It has been 25 years since Master Chief crash-landed on a Forerunner ring world and changed console gaming forever. On July 28, 2026, Halo Studios is delivering a full remake of that story built from scratch in Unreal Engine 5 — and for the first time in franchise history, PlayStation 5 players get to experience it from launch day alongside Xbox and PC.
What Campaign Evolved Actually Is
Halo: Campaign Evolved is not the Anniversary remaster from 2011. It is a ground-up rebuild by Halo Studios — the development team formerly known as 343 Industries — using Unreal Engine 5's Nanite geometry and Lumen global illumination systems. All ten missions from the original Halo: Combat Evolved are present, redesigned with the updated engine, revised enemy behaviors, new weapons, and a narrative thread that connects to where the Halo universe has since expanded.
Beyond the rebuilt campaign, Campaign Evolved adds three entirely new story missions under the banner Operation: METEORITE. Set one year before the events of Combat Evolved, these missions follow Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson as they infiltrate a Covenant agricultural ship in orbit above the glassed human colony of Promise, hunting for data that could lead to the Covenant's homeworld of High Charity. The prequel missions introduce new enemy types — the game refers to Sacristan warriors — and expand lore that has only been touched in peripheral novels. According to the official Halo Waypoint page, Operation: METEORITE was designed to feel native to Combat Evolved's era rather than a modern grafting-on.
Halo on PlayStation — For the First Time
The platform list is the biggest structural news. Campaign Evolved ships simultaneously on Xbox Series X/S, Windows PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam, and PlayStation 5. Full cross-play and cross-progression are supported across all three platforms, meaning a PS5 player can join an Xbox co-op session without friction, and save data transfers across platforms freely.
This is Halo on PlayStation, officially, for the first time in franchise history — a line that would have seemed impossible as recently as five years ago. It is also a signal that Xbox Game Studios has committed to multiplatform releases for its core franchises in a way that appears irreversible.
Four-Player Co-Op and Split-Screen Return
Campaign Evolved supports up to four players online in cooperative play throughout the full campaign, including the Operation: METEORITE prequel missions. Console versions also feature local two-player split-screen — a capability that was controversially absent from Halo 5 and present but limited in Halo Infinite, and one that has been actively requested by the community for years. There is no competitive multiplayer in this release. Campaign Evolved is explicitly campaign-only, a deliberate scope decision from Halo Studios.
Pricing, Game Pass, and Early Access
The Standard Edition is $49.99. A Premium Edition at $69.99 includes five days of early access starting July 23 at 8 AM PDT, plus additional cosmetic content. A Collector's Edition at $199.99 adds physical goods. All editions are available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass from launch day, with rollout to lower-tier Standard and Premium Game Pass plans within a year.
PC system requirements are steep: Halo Studios has listed an RTX 4080 and 32GB of RAM for 4K/Ultra at 60fps — a product of UE5's rendering systems trading lower minimums for a substantially higher fidelity ceiling. On consoles, the game targets 4K/60 in quality mode and 1080p/120 in performance mode on both Xbox Series X and PS5.
The Franchise Reset Halo Needs
Halo as a franchise spent much of the 2010s trying to recover its identity after Halo 5's divisive story and Halo Infinite's uneven launch. Returning to the source — remaking the game that defined the franchise and introducing it to an entire generation that grew up on PlayStation — is a bet that the original Combat Evolved's world and characters remain compelling enough to anchor a full-price release in 2026. With Game Pass day-one inclusion, the barrier to entry is genuinely low. Whether it becomes the franchise reset Halo Studios is aiming for will be clear on July 28.