in all of entertainment.

Despite being a colossal Halo fan, I couldn't help but have a bit of a tepid response to Campaign Evolved when Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) announced it last year, largely because I'm more interested in Halo Infinite getting a proper follow up and also because Halo: Combat Evolved already got a remaster in 2011.

Still, I resolved to give the new remake a fair shake, as Combat Evolved Anniversary radically and controversially changed the first game's atmosphere in ways I disliked, and Campaign Evolved is notable for being the first Halo project built on Unreal Engine 5. Plus, it also features a three brand new prequel missions in which the Master Chief and the fan-favorite Sergeant Johnson go on a covert operation, introducing a new self-contained story.

Thus, I went into an opportunity to review it with an open mind, hoping for a more faithful modernization of the original experience, a successful adaptation of the series' unique gameplay feel to a new engine, and fun and fresh content to dive into. And now that I've played through the game extensively, I'm happy to report that the remake offers all of this — though I'd be lying if I said it hasn't left me wanting in some ways.

This review was conducted with the Windows PC version of Halo: Campaign Evolved, and made possible thanks to an Xbox PC review code provided by Microsoft and Xbox. The company did not see the contents of this review before publication.

Halo: Campaign Evolved review — Story

The Master Chief's adventure across Alpha Halo in which the crew of the downed UNSC Pillar of Autumn fight for humanity's survival against both the alien Covenant empire and the grotesque parasitic Flood threat remains largely unchanged in Campaign Evolved.

There are a few minor tweaks to the narrative and there's a bit of new dialogue here and there — along with rerecorded voice lines from Steve Downes (Master Chief), Jen Taylor (Cortana), and others — but overall, this story is identical to the one first told 25 years ago, with no radical changes to speak of.

What has changed, though, is how much of it is presented, as the remake features bespoke pre-rendered cinematics instead of the original game's in-engine cutscenes. I feel that all but one of these were done fairly well, though some of the transitions between them and gameplay can be rather abrupt and shots occasionally linger longer than you'd expect them to. Regardless, they generally look great, though I do ultimately prefer the original scenes.

As for Operation: METEORITE — the story that unfolds over the course of the three new prequel missions in which Chief and Sergeant Johnson infiltrate a Covenant ship to learn where the heart of the alien dominion lies — its narrative is solid, though some of its dialogue was dramatically campy to the point where I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Even so, its characters and plot are perfectly serviceable, and I'm curious to see if a loose thread it ends with will be woven into another tale in the future.

Halo: Campaign Evolved review — Gameplay

Gameplay changes are one of the key things that distinguish remakes from remasters like Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary that strictly update visuals and audio, and Campaign Evolved makes several that elevate the original experience.

For starters, many mechanics, enemy behaviors, and types introduced in Halo's sequels have been implemented in Campaign Evolved, including sprinting, vehicle hijacking and seat-swapping, overcharged Plasma Pistol shots temporarily disabling vehicles, suicide Grunts, Jackal snipers, and Flood tank forms. Also, you can hold onto powerups like the Overshield or Active Camo and use them when desired, rather than when picking them up.

Together with weapons like the Energy Sword, Fuel Rod Gun, SMG, Beam Rifle, Needle Rifle, and Sentinel Beam that weren't available in the classic title, these additions deepen the sandbox and spice up Combat Evolved's encounters without making them feel wildly different. Crucially, their inclusion is carefully balanced and remarkably thoughtful, and made for a truly great playthrough (I recommend Heroic difficulty for the best balance of challenge and satisfying gameplay flow).

Campaign Evolved also makes a variety of changes to level design, with those made in the latter half of the game — including the infamous The Library mission — far more significant compared to others. One of the biggest issues with the original Halo is that its later levels are woefully repetitive and excessively reuse locations from past missions, and that's been addressed wonderfully with a variety of creative new spaces here. I'm a fan of every single rework in the remake, and I expect many others will feel similarly.

I also very much enjoyed playing through the three new prequel missions, which have the iconic Battle Rifle and notably throw the Covenant's Brutes — ape-like berserker shock troops — into the mix. Similar to their past iterations, Brutes have their own set of weapons (Spiker, Brute Plasma Rifle) and fill a tanky melee brawler role. This time around, though, they also have a frenzy mechanic you can engage with (for spoiler reasons, I won't go into detail about how to do so).

Causing a Brute to frenzy will fully heal it and drive it into an enraged state, during which it throws its weapon away and starts sprinting after you to pummel you with lethal melee attacks. However, it will also target other Covenant units while frenzied, which can make it easier to contend with large groups of foes. Figuring out when to frenzy Brutes and avoid doing so added an engaging layer of strategy to Operation: METEORITE that I loved.

By default, Brutes are exclusively found in the new missions, though you can find a Skull — one of 42 in the remake — that makes them spawn in the main campaign as well. These Skulls allow you to shake up gameplay with a huge variety of interesting and wacky modifiers, and are at the heart of the Campaign Remix feature that lets you randomize enemy and weapon placements while also roll for which Skulls you have on or choose them manually.

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with how Campaign Evolved plays, and how replayable it is, too. What frustrates me, however, is that it's a strictly campaign-only experience, without multiplayer of any kind outside of campaign co-op (which does support four players online, up from two in the past). I can understand not having PvP multiplayer given the campaign focus, but for $50, Halo's beloved wave-based PvE mode Firefight should absolutely be here.

The remake's customization system for Master Chief and weapon skins also feels very lazy and tacked on, with no cosmetics available to unlock through actual gameplay. The only way to get them is by preordering or purchasing the $70 Premium Edition ($67.09 at Loaded); not having things players can earn through gameplay achievement is a massive missed opportunity.

Halo: Campaign Evolved review — Presentation and performance

Halo Studios announced back in 2024 that all future Halo projects would be developed with Unreal Engine 5, and Halo: Campaign Evolved is the first game to use it instead of something proprietary like Halo Infinite's Slipspace Engine. Next to developer familiarity with such a widely used tool, increased visual fidelity has long been thought of as one of the largest upsides of that decision, and it's been proven so by this remake.

Campaign Evolved modernizes the classic Xbox flagship in breathtaking detail, with some of the sharpest and most visually striking textures and lighting effects I've ever seen put to screen. Everything from the weapons in Master Chief's hands to the legions of diverse aliens he's tasked with battling through are the best they've ever looked, as are the sights of Alpha Halo's vibrant skyboxes and its dreary Flood-infested depths.

It's truly shocking how much detail the remake manages to cram into each and every level, and the best part is that nearly all of it feels authentic to the original game's visual style. I have my nitpicks — Covenant vehicles are too vibrantly purple and some reload animations lack the style of classic versions, for example — but overall, the game looks phenomenal.

Campaign Evolved's remastered soundtrack is also a treat and is similarly faithful, and notably, versions of tracks from several different Halo games feature in the trio of bonus missions. The sound design is also mostly top notch; melee strikes lack oomph and I don't love the sound of the Magnum and Sniper Rifle, but every other weapon, vehicle, and grenade sounds fantastic, and the way audio reverberates around every hallway, cavern, and battlefield is ear candy.

But while Unreal Engine 5 is at the heart of Halo: Campaign Evolved's terrific presentation, it's a tool that's notorious for its performance issues — and sadly, the remake has some of its own to speak of.

I've been playing the game on my PC that's equipped with an i5-12600K CPU, an RTX 4070 Ti SUPER GPU, and 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and have been running it with Ultra settings with DLSS Super Resolution on an ultrawide 3440x1440 monitor. Generally, I get about 60-80 FPS, which seems about where my rig should be based on the official recommended specs.

However, it's not uncommon that my framerate drops down to the 50s and even into the 40s in larger spaces and engagements, and that can be rather jarring. Turning the settings down some and using Frame Generation can help with this, but even so: expect some FPS dips.

A few of my colleagues here at Windows Central have reported running into performance problems on Xbox as well, with shadows and reflections sometimes looking fuzzy and pixelated on Performance Mode being a particularly noteworthy issue. Hopefully the day one patch for the remake irons wrinkles like these out.

Halo: Campaign Evolved review — Conclusion

I went into Halo: Campaign Evolved with one big question: was it worth making?

In the end, I feel that it was, both to give Combat Evolved a high-quality remake it deserves and to prove Halo on Unreal Engine is a viable path forward for the series (it's also a great introduction to the franchise for PlayStation players, though I doubt we'll ever see Halo on Sony's consoles again).

Halo Studios has accomplished both of those objectives in my view, even though the remake's performance issues do show it has room for improvement when it comes to optimizing the series on Unreal Engine. The absence of additional content like Firefight is also majorly disappointing, as is the underbaked player customization system.

With all that said, Campaign Evolved ultimately delivers an incredible reimagining of the original Halo, enhancing it with jaw-dropping audiovisual presentation, carefully considered gameplay and level additions, an enjoyable new three-mission story, and a suite of over three dozen collectible Skulls for tons of replay value. For $50, I wanted more ... but I've had a ton of fun with what we got.

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Halo: Campaign Evolved finally launches today, in early access at least, and if you're playing on PC and have an NVIDIA graphics card, then you might need this hotfix first.

Specifically, a stability issue has been highlighted for the RTX 50 series using the recent 610.xx version drivers, and since it launches today, a hotfix has been deployed rather than a whole new driver.

As it's a hotfix, you won't be able to just update it through the NVIDIA app on your PC; you'll need to go to the dedicated support page to grab it and install it manually.

The hotfix is also worth grabbing for Path of Exile 2 players, as it addresses a frustrating issue players have been seeing in the game when running under DX12.

"[Path of Exile 2] Fixed intermittent long pauses that could occur after extended gameplay sessions in DX12 mode"

No other games are affected by this hotfix, so if you're not planning to play either of them in the next week or two, you can hold off. NVIDIA will roll these fixes into its next regular driver release so you'll get them fairly soon.

It's also worth making sure you do a clean installation, which honestly, I'd recommend any time you install an updated driver. During the NVIDIA installation process there is a box you can check to do this, or you can use a tool like Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to remove the old ones first. I've seen some issues first-hand over time that were rectified from doing a proper clean installation, and it's no extra work really to do.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is, of course, another remake of the first game in the legendary series. Beyond looking better, it's actually coming with some fresh content, expanding the classic game, and for the first time folks on PlayStation will be able to see what all the fuss is about.

Early access begins today, July 23, with general access on all platforms and Xbox Game Pass beginning on July 28.

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Microsoft has a lot of work to bring good cheer back to gamers after its massive restructuring of Xbox laid off 3,200 people, and one of the ways it's doing that is by announcing more games for Xbox Game Pass.

The first half of July 2026's new additions brought Gears of War: Reloaded, so Microsoft decided to follow up by showing that Xbox's other iconic flagship franchise, Halo, will lead the second batch of Xbox Game Pass games with the much-anticipated Halo: Campaign Evolved.

Other notable titles in this line-up include Beast of Reincarnation, an upcoming action-RPG by Game Freak of Pokémon fame, Heretic + Hexen, a classic first-person shooter bundle created by id Software, and Shift at Midnight, a viral indie PC horror game that's coming to Xbox consoles soon.

Here is the full list of Xbox Game Pass titles from July's second batch as stated on Xbox Wire:

Games leaving Xbox Game Pass (July 31)

• Back to the Dawn (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Celeste (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Crusader Kings 3 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• My Friendly Neighborhood (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Rain World (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Sniper Elite Resistance (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Whiskerwood (PC)

Windows Central's take

The star of the show here is Halo: Campaign Evolved, an upcoming remake of the original Halo's iconic campaign mode that's set to release on July 28, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

It will feature updated next-gen graphics, a new mission for the campaign, new levels, new gameplay mechanics and weapons to bring it more in line with newer Halo games, while remaking the original game's cinematics and audio and bringing the original game's voice cast to re-record dialogue.

While Halo: Campaign Evolved will not feature the original Halo's PVP multiplayer modes, it will support four-player online co-op and two-player split-screen local co-op (which is my preferred way to play Halo) with cross-platform play for all platforms and cross-progression for the campaign for all platforms during online co-op.

Halo: Campaign Evolved has been shaping up to be a long-awaited return to form for the series as it goes back to basics while also wowing new players with its exciting combat and next-gen visuals,

At the same time, Halo: Campaign Evolved has also been earning goodwill from players incensed by Sony's crusade to kill physical media by announcing that it will launch on discs and provide a Machinima mode for players to create screenshots or fan movies similar to the classic Red Vs. Blue series.

Will Halo: Campaign Evolved be the ultimate comeback for the Halo franchise? Only time will tell when the game drops on July 28, 2026.

What do you think of Xbox Game Pass' second batch of games for July 2026? Which titles are you most looking forward to from this list?

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please let us know in the comments, on Reddit, or in the poll.

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What's Xbox's strategy for exclusive games? Microsoft itself doesn't really seem sure.

In a new interview with our friends at GamesRadar+, two Xbox C-suite figures offered some mixed messaging on exactly what Xbox fans should expect out of their exclusive games play.

Xbox fans wholly rejected the idea of having the only gaming platform in history without any form of exclusive content. It was the first thing new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma addressed when she got the job, immediately turning around and making Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution permanent Xbox console exclusives. What's happening beyond that, though?

Here's what Xbox execs had to say on the topic, although I'm more confused now than I was previously.

Xbox will get exclusive games. Some. Randomly, apparently?

Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball emphasized strongly that there will be more exclusives for Xbox players beyond Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution. He noted that, indeed, you can't really grow a platform without exclusive stuff — which is something I feel literally anyone on Earth should've known.

"This specific decision was made very early. Asha believes that to build a platform, you must have exclusive services and software — in this case, games. And so to return our platform to consistent growth, we need a reliable pipeline of exclusive games."

"I can assure you, Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are not the only titles we're planning. To grow a platform like ours, you have to have exclusive games and services. These are not going to be the only two titles."

People are speculating about exactly what that might mean.

There has been some suggestion that Xbox might follow PlayStation's stated model, of single-player games being exclusive, while multiplayer games remain multi-platform. After this past week and Bethesda's announcements, many are wondering if that might mean Fallout and The Elder Scrolls VI.

"I wouldn't overly fixate on single-player," Booty said. I think that's a good rule of thumb, but it certainly isn't something that's carved in stone."

"We are the stewards of over 20 game franchises that have made a billion dollars in their lifetime. There are a lot of different games in our portfolio, and we have to think about how different games serve different purposes within it."

Ball then chimed in, "We have a framework for these selections, including how we evaluate them. I recognize that this approach is not obvious to all of our players, and we are committed to making this clearer."

... "Not obvious" indeed.

Exclusives are about setting expectations, if Xbox can't do that then why even bother?

Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution both look amazing, and I'm confident they will be amazing. But Gears of War has almost always been exclusive to Xbox, and Clockwork Revolution is an unknown quantity with the wider audience. I would bet money Microsoft doesn't put up the marketing budget necessary to help Clockwork Revolution cut through the noise either.

I really feel like only heavy-hitters like The Elder Scrolls, DOOM, Wolfenstein, Halo, and Fallout are going to move the needle in any direction here. The massive audiences, the TV show mainstream reach ... the decades of fandom and embedded history. These are the only types of games that could come close to delivering new users to the Xbox ecosystem. It's not about gatekeeping either — this is about whether or not Xbox actually wants to have platform "growth," as Matthew Ball says.

The problem in the near term is that there's a memory crisis going on, and that it's not a hot look on a spreadsheet to be selling consoles at all right now. Each Xbox Series X|S sold incurs a loss even after the price hike. If those users only pick up the console for a single game, or a couple of games, or maybe even three games ... you potentially don't even break even. Furthermore, it's not something the studios would likely want either. No access to PlayStation's massive install base would harm their bottom lines too.

When you can't sell consoles and break even, and your cost of user acquisition is higher than ever ... the road to better margins is selling games everywhere you can, be it Xbox, PlayStation, or beyond. But ... Xbox will keep bleeding users in that universe, maybe even irrevocably. It would end up ceding even more control to potentially hostile rival tech companies. It's self-defeating over time, and it might be impossible to fix now.

The economics are very difficult in the short term, but I feel like if Microsoft doesn't absorb the short-term pain, it'll end up with a far bigger and potentially far less workable problem. The memory crisis won't be forever, and this piecemeal approach to exclusivity doesn't set expectations particularly well for future potential customers.

To convert a non-Xbox user to a full-time Xbox user, you need more than new IP and franchises that have historically been exclusive already. You need a coherent, visible strategy that sets expectations for the platform for non-users. You need visible, known franchises that market themselves by virtue of simply existing. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the point is.

It'll be interesting to see how Xbox actually approaches this in the future, but Matthew Ball and Matt Booty's vague comments aren't helpful.

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Content creator Sean Dubs TV, who regularly covers Halo, recently took a closer look at a Microsoft trademark filed back in 2021 for Halo: The Endless.

At the time, many assumed it was connected to Halo Infinite, possibly as the title of a campaign expansion, but that never materialized. What's particularly interesting is that Microsoft continued fighting to secure the trademark until April 2026, suggesting it may have been intended for something else entirely.

For those unfamiliar with Halo lore, the Endless are a mysterious species introduced in Halo Infinite. While very little is known about them, some fans have speculated they're connected to the Precursors, the ancient race said to have created all life in the Halo universe.

The timing is what makes this particularly interesting. Microsoft formally abandoned the trademark just weeks before reports emerged that Halo Studios had canceled their multiplayer project, Project Ekur.

That doesn't prove the events are related, but it certainly raises questions about whether Halo: The Endless was once part of an earlier vision for the franchise that has since been left behind.

Sean Dubs TV also uncovered a little-known interview with Halo Studios head Pierre Hintze, in which he reflects on lessons learned from previous Halo games. Speaking about Halo 5, Hintze said:

“We chose to go a different direction when it comes to the narrative where Master Chief was not the main protagonist and the backlash was imminent, and for us there are certain things which we have to deliver in terms of the expectation of our players.”

Personally, I think Halo Studios may be taking away the wrong lesson from Halo 5. It wasn't simply that players wanted more Master Chief, but that the game was marketed around him only to shift focus to Spartan Locke.

Bungie also proved with Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, while Ensemble Studios did the same with Halo Wars, that Halo stories can succeed without Master Chief when expectations are set appropriately.

Hintze also spoke about the kinds of experiences he believes will become more important in gaming over the coming years, saying:

“I think we're going to see deeper experiences where the line between playing with and against humans becomes more blurred... Yes, it is incredibly rewarding if you go into a first person shooter and play one v one and win. But it is also incredibly rewarding if you are completing an objective or completing a raid in an MMO and you see the solidarity and the help and support we can lend each other.”

It's worth stressing that Hintze was answering a broader question about the future of gaming, not Halo specifically, and he never suggests Halo is becoming an MMO.

Even so, the comments have attracted attention online, and when combined with Microsoft's decision to abandon the Halo: The Endless trademark, they've left fans, myself included, wondering exactly what direction Halo Studios is now taking.

Halo: Campaign Evolved releases soon, but I'm even more eager to find out what Halo Studios has planned for the future of the franchise. I've always felt Halo is massively underutilized, and with Xbox now looking to invest more heavily in its biggest franchises, I'm hoping we finally see the series branch out into more genres. Who knows, maybe even the canceled Mega Bloks game could make a return one day.

Let me know what you'd like to see from Halo in the comments, and as always, be sure to take part in our poll!

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One of the most contentious issues around Xbox in recent years is the management of the Halo franchise.

Halo was to Xbox what Mario is to Nintendo. For years, it was Halo that led the tip of the spear for Xbox's surge in the gaming industry. The innovation with multiplayer and console-oriented shooters in general helped Xbox drive a wedge into a very established gaming industry. Halo 3's launch was legendary, and Halo game launches in general used to be "events." Those times are long passed.

Halo hasn't recaptured the magic of yesteryear. Halo Infinite was well received, but its post-launch mismanagement put a dampener on proceedings. The Halo TV show was also an unmitigated disaster, representing the raw squandered potential in this storied franchise.

In 2026, we're now getting Halo 1 "again," in the form of Campaign Evolved. It's already mired with controversy from some Halo purists for liberties taken with the art, and on the Xbox side for its launch on PlayStation. Given the backdrop of Xbox's so-called "reset" layoffs, Halo has something of a microscope on it right now. Including its leaders, for less-than-positive reasons.

YouTuber Rebs Gaming has been reporting on Halo for a while. As a Halo fan, Rebs echoed community sentiment about the franchise's general decline, but has put a focus on the studio's leadership. In his latest video, Rebs shares allegations that studio lead Pierre Hintze has antagonized staff, while also being reportedly referred to HR "multiple times" for his apparent behavior — although from documents I've received, at least one of the complaints were not upheld by Microsoft upon investigation.

In Rebs' video, he quotes one source, "I was verbally blasted by Pierre. It's emotional and shocking, and to this day, I cannot believe Microsoft HR and Microsoft Legal did not give me the time of day. Pierre literally told me to 'get the fuck out of the studio.' It traumatized me."

Rebs' videos are heavily editorialized and interspersed with opinions on the fate of Halo overall, but I wanted to see if the actual claims against Hintze are credible. Rebs reported that Halo Studios was working on a multiplayer title known as Project Ekur, which was cancelled. I've verified that as 100% true. However, while I couldn't verify everything Hintze is accused of saying in Rebs' video, unfortunately, comments I've received lend weight to some of these allegations. Sources infer that harbors a capacity for creating friction between his team and Xbox more broadly, and it's suggested that he is a controversial figure internally.

Former Halo Art Director Glenn Israel has gone on the record previously alleging as though he was retaliated against by Pierre Hintze for raising concerns that Halo Studios had arbitrarily blacklisted potential candidates over personal issues.

"Hiring interference is an explicit Microsoft policy violation (Standards of Business Conduct, Global Hiring Principles, Anti-Corruption/Conflicts-of-Interest policies)," Israel recently wrote on LinkedIn. "Blacklisting is a civil and criminal offense in the state of Washington (RCW 49.44.010)."

In addition, I spoke to over half a dozen staffers past and present who had experience working with Hintze. Even though I couldn't verify some of the information in Rebs' own video, I was passed other criticisms (and also praise) of Hintze.

Some suggested that some present-day Xbox producers and managers refuse to engage with Hintze without supervision, owing to feeling antagonized and undermined. I was told multiple anecdotes from very separate sources about Hintze exhibiting vocal disrespect for other Xbox studios, teams, and projects, which didn't exactly paint him in a positive light.

I saw emails sent to Microsoft HR that alleged "bullying" on the part of Pierre Hintze, criticizing his treatment of staff. However, others did offer mitigating comments. One defended Hintze, emphasizing his passion and dedication to the product. They suggest that he's not necessarily ill-intentioned, but sports a "complete lack" of tactfulness and people skills, in their opinion.

A lack of "people skills" is potentially problematic as a studio lead, particularly one with such a high profile as Halo. It was suggested to me that Hintze might simply be too stretched as a studio head, lacking the correct attitude to steer a large team in a single direction. The Halo Studio is under tremendous pressure, and the chaos around Xbox's current "reset" is likely making things even more difficult.

What's next for Halo?

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma described a plan to focus on the firm's biggest franchises moving forward, naming specifically DOOM, Fallout, and Halo, among others.

Xbox's cuts have been broad and aggressive. Id Software of DOOM fame lost anywhere up to half of the studio, with ZeniMax seemingly bearing the brunt of this initial wave of cuts. Halo Studios seems to have avoided being targeted more broadly, given Halo's importance to Asha Sharma's plans. But it remains to be seen whether or not Xbox leadership will decide if yet another reorganization of Halo's management is required.

Halo Campaign Evolved launches on July 28, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PlayStation 5.

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I know Xbox is currently amid the biggest restructuring in its history, and yes, it all sucks, even if it's probably a necessary change for the company's future. Instead, though, I want to take you back to days gone by, when the infamous Don Mattrick was at the helm.

By all accounts, Mattrick inherited a golden goose in the Xbox 360, only to smash it into a million pieces with the disastrous reveal of the Xbox One. That moment all but erased the goodwill Xbox had built throughout the Xbox 360 era, effectively handed the entire console generation to PlayStation, and created problems the brand is arguably still dealing with today.

Over on BlueSky, former Halo 4 developer Don Callan spoke out about a meeting that was held between 343 Industries at the time and Don Mattrick. Callan recalls it as follows:

“I have very distinct memories of having to demo Halo 4 for Don Mattrick and realizing that these people just live on different planes of reality... I was showing off my mission and when the Mantis showed up... he raised his hand and said to the group, 'Has anyone here played... Diablo 3?'... He then went on to suggest we should copy their idea of a real money auction house for campaign mech skins…”

Callan went on to explain that while everyone around Mattrick outwardly reacted as though it was a brilliant idea, they privately thought it was beyond stupid, especially considering Halo 4 was already around 90% complete. He ultimately summed up his experience by saying, "game execs remain stupid detached money grubbing idiots."

I must admit, as much as I dislike Halo 4 and its gameplay loop (don't worry, I enjoyed the campaign), this really would have been a baffling decision, and one I'm glad never became reality. It's also worth remembering that Diablo 3's real-money auction house was widely criticized at launch and was eventually removed from the game.

Hopefully, Xbox's new leadership has more sense than whatever Mattrick was thinking at the time. With the company still in the middle of a major restructuring, tensions are understandably high both inside Xbox and among fans watching from the outside. But let me know your thoughts. Would Halo 4 have been even worse with a real-money auction house? Leave a comment below and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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Halo Studios is back with another community Q&A on Halo Waypoint, and unlike last time, it's packed with genuinely positive news about Halo: Campaign Evolved. Following recent reports that PlayStation is ending physical releases for new games and our reporting that Xbox's Project Helix won't include a disc drive, it almost feels like physical media has been put on life support. Thankfully, Halo Studios has some welcome news for collectors.

If you pick up a physical copy of Halo: Campaign Evolved on Xbox or PlayStation from a retailer, you'll actually get a game disc in the box. That might sound like a small detail, but in an industry that's increasingly replacing discs with download codes, it's a refreshing commitment to players who still value physical ownership, as dwindling of a fanbase as we are.

Halo Studios have also addressed concerns over the game's AI, as in some previews the enemy AI was awkward to say the least. Luckily, it seems Halo Studios has heard our concerns and clarified: "Over the last few weeks, the development team has been polishing and improving elements of the game, including enemy AI behaviors".

Another nice-to-know is that handhelds are addressed, and Halo: Campaign Evolved apparently is optimized enough for Windows handhelds and Valve's Steam Deck.

Last time Halo Studios published a Community Q&A, I ended up going on quite the rant over some of the features I felt were missing, with Theatre mode sitting right at the top of that list. Unfortunately, we're still not getting a proper Theatre mode, but Halo Studios has announced what is probably the next best thing: Machinima mode.

Machinima mode lets players detach into a free camera, lower their weapon, and even continue controlling their Spartan while using the freecam. Better yet, it's available to everyone from the start and isn't locked behind finding a Skull.

It's not quite the full-featured Theatre mode I'd still love to see make a return, but it's a decent compromise, and one that should make creating Halo videos and screenshots much easier than what we were expecting.

As someone who grew up watching and enjoying Halo machinima, whether it was Red vs. Blue or Arby 'n' the Chief, machinima was once a core part of Halo's identity.

It's nice to see Halo Studios providing some extra clarification ahead of launch, and I'm still incredibly excited to finally get my hands on Halo: Campaign Evolved. I'll certainly be doing my best to 100% the game over the coming months, and hopefully these new details help put some fans' minds at ease.

Whether they do or not, let me know your thoughts in the comments, and as always, be sure to take part in our poll below:

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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a fantastic game, and I’ll go one further: that’s an understatement. Now, I’m personally not too heavily invested in the Warhammer universe. Unlike my older brother, I just never really got into it; instead, I was a massive Halo fan.

Now, of course, you can absolutely be both, but my brother often reminds me that Master Chief wouldn’t survive in the Warhammer universe, something I completely refuse to believe. I’m not here to settle that debate, though. Instead, I want to highlight an incredible community-made mod by Skykiller, using Halo Reach Sangheili models gained via Draken Warlord, that lets you experience Space Marine 2 from the perspective of one of Halo's most iconic species.

The mod itself, called Sangheili Campaign, adds Halo Reach Elite models to the Space Marine 2 campaign, complete with modified textures, materials, and visual effects to better fit the game's world. In fact, it goes far beyond a simple character swap, replacing nearly every weapon with Halo Reach equivalents, including the Plasma Pistol, Carbine, Needle Rifle, Plasma Repeater, Plasma Rifle, and plenty more. And yes, before you ask, the Energy Sword is there too.

I’d like to say it’s surprising how well this all fits together, but it really isn’t. As a huge Halo fan, and I’m sure many others feel the same, I’ve long believed the franchise has been underutilized. Feel free to disagree with me, but even a former Bungie employee, Niles Sankey shared similar sentiments.

When Halo Wars launched, I was genuinely excited because it felt like the beginning of Halo expanding beyond first-person shooters. Since then, though, we’ve had very little outside of Halo Wars and Halo: Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike. I even loved the look of the canceled Halo Mega Bloks game, and seeing this mod only makes me wish we'd gotten an official Halo game in a similar vein to Space Marine 2. Sadly, we haven't, and I think that's a real shame.

Still, I’d love to hear what you think. Would you want to see Halo branch out into more genres like this, or do you think it should stick to what it knows best? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll above!

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Xbox looks likely to follow PC gaming by doing away with physical media, and Sony is already taking heat for its plans to stop PlayStation disc production by 2028. Whether or not Microsoft's next-gen, PC-like "Project Helix" console ships with some kind of external disc drive option is up for debate, but we know that Xbox executives are rethinking their strategy around production and shipping, mostly thanks to the unending RAM crisis affecting Xbox console prices.

An understandable knee-jerk reaction across social media has been to quiz PC gamers on why they're comfortable with Steam's approach to digital-only game sales and its implied digital rights management, even if the executable DRM wrapper in Steam is apparently optional. Plus, the popular, if runner-up, GOG maintains its stance on DRM-free digital ownership, though it relies on a proactive backup mentality from buyers.

However, regardless of how any retailer pitches itself as supposedly being on the side of consumers, there's no denying that there's a scary implication for the future of gaming, whether that's on Windows PCs or whatever hybrid consoles come next. Sony already plans to close its digital PS3 and PS Vita store, and has withdrawn ownership of digitally purchased movies for UK gamers, due to "content licensing agreements".

The slow, miserable death of ownership

There's understandable pushback from some gamers, who ask whether physical discs serve a purpose in 2026, with many questioning whether their peers have even bought a game outside digital stores in the last few years. However, our own readers say they'll "miss buying physical games", and I'm firmly in the same boat. Still, the status quo is seemingly shifting to digital purchases (or rentable licenses, depending on who you ask), whether we like it or not.

Besides the obvious benefit of allowing a friend or family member to borrow your games with ease — something Sony is also suffering criticism for on social media, given its previous tongue-in-cheek video response to Xbox's stance at the time — other elements of physical media now feel stranger in their absence as time goes on. Midnight launches, quirky in-box booklets, and money-saving second-hand sales are relics of the past.

At the risk of sounding like a budding applicant for a nursing home, midnight launches were a huge part of the hype surrounding games. Sure, they've been irrelevant for a few years already, but the FOMO effect of seeing hundreds of people queuing to buy a game even piqued my interest in some that I previously had no real desire to play, now replaced by refreshing web browsers to pre-order a digital GTA 6 code for $100.

Even today, after picking up a Switch 2, I'm borrowing Switch 1 cartridges from friends to catch up on Nintendo's modern era, spending a grand total of zero dollars on second-hand titles. Now, as the company moves towards Virtual Game Cards, it feels like this will likely be the last generation that lets me borrow games. Sorry to all the younger siblings out there, but you'll need to buy your own copies — no more hand-me-down goldmines.

Frankly, I rarely even spend the full amount on PC games, opting instead for discounted CD keys from Loaded or somewhere similar. I'm so regularly frustrated when I see pre-owned boxed games grow cheaper — depending on their rarity — while some digital copies remain expensive. From now on, we can only hope for sales events and pray the platform owners never shut down and take our licenses away.

Are you concerned with the disappearance of physical game discs, or are you fine with digital ownership — perhaps as long as there's a plan in place to transfer licenses in the future? I'm interested in takes from both sides, and the justifications for anything in between. Let me know in the comments, because it's certainly a turbulent time for gamers, no matter what opinion you hold.

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If you’re at all into the Halo modding scene, you'll have likely seen RejectedShotgun on YouTube. They're well known for pulling off what I can only describe as feats of incredible ingenuity, creating mods that many, myself included, thought were impossible.

Before I dive into the details, it's important to mention that this is for Halo 3 on Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and the mod is accessible via Steam Workshop and isn't available on console.

From mods featuring more than 20 vehicles and brand new weapons to Ultimate Forge, which completely reimagines Halo 3's Forge mode with massive sandbox maps, Scarabs, AI spawning, and countless new tools, RejectedShotgun has consistently pushed the limits of what Halo 3 is capable of. Today, though, I'm highlighting their latest project, Permafrost.

Permafrost, to me, feels like a nod to Halo 5's best and only real contribution to the franchise: Warzone. It was a massive objective-based mode that blended Big Team Battle with AI enemies, bosses, and a progression system that made matches feel like they evolved over time.

Thankfully, this is Halo 3, so there are no microtransactions to get in the way. Designed for up to 16 players, Permafrost focuses on large-scale objective gameplay, with each team fighting alongside AI soldiers. It also introduces what creator RejectedShotgun calls a resource economy.

Teams capture plasma batteries scattered across the map to increase their power level, unlocking progressively stronger weapons, equipment, and vehicles as the match unfolds. Players can even call in weapon drop pods and vehicles, giving battles a constant sense of escalation rather than the static sandbox Halo is traditionally known for.

Probably the biggest highlight, though, is just how dynamic every match feels. This isn't a case of loading into a map where the objectives stay the same until someone wins. Teams can capture a teleporter to gain faster access to enemy territory, destroy the opposing team's spire with a MAC strike, and permanently change the battlefield in the process.

Once a spire falls, defenses disappear, objectives move, and the battle shifts into an entirely new phase. Throw in massive vehicles like the Mega Mantis and Pelican, AI battling across the map, and enough explosions to make Michael Bay blush, and it's honestly hard to believe this is all running inside Halo 3.

Now, I love Halo 3. It's my favorite game in the franchise, and I just wanted to highlight what I think is a pretty impressive mod. So, if it looks like something you'd enjoy, be sure to check it out, and as always, do let me know your thoughts in the comments and be sure to take part in our poll below!

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One of this year's biggest new games for Microsoft and Xbox is Halo: Campaign Evolved — a full-fledged remake of the first game, 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved, that features new gameplay additions, expanded replayability, and an Unreal Engine 5-powered graphical makeover.

It's headed to Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5 late next month, with Xbox confirming its long-rumored release date of July 28 during the Xbox Games Showcase. Notably, you can jump in on July 23, five days early, if you purchase the Premium Edition; I imagine that's incentivized many players to preorder, leading to the game climbing the Steam sales chart.

Now that the Halo remake is just over a month away from its full launch, something PC players in particular have been wanting to know is what the game's system requirements and recommended specs are.

Thankfully, they've now been announced by Xbox and developer Halo Studios, and I've included them in the below image and table for your convenience:

All in all, for an Unreal Engine 5 title that's aiming to deliver peak visual fidelity, Halo: Campaign Evolved's CPU, GPU, and VRAM requirements aren't too bad at all. Targeting a 1440p / 4K resolution with 60 FPS and Medium or High settings can be done with hardware that's five to six years old, which is likely what many gaming rigs are equipped with.

The memory and storage requirements, though, are a bit harsher. Demanding 16GB of memory for the lower quality levels at 1080p and 1440p is fine — most players have that much — but the requirement for 32GB if you want to push higher is a little debilitating, especially during the ongoing RAM crisis.

Campaign Evolved requires a steep 100GB of SSD space, too, which is quite a lot for a campaign-only FPS game. You'll need to uninstall a game or two if your gaming hard drive doesn't have triple-digit room available.

Something worth noting is that it's unclear if these requirements were determined with or without performance-enhancing technologies like Super Resolution and Frame Generation factored in. What we do know, though, is that Campaign Evolved supports their use, alongside things like NVIDIA Reflex and other anti-latency tools. These will make taking advantage of the game's uncapped framerate easier.

Ultimately, the 100GB requirement aside? I'd say it sounds like the Halo remake has been optimized fairly well, and should run well on most PCs with optimal settings chosen. I can't say that for sure until the game is out, though.

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It's no secret that Halo has struggled to find success outside of video games, and I'll be the first to admit that, as a massive Halo fan, the Halo TV series from Paramount+ was one of the worst shows I've ever had the displeasure of watching.

Credit where it's due, though. The show occasionally delivered some genuinely impressive action sequences, even if they were often followed moments later by Master Chief removing his helmet for no apparent reason. But I digress.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty was asked whether Halo could return to television following the cancellation of the Paramount+ series.

"The previous Halo adaptation at Paramount+ didn't make it past season 2, but the series shot to the top of the charts when Netflix picked up its streaming distribution. Could it come back?"

Booty's response was brief, but interesting:

I'll be the first to admit that it isn't much to go on, and it's certainly not confirmation of a new TV series or movie. Still, it's notable that Xbox continues to speak about Halo as one of its most important franchises, especially when directly asked about its future in television.

If Microsoft does decide to take another shot at adapting Halo, though, I know exactly what I want it to look like.

Years ago, a leaked Halo script written by Alex Garland painted a version of the universe that felt darker, grittier, and far more in line with the tone many fans associate with the games. One scene sees a terrified Corporal Jenkins desperately demanding his sidearm back from Master Chief. After repeatedly refusing to explain what he's running from, Chief hands over the pistol, only for Jenkins to immediately put it in his mouth and pull the trigger.

It's a brutal scene, but it's also incredibly effective. It instantly communicates fear, mystery, and the horror of encountering the Flood without needing lengthy exposition. That's the kind of Halo adaptation I'd love to see. One that embraces the darker corners of the universe rather than trying to reinvent them.

Maybe Halo's future on TV or the big screen isn't over after all. If Xbox does decide to revisit the franchise, hopefully it takes a closer look at what made Halo resonate with fans in the first place.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on the possibility of Halo returning to television or film in the comments below, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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Halo: Campaign Evolved releases next month on July 28, 2026, and it's attempting to position itself as one of the most replayable Halo games ever. Between its 42 skulls, which act as gameplay modifiers, and a new Campaign Remix mode that randomizes those skulls to make each playthrough feel different, Halo Studios is clearly leaning heavily into replayability.

While I think those additions are great, it also feels as though some key staple features of the Halo franchise have been left behind along the way. I have to admit, I'm a bit gutted not to see them returning.

A visual masterpiece that will fall short

First off, thanks to @gruntdotapi on X (formerly Twitter), who first brought this to my attention, but it seems as though Halo Studios has released a Q&A ahead of the game's release, and boy, is there a lot to go over. First off, we now know that Campaign Evolved will not feature either a Photo Mode or Theater Mode. Given just how good the game looks, that feels like a massive shame.

The game is built on a modified Halo: Reach engine with Unreal Engine 5 layered on top, so it's difficult not to wonder why the work wasn't put in to support features that helped define Halo's community for years. Theater Mode, machinima, screenshots, file sharing, and community creations all played a huge role in making Halo what it is today.

Another disappointment is that personalized customization options won't appear during cutscenes. Considering the game includes custom skins, that feels like a missed opportunity to let players see their own Spartan reflected throughout the campaign experience.

Players also shouldn't expect a public demo before launch, according to the Q&A. While not every Halo game has offered one, it's still unfortunate for fans hoping to get hands-on time before release.

The replayability conundrum

What disappoints me most, however, is that Halo: Campaign Evolved appears to be built around replayability, yet as far as we can tell, it seems to be missing one of the most iconic replay-driven features from Halo: The Master Chief Collection. At least based on what we've seen so far, there doesn't appear to be any campaign scoring, campaign timing, or associated leaderboards.

For a game encouraging players to replay missions with different skull combinations and modifiers, that feels like a significant omission. Having global leaderboards where players could compare scores, race for the fastest completion times, and compete with one another would have added another layer of long-term engagement.

One and done: no post-launch support?

Unfortunately, in the aforementioned Halo Waypoint Q&A, Halo Studios have also confirmed that Halo: Campaign Evolved is a one-and-done game, and players shouldn’t expect content additions post-launch; honestly, that just sucks. As it stands, it feels like Halo: Campaign Evolved is missing a few of the franchise's most beloved community and replayability features, and I’m gutted.

What do you think? Is this a massively missed opportunity for Campaign Evolved, or do you not think it matters? Let me know in the comments and be sure to take part in our poll!

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Halo: Campaign Evolved isn't too far away now, and it marks Halo's debut on a PlayStation console, launching on PlayStation 5 alongside every other platform.

Last night, Halo Studios published a detailed Q&A on Halo Waypoint covering what fans can expect at launch. I've already covered some of the bigger announcements elsewhere, but one particular detail has left fans online, myself included, absolutely bewildered.

That detail is Halo: Campaign Evolved's split-screen requirements on PlayStation 5, and no, Halo fans aren't just upset because they're Halo fans.

On Xbox, split-screen works as you’d expect, though both players do need a Microsoft account. You can enjoy couch co-op without the need for Xbox Game Pass; however, on the PlayStation side of things, it’s a bit more complicated. According to Halo Studios, to do couch co-op, where two players play on one console in split-screen, both players will need to have a PSN account, both of which need to be linked to a Microsoft account, and both also need to have an active PlayStation+ subscription.

So, to play offline with a friend on the same console, both players need to be actively subscribed to PlayStation Plus. That's absolutely beyond stupid, no?

Surely most people can agree that's not an unreasonable thing to criticize, and I don't think Halo fans are expecting too much here. This is Halo's first-ever debut on PlayStation, and requiring two active subscriptions just to enjoy local split-screen feels completely at odds with what couch co-op is supposed to be.

I'm fully aware that split-screen likely represents a minority of players these days, but that's kind of beside the point. The issue isn't how many people use the feature; it's the principle of locking local multiplayer behind two paid subscriptions.

To me, this just reeks of poor decision-making somewhere along the line, or perhaps even a rushed one. Could this somehow be related to Sony's infrastructure or account requirements? Maybe. It's possible, especially if the game needs to be always online, but I find that highly unlikely.

Look, I'm excited for Halo: Campaign Evolved, and I'll be picking it up on both PC and Xbox. That doesn't change the fact that this situation sucks for PlayStation players, and I genuinely hope Halo Studios or whoever is responsible for this can address it before launch.

With that said, let me know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll above!

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Halo: Campaign Evolved is still well over a month away, and sometimes that's just too long to wait. Fortunately, one fan has taken things into their hands. WreckedElk, as they're known online, is recreating the "Silent Cartographer" mission from Halo within — checks notes — Fortnite.

Yep, that's right. Using Unreal Editor for Fortnite, a tool that allows creators to build custom experiences within the game, WreckedElk is recreating the same parts as the anticipated Halo: Combat Evolved remake, complete with cinematics, co-op support, custom HUD elements, voice acting, and more.

The project itself is incredibly ambitious, and in all the right ways. While the full experience isn't available just yet, the developer says it will be released this Summer.

For now, if you want to give it a try, there are currently three missions available:

• Level 1 (Boarding Action): 4188-5631-1827
• Level 2 (Landfall): 0553-6413-5190
• Level 3 (Cover of Night): 2777-9577-3967

Honestly, I'm a huge fan of anything community-made for Halo. As starved as we've been as a fanbase over the years, it's often been the community that has kept the spirit of Halo alive, whether that's through projects like this or the countless mods available for Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

There's certainly no shortage of community-made content to keep Halo fans like me busy while we wait to see what Halo Studios releases next, in this case, Halo: Campaign Evolved. While it's a shame that fans are often left relying on community projects to help fill the gaps, especially for a franchise that has been so underutilized, it's still great to see people putting this much passion and effort into keeping Halo alive.

Even former Bungie developers have spoken about Halo's untapped potential, which makes projects like this all the more impressive. Whether you're interested in custom campaigns, mods, or entirely new experiences, the Halo community continues to prove it's one of the franchise's greatest strengths.

With that said and my thoughts/rant out of the way, let me know your thoughts on this ambitious community project in the comments and by taking part in our poll below:

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I often cover comments from former Halo developers, and they're usually quite profound. Recently, Halo veteran Eddie Smith spoke about the dangers of AI and warned against the industry's growing reliance on it, a message that feels increasingly relevant. Or last month, a former Bungie lead argued that Microsoft was missing a massive opportunity with Halo, and that the franchise had been underutilized for years.

Judging by recent reports of the ongoing at Xbox, however, it seems they may agree with that assessment. However, one former Halo veteran, Jaime Griesemer, had a more combative take on Halo: Campaign Evolved. In response to a fan on X (formerly Twitter), he discussed some of the changes made to the remake, specifically a section involving the tank.

After a fan observed changes to environments during tank-driving gameplay, Griesemer responded with a bullseye emoji, seemingly signaling his agreement with the sentiment. That prompted another fan to ask, “Do you think the game looks good?” Griesemer remarked, “It seems like a very well-made mod. I'm sure it was quite expensive.”

I do somewhat agree with the fan's observation regarding the tank section. That said, I still think Halo: Campaign Evolved looks fantastic. I have my gripes, as I'm sure many others do, but the game is shaping up nicely, and I'm excited for its release.

In fact, I was excited enough to secure the Collector's Edition before scalpers managed to snap up most of the available stock. Of course, I'm a huge Halo fan, so I found these comments particularly striking. Griesemer even went a step further, adding, “I mean, it’s a mod for a GREAT game.”

Personally, I can’t understand his perspective and don’t agree with his take at all. Halo: Campaign Evolved certainly has some changes that won't please everyone, but from what I've seen so far, it's shaping up to be something great.

Still, I'd love to know what you think. Do you agree with Griesemer's assessment, or do you think Halo: Campaign Evolved is much more than just a well-made mod? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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When you think of the legendary flagship Xbox franchise Halo, I'm willing to bet very good money that the first things that come to mind for you are its blockbuster video games that helped propel Microsoft's gaming brand and consoles into mainstream competition against the likes of Sony PlayStation and Nintendo.

Something many don't realize, though, is that the very first piece of Halo media wasn't a game, but a novel — a book from author Eric Nylund titled Halo: The Fall of Reach that released on October 30, 2001, just over two weeks before the original Xbox and Halo: Combat Evolved dropped on November 15.

The Fall of Reach serves as a prelude to the first game, exploring the origins of Master Chief John-117, the SPARTAN-II program that led to the creation of humanity's Spartan super soldiers, and the fall of its stronghold planet Reach to the alien Covenant alliance that leads to the discovery of the Halo ring in Combat Evolved.

In many ways, I'd argue it's as much of a foundation for the Halo series as Bungie's original title was — and in celebration of the franchise's 25th anniversary, Xbox and Halo Studios are adapting the legendary novel into an audio drama.

The latter announced the news in a new blog post on Thursday afternoon, revealing that the project is being put together in collaboration with the publishing group Simon & Schuster Audio. It will be a "full cast audio drama version" of The Fall of Reach, complete with several of the voice actors for Halo's most prominent characters.

At the moment, these officially include Steve Downes as Master Chief John-117 and Jen Taylor as both Cortana and Dr. Catherine Halsey, with 343 Guilty Spark voice actor Tim Dadabo narrating the drama. Halo Studios says we can expect more casting news "over the coming months."

The script of the audio drama will be based on an updated version of The Fall of Reach being included in Halo: The Master Chief Omnibus, a collection of three classic Halo novels — The Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike — coming out later in 2026.

Notably, this new adaptation of The Fall of Reach can be preordered now for $29.99. According to Simon & Schuster's website, it seems to be scheduled for a November 10, 2026 release, though this hasn't been officially confirmed. It's also listed with a runtime of 11 hours, so I wouldn't expect it to be a quick listen.

As someone who loves the Halo novels and has read them passionately ever since childhood, it's awesome to see that The Fall of Reach is getting a full-blown audio drama adaptation like this. I'm looking forward to listening to it when it comes out, and expect it will be an excellent companion to the Halo: Campaign Evolved remake of the first Halo game coming out on July 28.

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Eddie Smith, one of the original artists behind Halo's iconic Forerunner aesthetic and who also helped provide concept work for 343 Industries. He recently sat down with FRVR for an interview to discuss the use of AI. During the conversation, he explained how overreliance on the technology can create more problems than it solves, something he has witnessed firsthand on productions that incorporated generative AI.

Smith described his experience working on the Las Vegas Sphere version of The Wizard of Oz, a project that utilized AI tools. According to Smith, the team quickly realized they couldn't rely on generative AI in the way they initially expected. He states:

“When they started it, of course, they thought the AI would do a lot of it, and they realised, no, the AI is really, it just does what you teach it to do. I look at AI almost like a toddler, an extremely advanced toddler, who’s just learned how to talk and obey standard instructions. But they’re still a really small child and they constantly have to be reinforced and read.”

The interview then shifted toward the gaming industry, where Smith argued that developers placing too much faith in AI are in for a "rude awakening." He goes on to state:

“Unless you know what you’re doing, AI is not going to help you, all the problems that people have had in games and the reasons why they don’t finish games, AI is not going to solve that. AI is going to help you not finish games even more. If you’re the type of art director who doesn’t know what they want, you still won’t know what you want.”

I'm inclined to agree with Smith here. I believe the human touch is what makes art, and creative works in general, feel meaningful and distinct. While I don't think AI is something we can realistically avoid, and I can see it becoming a legitimate tool in some workplaces, I'm still hesitant about adopting it in any significant way outside of playfully turning myself and my friends into anime characters on the odd occasion, but perhaps that’s just me.

Smith had more to say on the subject, and I think his perspective is worth hearing, or reading rather:

“The AI cannot be precise to what the production needs. Your artistic decisions have to be precisely calibrated for the gameplay loop. What is the game design? What is your gameplay? If it’s not going into the gameplay, don’t put it there. AI doesn’t know that. It couldn’t possibly know that. You could even feed, you could somehow tell the AI your entire gameplay design. It’s still not going to get it.”

It’s also only fair to share Smith’s upcoming novel, Godspeed, so do go check that out! And with those words from Smith and me promoting his work, I'll pass it over to you. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Do you agree, disagree, or perhaps fall somewhere in the middle when it comes to AI's role in game development?

As always, be sure to leave a comment and take part in our poll above.

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We've just gotten our first look at even more of Halo: Campaign Evolved, and boy, do we have a lot to go over. Halo Studios has revealed that the game will feature 42 skulls to discover, with three hidden in each mission, alongside an all-new Campaign Remix mode.

That's a lot to unpack, so let's dive into everything shown in the latest trailer and find out exactly what Halo Studios means when it says you'll be able to play "Halo your way."

If you're not familiar with skulls, they're hidden collectibles that have been part of Halo since Halo 2. Scattered throughout the campaign, they act as gameplay modifiers, ranging from fun visual effects to major gameplay changes that can completely alter how you experience the game.

Some of these modifiers will be familiar to longtime Halo fans, such as Grunt Birthday Party, which causes confetti to burst from Grunts when you land a headshot. Others are entirely new, including a skull that lets players experience the campaign from a third-person perspective.

To give you an idea of what Halo: Campaign Evolved has in store, here are the skulls and modifiers shown in the trailer:

• Grunt Birthday Party (Triggers a celebratory explosion when landing headshots on Grunts.)
• Bandana (Provides infinite ammo, battery charge, and removes magazine limitations.)
• Acrophobia (Allows players to fly and explore freely.)
• Perspective (Switches the game into a third-person camera view.)
• Adaptation (Randomizes enemy factions and encounters throughout a level.)
• Speed Limit (Disables sprint.)
• Armistice (Prevents the Flood and Covenant from fighting each other.)
• Stowed Reload (Enables backpack reloading, allowing weapons to reload while stowed.)
• Magnified (Restores the MA5B's classic 60-round magazine and appears to increase its fire rate.)
• Floor Is Lava (Damages players whenever they touch the ground.)

There's plenty more skulls to discover, of course, but these were the ones that stood out to me the most. What's particularly interesting is that skulls don't just modify gameplay anymore.

Some of them can also dramatically alter the visual presentation of a mission. One example shown off was a modifier that blankets entire levels in Flood fog, giving familiar environments a much darker and eerier atmosphere. It's the sort of change that can make even a level you've played dozens of times feel fresh again.

That naturally leads into Campaign Remix, which appears to be Halo: Campaign Evolved's answer to replayability. Rather than manually selecting skulls yourself, Campaign Remix automatically applies a variety of gameplay and visual modifiers to create a completely different experience each time you play.

According to Halo Studios, Remix Mode can combine multiple skulls and modifiers at once, resulting in random combinations to give you something different each time you play. Whether that's fighting randomized enemy factions, navigating levels under different conditions, or experiencing missions with entirely different visual styles, Campaign Remix looks designed to encourage players to keep coming back long after they've finished the campaign for the first time.

Honestly, Halo: Campaign Evolved is shaping up really nicely, and everything we've seen so far has left me excited to get my hands on the full game later this year. Between the huge number of skulls, the visual modifiers, and Campaign Remix, it feels like Halo Studios is putting a real emphasis on replayability this time around.

Of course, we've only seen a small slice of what the game has to offer, but it's certainly left me wanting more. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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If you're like me, there's a good chance you grew up in a time when split-screen gaming was the norm and something you simply expected. Whether it was on the original Xbox with Halo: Combat Evolved or later with Gears of War on the Xbox 360, these shared couch co-op moments helped define the early days of Xbox.

As Halo fans know, split-screen has become a bit of a sore spot over the years. After being promised campaign split-screen co-op following its absence in Halo 5, Halo Infinite ultimately never delivered on that promise. It's something many fans, myself included, have wanted for a long time.

Thankfully, it looks like we're finally getting a double dose of good news. Both Halo: Campaign Evolved and Gears of War: E-Day will feature two-player split-screen co-op, meaning that yes, couch co-op is back, and I for one couldn’t be happier about it.

Starting with Halo: Campaign Evolved, Halo Studios released a new video detailing the game's co-op features. The game will support four-player cross-platform co-op, as well as two-player split-screen co-op on console.

Interestingly, the split-screen reveal came via a YouTube Short of all things. In it, we get some playful commentary from the new voice actor for Sgt. Avery Johnson, so I definitely recommend checking out the full short if you want all the details.

As for Gears of War: E-Day, the reveal actually came during the Xbox Games Showcase, or more specifically, the E-Day Direct that followed. During the presentation, it was revealed:

“In Campaign, all four characters are playable from the start, and we support four-player online co-op and two-player split screen on console.”

Personally, I'm just excited to see the return of split-screen gaming again. I have so many fond memories of playing through the earlier Halo games with a friend, and even the thought of someone else getting to create those same memories with their friends or family puts a smile on my face.

Whether it puts a smile on yours or not is another matter entirely, and both answers are perfectly fine. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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Halo fans rejoice. Xbox console fans, however, might riot. I'm kidding, of course, but Halo: Campaign Evolved got a new cinematic story trailer today, showcasing what players can expect from the game and giving us our best look yet at the remake.

Honestly, it looks pretty good. I was already impressed by the gameplay trailer shown during Xbox's June showcase yesterday, as were many others, as the game charted on Steam and the Collectors Edition sold out within the first few hours. The game does look great, though, and everything else on display here has only reinforced that feeling. So, let's take a look at what was shown.

Immediately, the trailer opens with text at the bottom of the screen informing fans that the footage was "CAPTURED ON PS5 PRO" and was reportedly meant to be at Sony's State of Play.

Honestly, I thought that would surprise me, but it does make sense to showcase the game on a console that isn't all that much more powerful than an Xbox Series X, even if it comes with a much more ridiculous price tag thanks to current market conditions.

The trailer doesn't waste any time, jumping straight into The Pillar of Autumn at the start of the game, followed by a close-up of Sgt. Avery Johnson, all accompanied by voiceover work from none other than Jen Taylor, the voice of Cortana.

Visually, the game looks great, and I really don't have much to complain about. That said, I do think the Forerunner aesthetics are a little too clean. These are supposed to be ancient structures, yet everything looks almost brand new.

It is nice, however, to see that Halo Studios appears to be keeping The Flood under wraps for now. I'm sure that'll be a great surprise for players who have never experienced the game before, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing their reactions.

With that said, let me know your thoughts on the latest trailer. Are you as excited as I am, or are you still on the fence? Be sure to leave a comment and take part in our poll.

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Halo: Campaign Evolved has had more details revealed, with a July 28, 2026 release date now confirmed, alongside a five-day early access period for those who purchase the Premium Edition.

The game itself looks pretty impressive, far more impressive than I expected, at least. As a lifelong Halo fan, I was a bit anxious and wasn't entirely sold on the game's first reveal, but this latest look has definitely made me feel much better about it.

It seems I'm not the only one who's impressed, either. The game has quickly climbed Steam's Top Sellers chart, currently sitting at No. 7, or No. 5 if you exclude the free-to-play title above it.

Honestly, it's great to see the game performing so well. It also marks the second Xbox title in Steam's Top Sellers chart, with Forza Horizon 6 continuing to hold the No. 1 spot.

Back to Halo, though, my partner managed to secure the Halo: Campaign Evolved Collector's Edition for my birthday next month, and it seems I'm not the only one eager to get my hands on it. Scalpers are already driving up prices on resale sites like eBay, with some listings exceeding $600.

It's things like that which really spoil it for people like us who are genuine fans. Hopefully, those who want the Collector's Edition are still able to get their hands on one as I did.

I'm really excited for Halo: Campaign Evolved. The prequel missions featuring Sgt. Johnson look great, and they're definitely what I'm looking forward to most. We do get some details on them; Halo Studios says:

"Set one year before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, Operation: METEORITE follows the Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson as they infiltrate a Covenant agricultural ship holding orbit over the glassed human colony of Promise in search of data that could lead to the Covenant's fabled homeworld of High Charity.Over the course of three action-packed missions, the heroic duo must battle Sacristan warriors, liberate UNSC marines, and brave a series of bizarre experiments conducted under the watchful gaze of the mysterious San’Shyuum Minister of Harmony."

As I said, I'm excited, and the prequel missions sound great, but maybe that's just me. Let me know what you think of what we've seen so far, whether you're planning to pick up the Collector's Edition, and any thoughts you have on the game in general. Be sure to let me know in the comments, and as always, make sure you take part in our poll!

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Honestly, opening X (formerly Twitter) and immediately seeing a fresh batch of Halo: Campaign Evolved leaks wasn't what I expected. Not that I'm complaining. As a lifelong Halo fan, and with the community as starved for new content as it is, I'll take what I can get.

While I can't share the actual images, as there have been reports of DMCA strikes, I believe I'm safe to at least describe them. However, the images themselves were, or at least are, available on the official Xbox Store page.

Among the leaks is a fresh look at Halo: Campaign Evolved, including Sgt. Avery Johnson and Cortana, neither of whom we'd seen properly before. Personally, I think Johnson looks great, but Cortana is giving me serious uncanny valley vibes, and I'm really not sold on the design at all.

The leaks also include a new look at 343 Guilty Spark, and that genuinely looks awesome. We also get our first look at the Brutes, which are now featured in the game despite being absent from the original release.

Beyond that, there's also a glimpse of the inside of a Covenant ship, and I have to admit, it looks pretty fantastic. Whether you agree with some of the character redesigns or not, it's hard to deny that a lot of what's been shown looks incredibly impressive from a visual standpoint.

It looks as though the game will also feature some sort of space mission, similar to Halo: Reach.

Alongside the new screenshots, we also get a look at some of the cosmetics coming to Halo: Campaign Evolved, including the game's pre-order bonuses. These appear to include Master Chief's original Halo: Combat Evolved armor, alongside his iconic MA5B assault rifle. There's also a gold variant of both the armor and weapon for those looking for something a little flashier.

Beyond that, there are several other armor sets shown off in the leaks, all of which come with names too boot so, here's what you can expect:

• Splintered Warden Armor Skin
• Lochagos Armor Skin
• Mobile Armor Type 117 Armor Skin
• Gestalt Armor Skin
• Timberwolf Armor Skin

The leaks also showcase a number of weapon skins, covering several fan-favorite weapons from across the Halo's sandbox. These include skins for the:

• Subanese Fang Energy Sword Skin
• Laconian Lance Battle Rifle Skin
• Proto Type SPNKr Skin
• Colossus Fuel Rod Cannon Skin
• Cold Iron: Keyes Personal Sidearm Skin
• Savage Tooth Sniper Rifle Skin

While cosmetics will always be a divisive topic among Halo fans, there's certainly a wide variety on display here, and I for one am not a fan of what’s on display, but hey that’s just me. If you’ve managed to see them yourself, let me know your thoughts in the comments and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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I actually expected Halo Infinite to hold its ground much better. Instead, it has now dropped to number 49 on Xbox's Most Played Games list, in the U.S., while Halo: The Master Chief Collection sits comfortably at number 30. Truthfully, neither position is particularly impressive compared to the games occupying the very top spots, but Halo Infinite is free-to-play, whereas Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a paid game.

Forgive me for the rather personal tangent as I ignite the age-old debate between classic Halo versus modern Halo. As a fan, I think it's interesting to take a step back and look at how the games are performing on both Xbox and Steam, as they're really the only public metrics we have to go by, and the results genuinely surprised me.

With that in mind, it's hard not to be impressed by the sheer staying power of MCC. It’s also a similar story over on Steam, which isn’t broken down by region, but rather includes everyone playing the game. And well looking at either games 24-hour peak, we notice that Halo: MCC comfortably doubles Halo Infinite’s peak, with MCC peaking at around 5700, whilst Infinite peaks at around 2600 players.

Now, you might be wondering why I decided to dredge up this data, and it's because I think it raises an interesting question about what Halo players actually want from the franchise.

It's easy to look at these numbers and immediately jump to conclusions, but I don't think they're necessarily proof that Halo Infinite is a bad game, nor do I think they prove that classic Halo is inherently better. What they do show is that, years after launch, a collection of older Halo titles continues to attract a larger audience than the franchise's newest entry.

There are plenty of reasons why that could be the case. Halo: The Master Chief Collection offers six mainline Halo games, decades of maps, countless playlists, and multiple generations of Halo design philosophies all under one roof. Infinite, by comparison, is a single experience competing not only with MCC but with the legacy of the entire franchise.

Still, I can't help but find it fascinating that whenever Halo fans are given the choice, so many of them continue to spend their time with the older games. Whether that's nostalgia, preference for classic gameplay, the sheer volume of content, or something else entirely is up for debate, but I don't think it's a trend that's easy to dismiss.

I always like to use opportunities like this to once again beg for Halo: The Master Chief Collection to get mod support on consoles, so if anyone out there is listening, please make it happen.

Other than that, that's really all I have to say on the matter. Which Halo game do you still routinely play? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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I've made it abundantly clear how much I enjoy the Halo franchise. I practically jump at the chance to mention it whenever I can, and because of that, I was always disappointed that I never got the chance to properly play Halo: Fireteam Raven.

For those unaware, Fireteam Raven is an on-rails arcade shooter set during the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Players take on the role of a group of ODSTs, starting you off aboard the Pillar of Autumn, the same ship where Halo: Combat Evolved begins, and then proceeding down to the Halo ring.

The game has long been locked away in arcade machines, much to my dismay. I've always thought it would be great if Halo Studios brought it to consoles, but since that likely isn't happening anytime soon, it seems some fans have taken matters into their own hands, as the game's ROM recently appeared online.

While I can't share it for obvious legal reasons, it's still nice to know the game is out there for those willing to go looking for it.

While sharing the ROM isn't something I can do, it's also not something I'd recommend you do either, just for the record. That said, there is actually a fairly active community dedicated to preserving and playing older arcade games, with TeknoParrot being one of the most popular emulators used for that purpose.

I believe TeknoParrot requires a subscription for some features, though, and even access to Fireteam Raven, and I'm not entirely sure whether I can even link to it here due to whatever legal issues might exist around how that software works.

More than anything, I just thought this was cool. It also gives me an opportunity to plead with Microsoft and Halo Studios to release the game on Xbox and PC with achievements so I can finally buy it and add another 100% completion to my Halo collection, something I seem determined to do with every game in the franchise.

But that's just me. Have you ever had the chance to play Halo: Fireteam Raven, or is this your first time hearing about it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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In a recent podcast interview, Xbox EVP and Chief Content Officer Matt Booty detailed what fans can expect from Xbox's upcoming June showcase. He confirmed that we won't see Xbox's next console, Project Helix, at the event, and, to the dismay of some fans, other platforms will still be advertised alongside games shown during the showcase.

However, he may have also given us a glimpse at Xbox's planned release cadence for some of its biggest upcoming games, stating:

“Yeah, well, just even talking about portfolio, to start out, we've got so many games for XBOX players to play coming up. We start out with Halo: Campaign Evolved. We go to Minecraft Dungeons II. We've got Gears of War: E-Day. Then we go into Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4. And then we've got more after that. So it's just, to start, a really great lineup for XBOX.”

While Booty doesn't explicitly provide release dates, the order in which he lists these titles could offer an indication of how Xbox currently expects its major releases to roll out.

Of course, the news of Fable being delayed to February 2027 is a tough blow, but at least we now have a clearer idea of what to expect. With Call of Duty typically launching in October, and Xbox likely wanting to do everything it can to avoid GTA 6, knowing that the lineup seemingly starts with what I'm most excited for, Halo: Campaign Evolved, does at least put a smile on my face.

For me, I'm quite pleased with this lineup, assuming it is indeed the release order. Of course, I could be reading too much into what Booty said, but the way he phrases it does lead me to believe we'll be seeing Halo sooner than many might expect, followed by a very solid lineup with Minecraft Dungeons II, Gears of War: E-Day, and more after that.

How do you feel, though? Would you be happy if Xbox’s lineup of games released in this order? Or is there a game here you’re looking forward to way more than the other and want it sooner? Let me know in the comments and be sure to take part in our poll!

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If you keep a close eye on Xbox and gaming news, then you may remember that Glenn Israel — the former art director at Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) who left the developer last October — levied serious allegations against the studio two months ago, accusing its leadership of committing "unethical and/or unlawful acts" while he worked there.

Israel alleged blacklisting, favoritism, fraud, and more occurred (and is potentially still occurring) at the developer, and went on to make further statements about "impropriety" in its hiring processes, explaining he witnessed cases of cronyism (hiring and promoting friends) and harassment campaigns designed to force certain workers out.

Halo Studios' former community support coordinator Tyler Davis backed Israel's comments, stating that "They definitely did a lot of us dirty to cover some f*** ups up."

Recently, Israel began to call for Microsoft to initiate a third-party investigation into Halo Studios, asking fellow developers and fans to "please amplify this message to your networks" and "Demand accountability.” Now, several days later, he's pushing for a probe using Microsoft's new Xbox Player Voice feedback forum.

"I allege that Halo Studios leadership has committed and continues to commit numerous unethical and unlawful acts to the detriment of the franchise, its developers, and the community that supports their products," he wrote. "In my last two years there as art director I personally witnessed or was subjected to these acts, duly reported them, and faced retaliation from both studio leadership and Microsoft HR."

"Players deserve to know the circumstances behind the decline of what was once the XBOX flagship franchise, its developers need justice, and a certified third-party investigation is the only way to expose the objective truth," he added.

In the last few days, the post has managed to get some solid traction, with 349 votes and 92 comments at the time of writing. Fans have been very supportive of Israel and are rallying behind him to demand that Microsoft put together a third-party investigation into the culture at Halo Studios.

"As a lifelong Halo fan, I believe this is in the best interest in the franchise. Treating your workers right and having leadership that takes accountability is paramount to a thriving Halo community and a sustainable future," commented one supporter.

In the end, I'm not sure if anything will actually happen as a result of this push, but I do hope that what's going on at Halo Studios is addressed somehow. Notably, Israel's allegations were not the first sign of deeply rooted issues; back in 2023, several former devs scathingly criticized leadership and management in the wake of a large wave of layoffs. A recent report details how destructive the "mass culling" was for the studio and its teams.

All of this comes in the months leading up to the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of the first Halo game from 2001 built on Unreal Engine 5. It's coming to Xbox, PC, Xbox Game Pass, and even PS5, with a rumored release date of July 28.

Do you believe there needs to be a third-party investigation into Halo Studios? Let me know in the comments, and in our poll.

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In a recent interview with popular Halo content creator Mint Blitz, former Bungie level and mission designer Niles Sankey, who worked at Bungie from 2006 to 2015 and also served as Lead Mission Designer for Halo: Reach, had some rather strong words about the current state of the Halo franchise.

First, though, before we dive into all of that, I do recommend giving the full 50-plus-minute interview a watch.

It goes into some genuinely fascinating details about original plans for Halo: Reach, alongside behind-the-scenes insight into Halo 3’s missions that fans like myself will probably love hearing about. So, with that said, let’s jump right in.

Jumping straight into the nitty gritty here, Sankey was asked what he would do if given free rein to do as he pleases with Halo. In response, Sankey said:

Expanding, he continued:

“Microsoft has this great opportunity where they own the Halo franchise and they have this great opportunity to spin up a separate team to just build Halo titles that look like they were built from that era, from the Halo 3 era of gaming”

Honestly, given the current reported ongoings at Halo Studios, I’m all for this. I’ve personally always thought it was a shame that the Halo IP isn’t, at the very least, leased out to other studios to create new and interesting experiences.

Sankey goes on to lament just how expensive modern game development has become, arguing that as studios expand, they often lose the culture that made them successful in the first place. He also reflected on Halo: Campaign Evolved and some of the challenges that come with modernizing older Halo experiences, stating:

“You end up stepping all over the games that the fans like and then you have these unsolvable problems of should we have sprint or should we not have sprint or we need to make it look awesome but it's going to piss off part of the fans because the Forerunner structures are too clean”

To that end, Sankey believes the solution is fairly straightforward: “The obvious answer here is no, roll back to the 2007 era graphics and do it as a separate team.”

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this because, personally, I’d be more than happy with a new Halo game using graphics in the same style as Halo 3 or even Halo: Reach again.

To me, and I imagine many others, Halo was never really about graphics. It was always about the gameplay, sandbox, social features, story, and everything else that made those games special beyond simply “wow, game pretty.”

But those are just my thoughts. Let me know yours in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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If you’re a massive Halo fan like me, you may have already heard of Halo: Waypoint Chronicles, with Volume One containing over 30 stories spanning “all corners of the Halo universe,” whether that’s the Forerunners or stories we’ve become more acquainted with in recent years through the Banished.

The collection itself features 24 stories that were previously only available online, alongside ten new stories exclusive to the collection. Over on Halo Waypoint, we also get a nice table showing what stories to expect, so I’ll include that list here:

What’s got me quite interested here is that these stories are also narrated for audiobook, including performances from Halo’s renowned voice of Cortana, Jen Taylor, and even content creators such as HiddenXperia. The book itself is written by Alexander Wakeford and Jeff Easterling, who is the franchise story lead at Halo Studios, and also helped work on Halo Mythos and the Halo Encyclopedia.

Given I’ve yet to dig in myself, I’ll provide the excerpt from the book itself provided by Halo Studios:

“Delve once more into stories of legendary heroism and star-spanning conflicts—from the time of the ancient Forerunners to the perils of a twenty-sixth century clash between the United Nations Space Command and the Banished alien alliance.”

As a big Halo story nut, I’ll definitely be sinking my teeth into this collection, and I actually think I’ll pick up the audiobook too. I have this weird habit of reading books alongside the audiobook using Storyteller, but let me know your thoughts on this in the comments.

Halo does have a bad habit of continuing stories in its expanded universe, which I’m not really complaining about, but I’d definitely like to see more of these stories explored through games rather than books.

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Alongside major titles like Playground Games' newly released Forza Horizon 6, its upcoming Fall 2026 RPG Fable, and The Coalition's Gears of War: E-Day, one of Microsoft and Xbox's biggest new games this year will be Halo: Campaign Evolved. Officially, its development is being led by Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) — but a new report suggests much of its creation has been in the hands of external developers.

That information comes from well-known Halo insider Rebs Gaming, who recently published a new video report going over new information about the Unreal Engine 5 remake of 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved he's heard from his sources. I've linked it in this paragraph, but you can watch it below as well.

According to Mr. Rebs, a source familiar with Campaign Evolved's development said that "A lot of outsourcing was used to create Campaign Evolved, even for core programming and design, so much so that it's not really an in-studio project."

That suggests the majority of the game's development has been handled by contractors and/or other studios instead of Halo Studios itself, with the latter taking more of a managerial overseer role. It's worth noting that in recent years, Halo's developers have frequently made use of contractors, though many former workers decried that policy in the wake of Halo Studios' infamous 2023 layoffs.

It's been previously reported that Abstraction — a subsidiary of the game development support studio Virtuos, which recently contributed to Oblivion Remastered and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater — has helped with both level and technical design for Campaign Evolved.

Additionally, Mr. Rebs also reported that he's heard The Library — an infamous Halo: Combat Evolved level that I and many others hate for its frustratingly repetitive level design — will get some major changes to address this issue, with other monotonous sections across other levels getting adjustments as well. These represent the tweaks Halo Studios confirmed when the remake was announced last year.

Halo: Campaign Evolved will reportedly have a "Campaign Remix" feature as well, which aims to make the game highly replayable through the inclusion of "dozens of gameplay modifiers." These will be toggleable as Skulls, which have been a part of the Halo series since 2004's Halo 2. One example of a Skull we'll likely see is one that allows you to play in third-person.

Another will be the option to have Brutes appear alongside other Covenant units in the main story campaign; a previous report from Mr. Rebs suggested that Brutes would be a part of the three new prequel missions being added to the campaign in the new remake.

It was then touched on that Campaign Evolved will have armor skins for Master Chief (though some of these may have been scrapped) before Mr. Rebs revealed he's heard about three of the nine new weapons that will be in the remake that weren't in the original Combat Evolved: the SMG, the Spiker, and the Brute Plasma Rifle. These join the Energy Sword, Fuel Rod Cannon, Sentinel Beam, Battle Rifle, and Needle Rifle; the ninth weapon is still unknown.

Assuming it's true, the news that Halo: Campaign Evolved is so reliant on outsourcing will no doubt worry some that would prefer if it was made by the series' mainline developers. Ultimately, though, Halo Studios is probably focused on the next big game after Halo Infinite, and I think it will be interesting to see how the game turns out. It's coming to Xbox Series X|S, PC, Xbox Game Pass, and PS5 this year, and may have a July 28 release date if a recent leak is accurate.

Are you excited for Halo: Campaign Evolved? Let me know below.

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As you may or may not already know, Microsoft and Xbox were developing an MMORPG to compete against Blizzard Entertainment's flourishing World of Warcraft 20 years ago — long before the latter merged with the former in 2023 with Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal. Codenamed 'Titan,' development began fully in 2004, with Age of Empires dev Ensemble Studios setting the ambitious project in the Halo universe.

Sadly, though, the project was axed in 2007, and Ensemble Studios itself was shuttered by Microsoft mere weeks ahead of the launch of its Halo Wars RTS in early 2009. The end of Ensemble and Titan has largely been shrouded in mystery for years, though in late 2025, DOOM designer and former Ensemble dev Sandy Petersen alleged then-Xbox head Don Mattrick terminated them to try and safeguard a short-term bonus.

Now, several months later, Petersen has taken to social media once again to reveal further details about the project, including information about its setting, overarching narrative, playable races and factions, and more.

He explains that the game was set before the Forerunners' Halo rings were fired to wipe out all life in the galaxy in order to stop the parasitic Flood, and featured two playable factions: the "mostly-human" Forerunners (at the time, humans and Forerunners weren't deemed to be separate like they are in the current canon), and the Covenant.

Petersen notes that the Covenant were "a confederation of aliens who opposed the Forerunners because the latter had built a wall to keep out the Flood," and that "the Covenant was on the wrong side of the line." The Covenant would have been similar to the one players know from the main Halo titles, albeit with some new races like "Mimics."

He then reveals that Ensemble "had gone quite a long way into the game," with "art, models, and we designers had created missions, and even campaigns." Classes and races were worked out as well; the Forerunners had cyborgs, humans, sigmas — humans modified to live in space — and hardlights, which were humans that had their essence transferred into a mechanical hard light body.

Interestingly, the idea for hardlights sounds very similar to the Prometheans from Halo 4 and 5, which makes me wonder if 343 Industries/Halo Studios got the idea for that faction from Titan's unused concepts.

Petersen also noted that he would have been the "lore guy" for the MMO, tasked with "designing worlds and species and ecologies and campaign arcs." In the end, though, "Don Mattrick murdered Ensemble Studios in its entirety for selfish purposes," he writes.

"He killed the single most profitable game company they had along with a billion dollar fame. For what? A hope that not paying for Titan’s 3-4 year dev time would increase his stock options. What a loser," he added.

"You may be sad or you may heave a sigh of relief. I regard it as a great missed opportunity, but I’m certainly not sorry I founded Petersen Games [a tabletop developer] instead," Petersen said, concluding his thread.

Ultimately, it's impossible to say whether or not Titan would have done well without knowing more about the MMO in detail, but I'm glad we've gotten to learn more about the project and what it would have been about. It's certainly interesting to think about what might have been if things worked out differently for Ensemble Studios.

What do you think of everything we know about the Halo MMO, Titan? Share your thoughts in the comments, and in our poll.

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It has been well documented at this point that former Halo Studios art director Glenn Israel has made several allegations against Halo Studios leadership. Much of that attention has come from posts made on Israel’s LinkedIn, where he alleged that cronyism had taken place at the studio, the practice of hiring or promoting someone based on personal relationships rather than qualifications, alongside wider misconduct allegations.

Now, in a somewhat follow-up report by Mr. Rebs, who we cover often and whom I recommend checking out on both X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, Rebs goes into further detail surrounding the alleged cronyism at Halo Studios.

In the report, Rebs claims the current Halo Studios studio art director blocked him on LinkedIn following his initial reporting, which he says led him to uncover more Halo Studios employees allegedly tied to the individual. Rebs goes on to claim that 10 former associates were hired after their arrival at the studio, with eight of them reportedly receiving lead roles.

Separate from Rebs reporting, Israel had previously shared his own concerns surrounding Halo Studios leadership and Microsoft HR on LinkedIn. In one post, Israel outlined a timeline surrounding an alleged Lead Artist hiring process, claiming a preferred candidate had already entered salary negotiations before Halo Studios head Pierre Hintze allegedly intervened and ended discussions, with the role then reportedly being given to a friend and former associate of Halo Studios' current studio art director shortly after.

Following those allegations, Israel stated, “This should matter to you because it is proof that Microsoft cannot guarantee a fair and equitable hiring process.”

Israel also called for outside involvement regarding his complaints, stating: “And so I turn to you – if you (1) care about the stewardship of Halo and would like to see it set right, (2) are concerned about the welfare of developers in an increasingly unhinged industry, or (3) want to see meaningful change in nonsensically and notoriously hostile HR-employee relations, please amplify this message to your networks. Ask for a certified third-party investigation into my complaints against Halo Studios leadership and Microsoft HR. Demand accountability.”

In response to Rebs report, Israel also stated that “his report is nothing short of shocking.”

It is also worth mentioning that, in his report, Rebs claims several former employees reached out to him following his reporting, alleging wider leadership concerns at Halo Studios.

Honestly, it is a bit tiring covering Halo negatively. I love this franchise and want to see it succeed as much as possible, but if the allegations made here are true, then it’s clear something needs to change at Halo Studios in a major way.

With that said, what are your thoughts on all of this? Let me know in the comments, and make sure to take part in our poll below.

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Halo: Campaign Evolved is set to release this year for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, and, yes, to the dismay of many Xbox fans, PlayStation 5, despite ongoing drama surrounding Halo Studios

Now, my personal view is that if this helps Halo survive, then as a longtime fan, I’m happy. However, as an Xbox fan too, it feels like Xbox as a brand, especially its hardware division, is on thin ice, at least from my perspective anyway, which may sound extreme.

And yes, I’m aware Project Helix is coming (which I'm excited for), but I digress. Halo appearing on PlayStation still feels weird to me. This is the franchise that helped kickstart Xbox, and now it’s becoming one of several games helping keep PlayStation afloat as Sony continues scrambling after its failed live service push and lack of games.

The exclusives conversation will always continue to swirl around online, and personally, I struggle to think of many reasons to invest in Xbox hardware outside of exclusives, despite Xbox still being my favorite platform compared to PlayStation and Nintendo.

Over on Reddit, one fan, u/Maxkid1995, spotted that GameStop is stocking its shelves with placeholder cases showing Halo: Campaign Evolved coming to PlayStation 5, with them stating: “This is still very insane to see.”

The post received more than 6,000 upvotes, with one commenter saying: “This is pretty much Halo's last chance to salvage any damage done the last decade.” That particular comment alone received more than 3,000 upvotes.

However, as many Halo fans may notice, this now feels like Halo’s third “last chance,” with many fans having said the exact same thing during both Halo 5 and Halo Infinite’s launch periods.

I’ll admit it myself, seeing Halo advertised for PlayStation feels weird, especially seeing it on store shelves. Personally, I do think it’s bad for Xbox as a brand, but at the same time, it also feels far too late for Microsoft to back out of this strategy now.

I also don’t expect Xbox to reverse course on exclusives at all, so I just hope whatever the company does to entice players toward Xbox as a platform is enough moving forward, and that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma can pull it off.

With that said, what are your thoughts on this?

Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll above!

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In a report from Mr. Rebs (also known as Rebs Gaming), we now have some new details regarding Halo Infinite’s multiplayer story, which was unfolding before eventually being canceled in June 2023.

According to Mr. Rebs, the cancellation was largely due to layoffs at then 343 Industries, now known as Halo Studios — although for simplicity’s sake, I’ll continue referring to the studio as 343 Industries throughout this report. For additional context, Project Tatanka was reportedly Halo’s attempt at a Battle Royale experience before later evolving into more of an extraction shooter project.

Its current status remains unclear, although previous reports have suggested the project was either heavily reworked internally or canceled altogether, and according to Mr. Rebs, Halo Infinite’s multiplayer narrative was originally intended to help bridge players toward Project Tatanka.

In his report, Mr. Rebs states that Halo Infinite’s multiplayer story was originally intended to sort of mirror what we got with Spartan Ops in Halo 4, but with a more narratively cohesive structure that would also introduce characters from the wider Halo universe.

He also claims future multiplayer maps would have featured narrative context tied directly to these cutscenes, helping further develop Halo Infinite’s ongoing story.

However, these plans were ultimately scrapped after Halo Infinite’s Season 2 cutscenes were released, with layoffs throughout 2023 reportedly having a major impact on the internal teams responsible for creating these narrative scenes.

According to the report, the sound team and other cinematic-related teams were heavily affected during these layoffs, leaving 343 Industries without enough staff to continue supporting the multiplayer narrative cutscenes.

Mr. Rebs also teased that the multiplayer narrative was building toward “something playable,” although exactly what that was remains a mystery. What was clarified, however, is that it reportedly was not playable Elites, something many Halo fans, myself included, had long hoped would eventually come to Infinite.

I’ve said many times just how big a Halo fan I am, and I genuinely believe Halo Infinite was 343’s best attempt at a Halo gam. In fact, they even released a new update to Infinite recently, which is good fun, and you should check it out!

Still, it's such a shame to hear how things reportedly unfolded this way for a title that was originally intended to last an entire decade, and with that said, I’d love to know your thoughts.

Did you enjoy Halo Infinite’s multiplayer story, or are you glad 343 Industries shifted focus elsewhere?

Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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Halo and Minecraft combined into one? Sign me up! Halo Rogue is a new fan-made modpack for Minecraft Java Edition (not Bedrock Edition) that transforms the game into a Halo-inspired survival minigame.

Little fun fact about me, I actually used to stream Minecraft way back in the day, and Halo is still one of my all-time favorite franchises. Despite the past decade largely failing to meet my expectations, at least compared to the Bungie era, I still have a soft spot for the series.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally fine if modern Halo works for you, but for me personally, it has struggled to live up to its earlier highs. Still, today we’re here to discuss something entirely different: Halo Rogue.

I’ll explain exactly what this modpack does. Halo Rogue spawns players in with a preset loadout and just three lives, with each in-game day granting an extra life. If all lives are lost, your run restarts from the beginning, with the main objective being to survive for five days while exploring a world inspired by iconic Halo structures, alongside weapons and enemies like the Covenant and the Flood.

The modpack also changes Minecraft’s gameplay quite drastically. You’re not simply thrown in as a standard Minecraft character; instead, you’re equipped with Master Chief’s iconic Mjolnir armor.

Halo Rogue also features more than 30 Halo weapons, alongside several Halo-themed mods, and can be installed through CurseForge, a popular modding platform used across a wide range of games. However, you will need to import the modpack to CurseForge, so please keep that in mind.

I actually think this is pretty cool, and I’m always a fan of seeing new things done with Halo, even if this is a community project built within Minecraft. Without rambling too much about my own thoughts, let me know what you think about Halo Rogue.

👉 You can grab the Halo Rogue modpack from Reddit here.

Will you be trying this modpack, or are you not interested in projects like this?

Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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I’m sure he needs no introduction at this point, but in a new report from Mr. Rebs, we have some new details regarding what’s next for Halo’s campaign. According to the report, the project is reportedly being internally referred to as “Halo Next,” which we know exists thanks to a job listing posted by Halo Studios for a new Narrative Design Director.

Before jumping into the full details on that, Mr. Rebs also shared information regarding what writer Joseph Staten reportedly wanted for what he referred to as “Campaign Next,” a sequel to Halo Infinite that was reportedly in development before the 2023 layoffs. According to the report, Staten’s vision for Halo’s future did not include the Flood, or at least not right away, which may disappoint some longtime fans.

I will, before we jump into everything, give a fair spoiler warning, as Halo Infinite’s ending will be discussed, alongside some slight details regarding Halo: Edge of Dawn. So, if you wish to avoid spoilers, you’ve been warned.

As many fans know, the Flood played an integral role in the original Halo trilogy, essentially serving as Halo’s version of zombies, albeit on a much more terrifying scale. In the report, Mr. Rebs also recaps the ending of Halo Infinite, explaining the role of the Endless, who were teased as the franchise’s next major threat after being released at the end of the game.

In the new Narrative Design Director job listing, Halo Studios directly references “Halo Next” while also mentioning a “campaign experience,” with Mr. Rebs claiming the studio is actively developing the next mainline Halo campaign. However, it remains unclear whether Halo Studios will stick with plans surrounding the Endless, especially since Halo: Edge of Dawn, which takes place directly after Halo Infinite and appears to help set up the next game, while also heavily involving the Flood.

As a lifelong Halo fan myself, I just want Halo Studios to release a good, polished, and finished game, something we rarely seem to get these days. Based on the details shared here, I’d personally love to see the Flood return in some capacity, but I also understand that the franchise needs to move forward, and The Endless could help push Halo in a new direction without Halo Studios simply relying on nostalgia.

Be sure to send some love over to Mr. Rebs on either X or YouTube, as these details come thanks to his reporting!

With that said, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the details shared here. Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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Given that Halo Infinite developer Halo Studios said the game's big Operation Infinite update last November would be its last, I — along with most other Halo fans — figured we'd never see more new content come to the winding down free-to-play Xbox and PC live-service shooter. That assumption turned out to be wrong, however, as this week, the studio added a new Gauntlet mode to the game in a surprise update.

The update dropped out of nowhere and raises questions about whether or not Halo Studios is truly done with Halo Infinite, but that's not the subject of this article. Instead, I'm here to gush about how fun the new Gauntlet game type is, and why I'll probably be grinding it whenever I can convince my friends to join my fireteam.

Gauntlet is a four-player co-op PvE mode that essentially plays like Firefight on steroids. Players are given a short time to grab preferred weapons and equipment and then select an upgrade for their damage, speed, health, or shield regen; then, they're teleported to a randomly selected mini combat arena where endless hordes of Banished troops spawn.

The objective is to kill minibosses — elite enemies taken straight from Halo Infinite's campaign — that spawn alongside the waves of regular baddies, as defeating them all will win you the round and give you a chance to get more upgrades and powerful weapons. Failing to do so quickly once they appear, however, will result in the Harbinger from the campaign showing up. Though killable, she's tanky and harasses you aggressively, making her tough to contend with.

You and your teammates can revive each other, though since this takes a few seconds, it can be risky to do. Alternatively, downed players can respawn after a lengthy 30-second timer. If all four players are downed at once, it's a game over.

I dove into the mode myself for a few hours today, and am ecstatic to report that it's an absolute blast — though it's also surprisingly difficult, and much more challenging than Halo Infinite's existing Firefight PvE. Outside of Legendary campaign difficulty, it's the closest thing we've ever had to an endgame Halo PvE experience.

Even on the "Easy" difficulty at the start of a match, the Banished are about as threatening as Heroic campaign AI — and the difficulty only continues to scale up as you progress, demanding better accuracy, positioning, and use of different weapons with each passing round. The never-ending waves of Banished also means the action is intense and constant; perfect for players like me that crave Halo PvE chaos.

It also demands truly intelligent use of Halo's sandbox, as the way the game encourages you to quickly kill bosses facilitates combining different damage types for maximum killing efficiency. An Elite boss with a shield is best taken down with plasma guns followed by a clean headshot with a precision weapon, while a Gravity Hammer-wielding Brute or a Hunter is most susceptible to explosive heavy weapons or skillful plasma grenade sticks.

Now, the mode isn't perfect — I feel a few of its combat stages lack adequate cover, the timer to get weapons and upgrades is frustratingly short, and the experience as a whole is a bit janky since Halo Studios used the Forge mode to make it — but it's still excellent fun, and a great way to enjoy the famous PvE action Halo is famous for.

Thus far, the community agrees: "Gauntlet is some of the most fun I've had in Halo PvE in a long time," reads one of the top posts on the Halo subreddit right now.

Overall, I've wanted something like this for Halo PvE for years, and I'm very glad we've finally gotten it. I hope we get something similar in the next mainline Halo game, or perhaps as a mode brought to the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved at some point after launch.

Are you going to jump into Halo Infinite to check out the Gauntlet mode? Let me know in the comments, and in our poll.

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Halo Infinite was 343 Industries, now Halo Studios, the last attempt at a Halo game. Of course, there's more on the horizon with the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved this year.

I will say too, before we get into the details, and despite its troubled development, I actually found Halo Infinite to be their best effort from a gameplay perspective. Of course, it’s hard to mention the game without immediately thinking about its rocky launch and lack of content.

That said, that conversation has been done to death. Instead, I bring some good news, as Halo Infinite has surprisingly received a brand new update, adding a fresh mode and more, so let’s take a look at what’s new.

In this new update, Halo Infinite is receiving a new gamemode, Firefight: Gauntlet, in this new mode four players must band together and survive various challenges featuring endless waves of enemies and a boss battle to boot.

With this mode, if you take too long to defeat the boss, or arena champion, as they’re called, the Harbinger will join the battle, adding to the increasing difficulty as you fight across five arenas. The mode also features a point system, where players can spend points on upgrades such as increased damage, resistance, recovery, and speed.

It’s honestly impressive that we’re even getting a new mode in Halo Infinite, a game which has, for all intents and purposes, ended its development.

With this new mode also comes two new Forge maps, and given how strong Halo Infinite’s Forge is, they look quite decent. Alongside this, the Ranked Legacy playlist is also in rotation, featuring classic gameplay and maps.

As I’ve already said, I’m genuinely surprised we’re even getting new content in Halo Infinite, let alone an entirely new mode, so hats off to Halo Studios, or whoever worked on this update. It’s actually made me want to jump back in and check the game out after not touching it for a long time.

Are you as surprised as I am to see Halo Infinite get a new update? Do you even care that it’s received new content, or have you moved on to other games?

Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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Developer Halo Studios has fully moved on from Halo Infinite and is now focused on Halo: Campaign Evolved — a full Unreal Engine 5-based remake of the original 2001 game Halo: Combat Evolved. The reimagining of the beloved classic is set to be one of the biggest Xbox releases this year, and according to a recent leak, it's very possible it's got a release date of July 28 across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Xbox Game Pass, and PS5.

A previous report suggested that one of the studio's next big projects after Campaign Evolved might be Project Eker, some sort of potentially standalone Halo multiplayer experience that could be an extraction shooter. Now, another has come to light that claims that on the campaign side of things, we're getting two additional remakes.

That news comes from Rebs Gaming, a well-known Halo insider widely considered to be reputable. In a new report from Mr. Rebs, he says that two sources have confirmed to him that Xbox and Halo Studios are working on remakes for Halo 2 and Halo 3, corroborating an earlier claim from a developer he spoke to that said they were being developed.

Notably, Mr. Rebs says that one source sent him definitive proof that these remakes for the rest of the original Halo trilogy are coming, and that "Active development is underway" — though ultimately, they're still in "early development."

Stop reading here if you'd like to avoid potential spoilers for Campaign Evolved's new missions! If you don't mind, keep scrolling down.

He also noted that his other source is the same one that previously leaked some interesting details about Halo: Campaign Evolved's new prequel missions that precede the events of the main single player story. Notably, they said that one of them is centered around the tense rivalry between the UNSC's Spartan supersoldiers and its elite — but unaugmented — Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs).

It was also stated that another might give a nod of some sort to Halo: Combat Evolved's prequel, Halo: Reach, we'll see Brutes in the levels (these enemies weren't introduced until Halo 2, originally), and that there will be a new Covenant faction that's even more religious than the main empire.

Apparently, things from Halo 2 and 3 like Brutes will be present in Campaign Evolved because of the upcoming work-in-progress remakes for those games. This suggests the future titles will be built with Unreal Engine 5 as well, lining up with Halo Studios' stated plan to use Unreal moving forward when it rebranded from 343 Industries in 2024.

While Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 got "Anniversary" remasters in 2011 and 2014 respectively, Halo 3 didn't end up getting one in 2017, which is something that greatly frustrated fans of what was arguably the Halo game with the franchise's biggest cultural impact.

Thus, it's great news for many that a full-fledged Halo 3 remake is reportedly on the horizon, though only time will tell if the 2007 shooter is remade faithfully. Campaign Evolved has caught some flak for reusing Halo Infinite assets and for some controversial changes like the inclusion of sprinting and major artistic redesigns, after all.

I'm glad to see some positive Halo news after all the negative things we've heard about lately. Assuming Mr. Rebs' report is accurate, are you excited to play remakes of Halo 2 and 3? Let me know in the comments, and in our poll.

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Halo Studios, the rebranded 343 Industries that continues to shepherd Microsoft's flagship FPS series into the future, has been in the spotlight a lot this month — and not for good reasons. A few weeks ago, former art director Glenn Israel alleged that several "unethical and/or unlawful acts" occurred at the studio during his time there, prompting scrutiny from players and investigators.

Further comments have come from Israel and other developers, and a recent report revealed that a Halo multiplayer project (potentially an extraction shooter) codenamed Project Eker was allegedly in development in 2023, and could eventually come out either as a standalone release or as something tied to the next mainline title. Another report this week brought to light that the 2021 live-service shooter Halo Infinite was going to be a hub for future games.

However, a large number of developers reportedly left Halo Studios soon after Infinite's launch, which was then followed by a hiring freeze from Microsoft implemented in preparation for the firm's massive January 2023 layoffs that hit the studio particularly hard. At the time, affected Halo devs were very vocal about how poor leadership was — and now, a new report from known Halo insider Rebs Gaming reveals alleges just how destructive the layoffs were, and how poorly they were managed.

In his latest video, Mr. Rebs says his sources have confirmed that Halo Studios' studio head Pierre Hintze chose to lay off nearly the entire Halo Infinite campaign team and audio team, with former audio director Sotaro Tojima not replaced by Becky Allen until over a year later; these cuts reportedly hindered post-launch content development significantly.

Mr. Rebs also noted he was told that in the wake of the layoffs, remaining employees at Halo Studios were saddled with "double the responsibilities and duties," leading to higher stress and a general feeling of being very understaffed. Allegedly, staff were so overwhelmed that they reached out to their laid off colleagues "to ask how to do jobs they weren't trained or hired for."

Reportedly, Hintze also controversially referred to the layoffs at the developer as a "mass culling" during a studio-wide Microsoft Teams meeting; this upset several of Rebs Gaming's sources, all of which felt that the use of that terminology was extremely disrespectful and devalued their contributions to the franchise.

Ultimately, all of this new information lines up with the criticisms of Microsoft and Halo Studios leadership that former Halo devs have voiced in the past, and after this story as well as everything Glenn Israel has alleged recently, the community is pushing for Microsoft to conduct an investigation of the developer and make high-level changes.

Notably, Israel himself has done the same, going so far as to comment the request on a LinkedIn post from the new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. "Ask for a certified third-party investigation into Halo Studios," he said.

One thing that seems clear is that there are some major issues with Halo Studios' development processes, and I hope that big improvements for them come sooner rather than later. As for what's next for Halo itself, Halo: Campaign Evolved — an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved — is coming this year, with a rumored July 28 release date.

What are your thoughts about the situation at Halo Studios? Do you believe Microsoft needs to step in and make major changes at the studio? Let me know in the comments, and by voting in our poll.

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Halo on Nintendo hardware has always felt like one of those “never gonna happen” crossover fantasies, but a modder just went ahead and did it anyway. Halo: Combat Evolved is now running natively on a Switch, no cloud streaming, no weird workaround, just straight-up gameplay on Nintendo’s handheld. And the wild part is how smooth it looks. This isn’t a proof‑of‑concept hack that barely boots, and it’s shockingly playable.

This would have been considered rather blasphemous a few years ago, but now it feels par for the course, especially with a Halo game expected to arrive on PlayStation this year, well, that is, unless Xbox changes strategies. Whilst this isn’t anything official, but rather what I (incorrectly) presumed was the result of the recent release of Proton 11 beta.

Proton 11, for those unaware, is Valve’s latest version of its compatibility layer, which allows Windows games to run on Linux. In this latest beta, Valve has added support for ARM64, meaning ARM-based devices can now run Windows games too.

YouTuber and modder @Generalkidd showed on X (formerly Twitter) Halo: Combat Evolved running on the original Nintendo Switch, a console that has long been known for its modding potential. Users have previously installed Linux on the hardware to get software running that normally wouldn’t, including early attempts at running Steam.

I assumed that, given that the Nintendo Switch is an ARM-based console, using Proton 11 beta was how Halo was running on the console; however, I was quite wrong on that.

Instead, @Generalkidd took a different approach to get Halo: Combat Evolved running on the Nintendo Switch, and in doing so, caught the attention of Halo Studios’ Community Director. Responding with a GIF that says “I like you, but you’re crazy,” playfully acknowledging just how weird it is to see Halo on a Nintendo Switch.

To get the game running, @Generalkidd is using the original Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved through an ARM64 build of Xemu, an original Xbox emulator. Performance isn’t great at the moment, but the fact that it runs at all is really impressive.

I actually have a modded Nintendo Switch. I set it up a while back so I could remote play from my Xbox in bed, before I had anything like an Xbox Ally X, and it worked quite well for that use case.

That said, I can’t see myself jumping through the hoops needed to get the original Halo: Combat Evolved running on my Switch. That’s just me, though, so let me know whether you’d do something as crazy as this or if, like me, you prefer watching others take on projects like this.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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In another report from Mr. Rebs released on Monday, we got insight into what 343 Industries, now Halo Studios, had planned for Halo Infinite. As with any report like this, it’s worth mentioning that this information is based on sources and is not officially confirmed by Halo Studios or Microsoft.

After covering Project Eker, a potential extraction shooter or solo multiplayer project, Mr. Rebs said he could not confirm the full details at the time.

However, he has since found a former senior animator who described work on an Unreal Engine-based multiplayer project that was already playable as early as last year. The extraction shooter itself, though, has seemingly been canceled, according to a former developer.

Moving onto what Mr. Rebs reports regarding the original plans for Halo Infinite, he states that in 2022, then creative head Joseph Staten held a company-wide Microsoft Teams meeting.

During this, Staten outlined plans for the next Halo campaign and showed off concept art that included Forerunner structures in snowy environments, a lava biome similar to Mustafar from Star Wars, and a brute skiff among large trees.

Mr. Rebs also claims that a Halo Infinite sequel was in development in 2022. Alongside this, he states that plans included a Banished Scarab and characters from the Halo books.

He also claims Halo Infinite was intended to act as a central hub for future Halo games. I must admit, hearing this is I am quite surprised given how rough Halo Infinite’s menus were at launch.

Following the launch of Halo Infinite, 343 Industries reportedly faced mass attrition, with a wave of developers leaving the studio in a relatively short period of time.

At the same time, Microsoft reportedly implemented a hiring freeze ahead of the January 2023 layoffs.

According to Mr. Rebs, this left the team significantly understaffed during a critical post-launch window. As a result, support for Halo Infinite slowed, and the flow of new content dropped off.

It also helps explain why updates during that period were so limited, despite expectations for ongoing live service support. This likely wasn’t helped by a reliance on contract workers, something Bloomberg reported on over four years ago.

Interestingly, Mr. Rebs also claims that internal discussions had already begun around bringing Halo to PlayStation during this timeframe.

This report does explain a lot, and I’d urge people to watch the full video and give Mr. Rebs a follow on both X and YouTube.

I’d also love to hear your thoughts on Halo Infinite and this report. If what Mr. Rebs said is true, it offers an interesting look into the game’s development.

Make sure to let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

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It's the biggest Xbox conversation of the now: will Xbox get exclusive games again?

One of the most controversial, if not the most controversial topics surrounding Xbox pertains to this and this alone: exclusive content, namely games.

A couple of years ago via a very dry business-style presentation, Xbox announced that it is bringing "four" of its exclusive games to PlayStation. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said that it would only be those four, specifically saying "it's not Indiana Jones" in comments that are now notorious: a few months later, it very much was Indiana Jones.

After Forza Horizon absolutely blew up on PlayStation, making Microsoft (and Sony ...) absurd amounts of money, the writing was essentially on the wall. Xbox will no longer have exclusive games. I wrote two years ago that, as part of Xbox's ill-fated "Project Latitude," any exclusive Xbox game moving forward would be incidental at best. A result of budget constraints, dev kit access, or pipeline issues. In essence, every single Xbox game would eventually come to PlayStation, and some easy ports to Nintendo Switch 2 as well.

But like new CEO Asha Sharma said, "the plan is the plan until it's not the plan," and confirmed repeatedly over the last few weeks that exclusive games for Xbox are being re-evaluated.

Selling Xbox's soul for (a ton of) money

Whether Xbox likes it or not, eventually it's going to have to contend with the fact the vast majority of Xbox owners want exclusive content on their box.

A recent poll I conducted on Windows Central and in other places revealed that only 12% of our readers think Xbox shouldn't have any form of exclusivity. At the very least, you want Xbox to have some form of exclusive content, whether timed or otherwise. Plenty want full exclusivity, too.

The problem is, for Microsoft, the sentiment hasn't always translated into real-world sales data.

Previous CEO Phil Spencer said in an interview that Starfield, no matter how good it might've been, wouldn't have sold Xbox consoles in meaningful amounts. The sentiment points to a worrying trend across console gaming in general: it isn't growing. That's the cold, hard facts.

Various analytics firms from Circana to Ampere show that youngsters simply aren't buying any console, letalone Xbox. Those that don't become console gamers in their youth are far less likely to become console gamers in adulthood too.

From Circana's Checkout service: $100+ income households now account for 43% of US video game hardware purchases, up from 36% just a few years ago.18–24-year-olds accounted for only 3% VG hardware purchases during the 12-months ending July 2025, down from 10% during the 12 months ending July 2022.

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-04-26T16:56:43.878Z

Console gaming has become the realm of the unc to use the vernacular du jour. If you're reading this, most likely you're in your mid-thirties or older.

Kids today grew up with iPad and Roblox, and therein lies their gaming expectations generally speaking. They also spend more time on TikTok and other addictive social media algorithms than older generations, although our attention is divided by this increasingly as well.

All up combined console sales between the big three are lagging behind the previous generation owing to a variety of factors. Increased costs are a factor. The rise of free-to-play is a factor. The social-heavy nature of dual-monitor PC gaming is a factor too.

Consoles essentially fell behind in a variety of ways, but we're not here to discuss the causes of that right now. The point is that in a stagnant, or even shrinking total user base, how can Xbox (and others frankly) stay ahead of inflation? Costs are rising for platform holders too, and finding new money is driving both Xbox and PlayStation to explore other pastures. PlayStation quite unprecedently put Helldivers 2 onto Xbox as well last year, so it's hardly as if Xbox's behavior exists in a vacuum.

Despite the difficulties, Xbox's Asha Sharma has set up some pretty strong expectations

I seriously doubt Asha Sharma and Matt Booty would be teasing the return of exclusives if there wasn't already some sort of plan in place.

Personally, I think that we will see some form of exclusivity return, but it may be pretty limited. Gears of War: Reloaded, for example, very barely moved the needle when it launched on PlayStation last year. The anaemic sales really begs the question: is the juice worth the squeeze?

It's difficult to measure brand damage in a spreadsheet, and Microsoft is a company that is well entrenched in telemetry. I call this phenomenon spreadsheetification — if it can't be measured in a spreadsheet, Microsoft's decision making seems to be paralyzed. This is why they so often fall afoul of negative sentiment and lack a human touch. It's hardly unique to Microsoft. Corporate inertia is a real thing, and it's what helps smaller, more nimble firms like Discord appear out of nowhere and disrupt entire markets.

Microsoft and Xbox can no longer afford to be this ignorant. The blowback to their strategy around Xbox has been so utterly loud that it can no longer be ignored here. Hence why we've already seen a huge reversal on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's 50% price hike. When is the last time you saw a subscription service actually get cheaper?

Forza Horizon will continue to sell millions when it hits PlayStation. But, will Gears of War and Halo? Obviously, we're not talking Minecraft or Call of Duty here, which have PlayStation's install base fully factored into its business model. The ship has well and truly sailed here (although some Xbox co-marketing wouldn't hurt ...). We're not talking about whether or not Xbox will ditch PC either ... Xbox and Microsoft obviously have a vested interest in keeping Windows 11 as the default PC gaming platform.

But what if Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 were Xbox console-exclusive down the line? I feel like a persistent cadence of high-quality exclusives absolutely would sell Xbox hardware. You're going to need stuff like that for Xbox Helix, which many predict will be disproportionately expensive for a video game console.

And of the "smaller" franchises. The immeasurable brand damage that putting Xbox icons like Master Chief and Marcus Fenix onto PlayStation really doesn't feel like it's worth it to me. Yes, they will sell some copies, but is it really worth making your users feel abandoned in the process? Gears of War and Halo have never really had an audience on PlayStation until Microsoft CFO Amy Hood forced Xbox to chase an insane 30% profit target.

But there's the other argument: if Xbox isn't finding new users from the Gen-Z and Alpha cohorts due to Roblox, etc., then it needs to find new money elsewhere, i.e. on PlayStation. But I find that to be reductive. If there's an industry problem all up with console, I don't see why putting games on PlayStation is doing anything other than accelerating the identified problem. Kids don't want to play Halo or Gears, and their parents don't want to necessarily buy a console for it either.

Microsoft didn't even wait five minutes to see if cloud gaming could help bridge the gap before it started chasing PlayStation's audience. It has done little to no marketing of this platform, nor has it bothered really marketing its own consoles either. Meeting people where they are is all well and good, but what good is reinforcing PlayStation's position if the entire market is stagnant to shrinking anyway?

Microsoft should be fighting for those users that potentially remain in the segment with one arm, and exploring what's next for Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha with the other, in my view. But again, it's a real dilemma ultimately. Microsoft has pushed themselves into a corner by leaning into these trends, and it makes you wonder if its studios can even get the investment they need without PlayStation's install base now — even if the sales overall end up being anaemic.

So, I ask you, dear reader: will Xbox return to console-exclusive games?

I go back and forth on this, but they're talking about "re-evaluating" too much to make me think they won't return some form of exclusivity back to Xbox customers. I think what we'll end up seeing is a partial return to exclusivity, perhaps with an emphasis on timed exclusivity.

I can see Gears: E-Day being a timed Xbox console-exclusive, but Microsoft already dealt the damage by announcing PlayStation versions of Halo: Campaign Evolved.

RELATED: Ranking the biggest problems faced by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma

Putting their games onto PlayStation does allow their studios to be more ambitious, and gain bigger budgets and investment. Fable decidedly looks truly AAA, but is it only AAA because Playground Games is able to offset risk and invest in studio growth thanks to huge actual and projected sales of its games on PlayStation? I certainly believe that putting Xbox games onto PlayStation helps them hit a higher quality bar.

But at the same time ... it's doing massive damage to Xbox as a hardware platform. Sales are in freefall decline. Why buy an Xbox in 2026 if none of its content is actually exclusive? This is a serious question for the average consumer.

Console enthusiasts might end up buying both devices if there's enough content between them. I don't have a PlayStation today, but it's purely for incidental reasons. PlayStation has fantastic exclusive content, even if a lot of it has hit my gaming PC in recent years ... I still prefer console gaming.

I'm PlayStation's target market, and they make their platform compelling purely via virtue of their exclusive content. I'm not interested in any other aspect of the platform beyond this, and I know eventually I will buy a PlayStation (when I get my own place). Unless it was specifically to play with friends, I'm not sure why you'd buy a console were it not for the exclusive content.

I really hope Microsoft realizes that finding users from Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha is a totally separate, and much more long-term problem. If you alienate your current users, you're not going to have a platform left at all to figure out how to solve this issue. And there's no universe where your competitor platforms are going to help you solve this either. They will, however, happily cannibalize your platform if you let them.

Perhaps Microsoft has some kind of feature set "secret weapon" for its upcoming Xbox Helix that could help it leapfrog the need for exclusive games ... but that's a big IF, and seems entirely unlikely to me. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see how Halo, Gears, and other Xbox icons on PlayStation helps improve the business for the long term. Short term gains for long term pain seems to be Microsoft's M.O. though.

What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the poll above, and in the comments below.

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I spent well over a thousand hours in Halo 3 alone, so seeing a group of dedicated fans restore over 1.9 billion Halo 3 match stats, 801 million Halo 2 matches, and more than 30 million Gamertags is kind of surreal.

This is a huge moment for me, and honestly, it’s incredibly impressive work from the Halo Archive. It hits especially close to home for me. If you’ve followed my work, you’ll know I’m a huge Halo fan, especially from the Bungie era.

The site is currently invite-only, but once you’re in, you can browse and search your old Halo stats just like you could on Bungie.net before that feature was removed. I’d definitely urge you to go show them some love over on X (formerly Twitter), and join their Discord.

Before you ask, as far as I can tell, there’s no inclusion of Halo: Reach. That said, what HaloArchive has pulled off here is nothing short of impressive, and it helps to understand the backstory behind it.

HaloArchive actually began back in 2014, when a user named Tactics created a script to download an entire player’s Halo 2 data. In 2018, the project took things further, kicking off an eight-month effort to pull Halo 2 carnage reports and store them as raw text files.

It wasn’t until 2021, though, when Bungie announced that stats were going offline, giving players only a few weeks’ notice to save their data. That moment pushed HaloArchive to adapt the original Halo 2 script for Halo 3, ultimately pulling all 1.9 billion matches.

Since then, HaloArchive, along with other contributors, has worked to restore both Halo 2 and Halo 3 datasets, sorting through more than 30 terabytes of raw text files. Now, the site is live and in testing, with access available if you sign up and get accepted.

As HaloArchive says, this project wouldn’t be possible without Tactics, Cyrix, Bigstack, members of the community, and more. A huge shoutout to everyone involved.

Do you like the idea of digging through your old match data for that hit of nostalgia, or are you not too bothered?

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