How Halo Studios Evolved a Classic - Halo: Campaign Evolved | Official XBOX Podcast

**Josh** (0:00)
Games in this podcast range from E to M.
Hey everyone, welcome to The Official XBOX Podcast. It's the only podcast coming to you from Inside XBOX. And today we've got the Warthogs Hummin. The rocket launchers are loaded and the sticky grenades are sticking. And here to guide us through everything we need to know about the soon to be released Halo Campaign Evolved, are Casey Wu and Brian Gerard. Welcome to the podcast.

**Brian** (0:22)
Thank you.

**Josh** (0:23)
It's great to have you here in front of this enormous movie wall pretty much.

**Brian** (0:27)
This is real. What are you talking about?

**Josh** (0:30)
We're actually there. We're on Alpha Halo.

**Casey** (0:31)
Coming to you live from Alpha Halo.

**Josh** (0:33)
I know. We were both just talking about how we need to get this in our studio.

**Brian** (0:37)
I could live with that every day in my house for sure.

**Josh** (0:39)
But let's dive in. So we're here to talk about Halo. 25 years ago, Halo Combat Evolved launched on the original Xbox console. I was a little skinnier. I had some pimples. I was in high school. And it kicked off this iconic franchise that became legendary across the years and the decades. The music, the weapons, Cortana, Chief, the list goes on. Now, here we are. Pimples are gone. A little more weight for me. But we're going back to where it all began in Halo Campaign Evolved. What was the thought process behind remaking this classic campaign now, 25 years later?

**Brian** (1:11)
I mean, a lot went into this. We're happy to be here to chat about that, Josh. I think you're right. 25 years, super old myself. I've been through the saga of Halo.
It's a great milestone. It's like not a lot of franchises have that sort of length and longevity and impact to culture and gaming. Super cool for us to be able to go back to where it all began. We're talking about a new start, a new chapter for the franchise where Halo Studios now, it just felt like perfect timing to capitalize on 25 years, go back to where it all began. But more importantly, what a great time to welcome in an entirely new generation of fans.

**Casey** (1:48)
Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more.
It's 25 years. It's such a momentous anniversary for us and XBOX. And I just can't wait for everybody to see what we've been up to. This is a really exciting new chapter for us. And this game is meant to be a love letter to the original Halo CE, but it's also meant to be this incredible stepping off point for our studio.

**Josh** (2:11)
That's right. New and old, a lot of people are going to get to experience either Halo for the first time or in all new ways. So the game looks visually stunning. We're surrounded by it with a wall. We've seen the social media posts, the trailers. 25 years is also a long time in technology for that growth of the industry. So you guys have some decisions to make because you have to take what worked best for the classic, what made Halo CE Halo CE, but then you've got to bring in that improved look for the game. Can you take us through maybe what it was like balancing? How do you be faithful to that classic, but then upgrade from modern technology?

**Brian** (2:44)
Yeah. I'll share a little bit. I know philosophically early on as the team talked about this project, as Casey noted, this idea of a love letter, there's a tremendous amount of reverence for the original game. It really touched all of us in different ways, catapulted my career, helped me fall in love with XBOX. It means so much to everybody out the studio. There's so much passion there. I think first and foremost, whatever we were going to set out to do has to stay true to the spirit of what that original was about. But it was also a conscious decision that this was not just a one-to-one remaster. It was an opportunity to try to do something a little bit different.
One thing I love to help reiterate and stress is, Combat Evolved is an iconic all-time GOAT game. Thankfully, it's still there. It's awesome. It's not going to go away. We still play it all the time. But with Campaign Evolved, we want to make something that's just equally special, pays an homage to it, but helps bring it forward with new technology and new ways of experiencing it for new players.

**Casey** (3:39)
Yeah. Speaking of new technology, we rebuilt everything from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5 It looks absolutely stunning. Everything from the levels, the characters, the weapons, the vehicles, all the cinematics, you name it. Everything was completely rebuilt. And I remember during play tests, I'm just an absolute medicine there because we go into these play tests with very specific things that we're supposed to be doing. But I just turn on invincibility and I just go on a tour and look at all of the beautiful things that are in there. It's like I could gush about the art all day long, but I think that the thing that was most paramount to us was making sure that the feel was there. And so we took this hybrid approach where we could combine Unreal Engine visuals with that original Halo simulation. So we got the best of both worlds this way.