Halo: Campaign Evolved, a 25th-anniversary remake of the original Xbox shooter Halo: Combat Evolved, has been reviewed by the Guardian as a largely successful revival of a style of single-player first-person shooter that has since fallen out of fashion. The remake, developed by Halo Studios using Unreal Engine 5, arrives amid turmoil at Xbox's gaming division, and while its visual polish makes it look more generic than Bungie's distinctive 2001 original, the review argues its core combat design still surpasses most modern shooters.

The reviewer criticises the padded-out opening level, which now includes unnecessary cutscenes and exposition compared with the original's lean introduction, but praises the enduring intelligence of enemies such as the Elites, who flank, retreat and adapt to the player's tactics, making encounters replayable rather than repetitive. Enemy encounters remain challenging on higher Heroic and Legendary difficulties, and the Hunters are singled out as still genuinely intimidating. The review is less positive about the mid-game levels involving the Flood, describing them as tedious, repetitive zombie-shooter sections, though it notes the addition of waypoints as a welcome quality-of-life improvement.