Halo Campaign Evolved First Look - Xbox/PC/Ally X - OG vs New Game, Performance + More

[00:02] Halo Combat Evolved has returned once

[00:05] again with the upcoming release of Halo

[00:07] Campaign Evolved, and I had a chance to

[00:09] sample two levels from the game on both

[00:11] PC and Xbox Series X. And as DF's most

[00:15] passionate Halo fan, I wanted to talk

[00:17] about it today. You see, at its core,

[00:20] Campaign Evolved marks another attempt

[00:22] at remaking one of the world's most

[00:24] iconic shooters, the original Halo.

[00:27] While the Xbox 360 Anniversary Edition

[00:29] offered then modernized assets, I've

[00:32] always felt that it missed the mark with

[00:34] a visual overhaul that lacks artistic

[00:37] cohesion and a flare present in Bungie's

[00:40] original designs. It also marked the

[00:42] beginning of 343 Industries Reign of

[00:45] Halo in conjunction with Saber

[00:47] Interactive, of course. And aside from

[00:49] stereoscopic 3D, I really don't care for

[00:52] it. With Campaign Evolved though, the

[00:55] development team has been granted a

[00:57] second shot. You see, while Anniversary

[01:00] Mark 343's first project, Campaign

[01:02] Evolved now fills that same role for the

[01:04] newly christened Halo Studios. Along

[01:07] with this though, and breaking with Halo

[01:09] tradition, Halo Studios has dropped its

[01:12] in-house technology and instead embraced

[01:14] Unreal Engine 5. And with it, we get

[01:17] some huge benefits, but also some rather

[01:20] noticeable sacrifices. So, let's dig in.

[01:23] The demo version includes two missions,

[01:25] the Silent Cgrapher and Assault on the

[01:27] Control Room. Two of the best missions

[01:29] in the game, I would argue. I started

[01:31] with Cgrapher and was presented with

[01:33] this gorgeous, albeit offline rendered

[01:35] cutscene. I was really hoping for

[01:37] real-time cutscenes like the original,

[01:39] but alas, they've gone with video. Once

[01:42] you're handed control, though, I was

[01:44] immediately impressed with the vision on

[01:46] display. It represents a visually

[01:49] striking evolution of the Halo aesthetic

[01:51] that feels both true to Bungie's

[01:53] original vision, but also light years

[01:55] ahead of Halo Anniversary. I ended up

[01:57] doing laps around the island in a

[01:59] Warthog to compare the versions. And

[02:02] yeah, I really like what they've done

[02:03] here, but it also highlights how these

[02:06] visuals can change the experience a

[02:08] little bit. The shift to ultradetailed

[02:10] rocky terrain means that your driving

[02:12] experience is a lot rougher than before.

[02:15] I mean, in the original Halo, these are

[02:16] just big flat open spaces with tiled

[02:19] textures, right? But in the new one,

[02:22] it's all much more detailed, and the

[02:24] Warthog now needs to physically react to

[02:26] it. Still, more detail doesn't always

[02:28] mean better, as we saw with Anniversary.

[02:30] But this time, I feel like all that

[02:32] extra detail actually manages to retain

[02:35] the atmosphere that this specific island

[02:38] has always been known for. It's

[02:40] different, but visually intriguing.

[02:44] Some other visual details I liked. The

[02:46] water system for instance is absolutely

[02:49] gorgeous. The waves lapping up on the

[02:51] beach as reflections of the surroundings

[02:53] dance across the surface. Just gorgeous.

[02:56] The Warthog of course actually reacts to

[02:58] it as well. A far cry from the original.

[03:02] Lighting is another important

[03:03] difference. Leveraging Lumen GI and on

[03:07] interior lights, Unreal Engine 5's mega

[03:09] lights feature, Halo presents beautiful

[03:12] dramatic sunlight and pyrochnic effects.

[03:15] The bounce of the afternoon sun off the

[03:17] warm sand creates some truly dramatic

[03:20] scenarios. Couple that with voluometrics

[03:22] and tons of dust effects, and it all

[03:24] just looks really cohesive. What's cool

[03:26] here is that even on Xbox, they're

[03:28] actually using hardware ray tracing even

[03:30] in performance mode. So, they sidestep a

[03:33] lot of the issues that we see with

[03:34] SDF-based tracing. In addition, as I

[03:38] mentioned, mega lights are actually used

[03:40] for interior and local lights, something

[03:42] you'll really appreciate when you're

[03:44] surrounded by tons of Covenant all

[03:45] blasting their brightly colored weapons.

[03:48] And in fact, color is one of the key

[03:50] things they really got right here. The

[03:52] original Halo was known for its super

[03:54] vibrant greens, blues, purples, and the

[03:57] like, right? That's what defined the

[03:59] look of the Covenant. And it's something

[04:01] that was completely missed for

[04:03] anniversary. This time it looks

[04:06] excellent, and it really makes these

[04:08] interior scenes feel super dynamic with

[04:11] lights and blasters going all over the

[04:14] place. Here's another example I really

[04:16] liked. In the original game, in this

[04:18] hallway beneath the island, it looks

[04:20] like this. There's a little bit of light

[04:22] pouring in at the end of the tunnel, but

[04:24] it's otherwise pretty dark. When they

[04:26] did the anniversary edition, it instead

[04:28] looked like this. It's super bright and

[04:30] garish. Honestly, I don't like this at

[04:32] all. For Campaign Involved, however, we

[04:35] actually see the effects of lumen with

[04:37] light pouring in through the door and

[04:39] then actually bouncing around the

[04:40] hallway, very subtly illuminating it. I

[04:44] think it looks absolutely beautiful

[04:46] here. And you get this effect on every

[04:48] version. And of course, all of this

[04:50] lighting detail greatly benefits the

[04:52] massive increase in object detail. Aside

[04:55] from the terrain and structures, things

[04:57] like, say, the Warthog, your fellow

[04:59] Marines, and the like are all lovingly

[05:01] rendered with an obscene amount of

[05:02] granular detail beyond anything we've

[05:04] seen in the series past. It feels like

[05:07] two generations beyond something like,

[05:09] say, Halo Infinite.

[05:11] Of course, there is a lot more to

[05:13] discuss here, but I want to save some

[05:15] things for the final game. The point

[05:17] here though is that they have managed to

[05:19] nail the art design in a way that I

[05:21] really like and it looks so much better

[05:24] than Anniversary. So, while we're

[05:26] talking about differences between the

[05:27] original and this new version, there are

[05:29] some things that really stood out to me

[05:31] that impact gameplay. For instance, at

[05:34] one point you need to make your way into

[05:36] the center of the island, and you go up

[05:38] through this area behind a tree, after

[05:40] which you make your way up towards the

[05:42] center section where there's a pair of

[05:44] hunters waiting for you. In the

[05:46] original, you could finagle the wthog

[05:49] into this space. Clearly, the tree was

[05:50] meant to block you, but if you played

[05:52] around enough, you could actually get it

[05:54] up there. But in the campaign evolved

[05:57] version, that tree is not there, and you

[05:59] can just drive the warthog straight up

[06:01] to the top. And if you want, you can

[06:03] even take it down into this structure

[06:05] right up to the switch. So this battle

[06:08] inside the room then becomes trivial

[06:10] since you can blast around in the

[06:12] Warthog. In the original, if you were

[06:14] able to get the Warthog up here, you

[06:16] could take it down into this area, but

[06:18] these covenant structures did not have

[06:21] physics applied to them. So the Warthog

[06:22] would get stuck here. You couldn't take

[06:24] it further. I also noticed a difference

[06:26] in item usage. So, in the original, if

[06:29] you landed on an overshield, you would

[06:31] be invincible for a second. And this was

[06:33] actually something I used a lot in

[06:34] multiplayer. But in the new version,

[06:37] items are something you collect. So,

[06:39] when you get the overshield, you

[06:40] actually have to select it and use it

[06:42] with the item usage key. There isn't

[06:44] multiplayer in this, I guess, so it

[06:46] doesn't really matter, but it is an

[06:47] interesting change. They also brought

[06:50] forward some of the features that were

[06:51] introduced in Halo 2 and beyond. For

[06:54] instance, you can now use the energy

[06:55] sword that is dropped with certain

[06:57] elites. You can hijack enemy vehicles

[07:01] just like Halo 2, which was a huge

[07:03] feature for that game. The Warthog now

[07:05] has its horn, which again introduced in

[07:07] Halo 2. And things like enemy damage

[07:10] values have been changed significantly.

[07:13] Hunters, for instance, went down a lot

[07:14] faster in the original version if you

[07:16] got in behind them and took out their

[07:17] weak spot. But here it takes way more

[07:19] ammunition even on the lowest difficulty

[07:22] setting, which is interesting. They also

[07:24] made tweaks and changes to the level

[07:26] design itself. So in Assault on the

[07:28] control room, those sort of like bendy

[07:31] hallways that were used to hide loading

[07:33] have been completely stripped out and

[07:34] now they're just straight short hallways

[07:36] into the next room. The rooms themselves

[07:39] have also been redesigned in many

[07:40] instances, likely to make them less

[07:42] repetitive, which was a major complaint

[07:44] for this level. As an aside, I did

[07:47] notice some weird graphical oddities in

[07:49] this demo. Like, what is this shadow

[07:51] here on his hand? I don't get it.

[07:53] Doesn't really correspond to anything.

[07:55] The registration email also mentioned

[07:57] that there's issues with foliage popping

[07:59] on sandy surfaces such as here on the

[08:01] silent ctographer. So, the severe popin

[08:04] you see should hopefully not be in the

[08:06] final game. And while we're here in

[08:08] Assault in the Control Room, this is how

[08:10] it stacks up to the original game. And

[08:12] yeah, it's pretty different, but I

[08:14] really like the way it looks now, at

[08:15] least overall. I don't especially love

[08:19] the way the snow collects here on this

[08:22] surface here when you're outside. It

[08:24] kind of gives the metal this sort of

[08:26] noisy, dithered look reminiscent of poor

[08:29] ray traced denoising, which brings us to

[08:32] our next major fault. And this ties

[08:34] directly into Unreal Engine 5

[08:36] specifically. The game does not

[08:37] effectively dn noiseise the image.

[08:40] There's so much sparkling, boiling, and

[08:43] temporal noise as you move through the

[08:45] world, especially in darker scenes.

[08:48] Compared to the RTGI and something like

[08:51] IDTech in Doom: The Dark Ages, Unreal

[08:54] Engine 5 really struggles to keep things

[08:56] coherent, and you certainly feel it

[08:58] here. Even on a high-end PC with maximum

[09:01] possible settings, it's a problem and

[09:04] something a lot of folks will notice. I

[09:07] would at least like to see Ray

[09:09] Reconstruction as an option for the PC

[09:12] version. And speaking of versions, as

[09:14] noted, this demo was playable for Xbox

[09:17] Series X and PC. Series S is technically

[09:21] playable, but we were told it wasn't

[09:23] ready yet, so we can't feature it here.

[09:26] Series X, though runs pretty darn well.

[09:29] There's both performance and quality

[09:31] options. Uh, and we can only show

[09:33] performance mode for this video, but

[09:35] that one targets 60 frames per second.

[09:38] And the good news is it really hits it.

[09:41] It's very, very stable. Impressively so,

[09:43] considering this uses hardware ray

[09:45] tracing and all the advanced features of

[09:47] Unreal Engine. Now, to reach this, the

[09:50] game deploys two levels of dynamic

[09:52] resolution scaling, which average around

[09:55] 50 to 75% of the output resolution,

[09:58] which means you're often at 1080pish,

[10:01] but it does look pretty clean. The thing

[10:04] that they did on top of this though is

[10:06] that there's a translucency pass, which

[10:09] varies the resolution of transparent

[10:12] effects based on frame budget. So things

[10:16] like explosions for instance, you might

[10:18] observe them becoming rather chunky and

[10:20] low res in a way that kind of reminded

[10:21] me of something like Killzone 2

[10:23] actually, but that's not a bad thing. It

[10:25] still looks excellent and it's a good

[10:27] way to save on performance without

[10:29] lowering the overall resolution to

[10:31] maintain 60fps.

[10:32] So clearly Halo Studios has a real

[10:34] handle on Unreal Engine 5 in terms of

[10:36] performance, which is great. But we also

[10:39] sampled the PC version on a range of

[10:41] hardware to better understand what we're

[10:43] looking at as we approach launch. To

[10:45] that end, we sampled it on a high-end

[10:47] PC, a mid-range system, and a lower-end

[10:50] handheld.

[10:52] So, as you'd expect, it runs very well

[10:54] on a high-end 5090 equipped PC. No

[10:57] surprise there. I actually had to

[10:58] capture at 60 fps for YouTube, of

[11:00] course. And that provided enough

[11:02] headroom to play with DAA enabled at 4K

[11:06] with maximum settings without an issue.

[11:08] You can see up here that the GPU

[11:10] utilization remains around 50% when

[11:12] playing with a 60fps cap. Now, playing

[11:15] above 60 fps definitely increases the

[11:17] requirements, but it is possible, and

[11:20] yes, frame generation is available,

[11:22] though there's a bug in this version

[11:23] that prevents it from working when using

[11:25] the Xbox store version, but that should

[11:28] be fixed for launch, I'd assume. It's

[11:30] also worth noting that Halo supports

[11:32] proper ultrawide. Not only does the game

[11:35] take full advantage of the increased

[11:36] FOV, but even the pre-rendered cutscenes

[11:39] actually fill the screen correctly

[11:41] rather than playing within a small box

[11:43] in the center of the screen. So, hats

[11:46] off to Halo Studios for actually

[11:48] handling ultrawide correctly. But what's

[11:51] more useful for our viewers, I would

[11:53] imagine, are the mid-range and handheld

[11:55] tests. So, on the mid-range side, we

[11:58] tested using a Ryzen 5 5600X with an RTX

[12:02] 4060 GPU along with 16 GB of 3200 MHz

[12:07] memory. We used the high preset with

[12:10] DLSS balance mode while targeting 1440p.

[12:14] The result, as you can see, is rather

[12:16] interesting. We largely were only able

[12:19] to achieve frame rates just shy of 60

[12:22] frames per second. It's smooth with VRR,

[12:24] but locking to 60 was a challenge. The

[12:27] main issue here seems to stem from a CPU

[12:29] bottleneck, which really drags down

[12:31] performance. Of course, we'll have to

[12:34] wait for the final game to pass

[12:35] judgment, but this does give us an idea

[12:37] of how it's currently running. And yeah,

[12:39] it is a heavy game. Assault on the

[12:42] Control Room, by the way, does actually

[12:44] run faster on the same machine. Then

[12:46] there's the ROG Alli X, a more powerful

[12:50] system than something like a Steam Deck

[12:51] as you know, but UE5 games are rather

[12:54] heavy and the results bear this out. We

[12:57] had to run the game using the lowest

[12:59] possible settings with low TSR while

[13:02] targeting 1080p output, which actually

[13:05] looks pretty okay on the system's

[13:06] internal screen. But of course, without

[13:09] a frame rate cap engaged, you can see

[13:10] that it's just barely clearing 30 FPS

[13:13] most of the time, which makes it largely

[13:16] suitable for a 30fps lock if you choose

[13:19] to do so. But hey, 30fps is the original

[13:22] Halo Target, so it's certainly playable.

[13:24] But I suspect something like say the

[13:26] Steam Deck, which is a less powerful

[13:28] system of course, will not be able to

[13:31] provide a decent experience at all. But

[13:33] we'll test that when we get final code.

[13:36] So, my current takeaway here is that the

[13:38] Xbox Series X version is really well

[13:41] done. Despite the shift to Unreal Engine

[13:43] and using hardware lumen, they've

[13:45] managed to hit a very stable 60 frames

[13:48] per second. Image quality does take a

[13:50] hit, but it's really not that bad

[13:53] compared to some other Unreal Engine 5

[13:55] games. The PC version, however, seems

[13:58] like it will be moderately heavy, mainly

[14:00] due to CPU limitations. And

[14:03] unfortunately, the options menu is also

[14:05] rather sparse with just the basic things

[14:08] available to tweak. But obviously, we're

[14:10] just scratching the surface here, and

[14:12] there's a whole lot more that we don't

[14:14] know. Not to mention things I'd like to

[14:16] talk about in the future, such as the

[14:17] game's audio, which has a few issues.

[14:21] Still, as far as previews go, my

[14:23] impressions are largely positive here.

[14:25] As someone that never liked the

[14:27] anniversary graphics for Halo 1, the

[14:30] results for campaign involved are a lot

[14:32] better now. Of course, I recognize not

[14:34] everyone is going to love this new

[14:36] visual design, right? We always saw this

[14:38] with Bluepoints games such as the Demon

[14:40] Souls remake, which I also love, by the

[14:43] way. But it's not like this will prevent

[14:45] the original Halo from existing. You can

[14:47] still play it in the Master Chief

[14:49] Collection or on original Xbox hardware.

[14:51] For newcomers and old heads that just

[14:54] want a fresh take on Halo, I really

[14:56] think this will be an interesting

[14:57] release. I also hope that it helps Halo

[15:01] Studios really understand what worked

[15:03] about the storytelling, lore, and

[15:06] atmosphere of Halo before 343 took over.

[15:09] They always figured out the gameplay.

[15:11] Halo Infinite plays like a dream, but

[15:13] it's everything around it that fell

[15:14] short in my opinion. This feels like a

[15:17] get back to basics kind of release.

[15:20] Plus, there's some cool new features in

[15:21] this version, such as additional skulls,

[15:23] new missions, and the option to remix

[15:25] existing missions. Something I did

[15:27] sample in the demo. Like here, you can

[15:30] drop enemies and weapons into the silent

[15:33] cgrapher that had no business being

[15:35] here. The flood on Cgrapher, sure, why

[15:38] not? Ultimately, as a longtime fan of

[15:40] Halo, I'm just happy to be excited about

[15:42] something Halo again, and I hope this

[15:45] marks the beginning of something great

[15:47] for the series. Until the final though,

[15:50] this is John signing off.