Halo team talks new Combat Evolved remake, crossing over to PS5, and addressing 25 years of playe...

Damon Conn (executive producer) and Brian Jarrard (Halo Studios community director) speak exclusively with EW about the newly revealed &34;Halo: Campaign Evolve

Damon Conn (executive producer) and Brian Jarrard (Halo Studios community director) speak exclusively with EW about the newly revealed "Halo: Campaign Evolved."

Halo team talks new Combat Evolved remake, crossing over to PS5, and addressing 25 years of player feedback (exclusive)

Damon Conn (executive producer) and Brian Jarrard (Halo Studios community director) speak exclusively with EW about the newly revealed "Halo: Campaign Evolved."

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

EW's editorial guidelines

October 24, 2025 4:27 p.m. ET

Leave a Comment

'Halo: Campaign Evolved' concept art of Master Chief battling Covenant special forces. Credit:

Painted by Lead Concept artist at Halo Studios, Jamie Ro

This year's Halo World Championship broadcast came with some big news: as the gaming franchise approaches its 25th anniversary, *Halo* is evolving.

The studio officially confirmed the impending arrival of *Halo: Campaign Evolved*, an Unreal Engine 5-powered remake of 2001's *Halo: Combat Evolved*, the game that kicked off the entire series. And continuing efforts to bring more *Halo* content to other platforms, the new title will be available on PlayStation 5 in 2026 alongside Xbox consoles, PC, and Steam.

"They can play with their friends across platform," Brian Jarrard, Halo Studios community director, confirms.

Concept art for a reimagining of the Maw final battle in 'Halo: Campaign Evolved'.

Painted by Lead Concept artist at Halo Studios, Jamie Ro

In an exclusive interview with ** conducted ahead of Friday's reveal, Jarrard and Damon Conn, executive producer of *Halo: Campaign Evolved*, call this "a rally point for the future of the franchise."

As Conn lists off, "We've had a chance to retouch animations for the gameplay; we've rebuilt the environments; we have three new missions, so there's new lore and story to be told with this version; we have more skulls and collectibles than ever before; and it's a chance to go back to it. We can reignite the spark and bring [in] new players."

Jarrard affirms *Campaign Evolved* as a true remake and not a remaster, saying, "There's really not a single piece of this entire game that hasn't been touched in some way or another. It's more than just a graphics glow-up, if you will. It's been very important for the team not only to stay true to the spirit of the original, but also to think about things that would be appealing to a new generation of fans. What does it mean to release a first-person shooter in today's day and age?"

Concept art for the tropical island of the 'Silent Cartographer' level in 'Halo: Campaign Evolved'.

Painted by Lead Concept artist at Halo Studios, Jamie Ro

'Mortal Kombat 2' star on how Kitana plays just as big of a role as Johnny Cage (exclusive)

How 'Marvel's Deadpool VR' and Neil Patrick Harris deliver a new level of chaos (exclusive)

The original *Halo: Combat Evolved* plopped players in the 26th century on the distant planet Reach when the collective of alien races known as the Covenant waged a religious war against humanity, defended by their augmented supersoldiers called Spartans. The game introduced Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, who would become the franchise's most recognizable character.

In terms of the three new missions, Conn says they will involve never-before-told stories of Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson, a senior non-commissioned officer and highly trained Marine on the human side of the Covenant war. However, the team isn't ready to disclose much about that material at this stage.

*Halo* has already found success in crossing platforms...at least on the TV side. After Paramount+ canceled its live-action series adaptation, starring Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, the show found new life and new viewership when the existing episodes debuted on Netflix. "Not surprising, honestly," Jarrard comments. "It was just another way for a new audience to get introduced to the essence of *Halo*" — which is also the mission of *Campaign Evolved*.

2026 will mark the 25th anniversary of *Halo*, which means, as both Jarrard and Conn acknowledge, Halo Studios now has 25 years of feedback from players about what they want and don't want from their gaming experiences. "We now have the hindsight to look back," Jarrard mentions. "What if we could react to some of this feedback?"

'Halo: Campaign Evolved'.

They point to some specific examples, chief among them being split screen. "There's been a lot of vocal feedback around split screen," Jarrard admits. "*Halo* was kind of born from that, and the franchise strayed away from that. Very excited to bring that back. From the very beginning, that was a non-negotiable. Our fans repeatedly told us. We have learned that lesson."

The new elements of the remake speak to the player experience from that 2001 game in a similar way. Another example: Gamers will now have access to nine weapons from across the franchise in *Campaign Evolved* that weren't available in *Combat Evolved*. "One funny bit that you couldn't do in the original game was pick up the energy sword. We're gonna make that thing usable in this game," Conn says.

Jarrard also mentions the Flood, a parasitic alien species introduced in *Combat Evolved* that have become recurring antagonists of the franchise. "They were pretty cool and rudimentary when they first debuted, but by the time they got the way through *Halo 3* [2007], they became a lot more formidable, a lot smarter, a lot more fun to fight," he says. "So that's a prime example of being able to now pluck the best of what the Flood became and injecting that back into what the Flood weren't quite capable of when they first debuted in 2001."

Warthog Beach in 'Halo: Campaign Evolved'.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

More generally, Jarrard points to how the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) presentation has improved greatly in games in the years since that 2001 entry. He remembers his own experience on *Combat Evolved*, getting lost in the library near the late stages of the game.

"You're kind of wandering around through repeating corridors and it looks the same," Jarrard describes. "We know that fans have regularly lamented that. It's become a love-hate thing with *Halo* fans. The team can easily go in there and make adjustments to level, layout, and flow, but also present [information] back to players with wayfinding."

Now...let's talk about sprinting. Jarrard and Conn know full well that this is a hot-button topic among the *Halo* fanbase — pro- versus anti-sprinting.

Pelican Beach in 'Halo: Campaign Evolved'.

Conn worked on the movement mechanics for 2021's *Halo: Infinite*, the most recent *Halo* release, which included sprinting as a normal function. "In this game," he says of *Campaign Evolved*, "it's a player choice. We're working on making sure that every person that plays *Halo* can play the way that they want in that regard."

Jarrard chimes in. "This will probably get me flamed, but sprint has been introduced in the franchise since 2010. So there's been more *Halo* with sprint than without," he says. "But when you have almost 25 years of a franchise spanning seven mainline titles, they've each evolved in different ways as they've gone. Each one has created its own pocket of, 'That's the only one I like.'"

Reiterating the idea of player choice (to sprint or not to sprint), he adds, "What made the combat fun, what makes *Halo* feel like *Halo*, we don't wanna mess with that. What *Halo* really is and what's most important to me, you ask 100 fans, you'll probably get a little bit different answer from everyone."**

Original Article on Source

Source: "AOL Gaming"

Read More

---

Source: VoXi MAG

Full Article on Source: VoXi MAG

#LALifestyle #USCelebrities