‘I Made It Right and They Are Breaking It for No Reason’ — One of the Key Members of the Original Halo Dev Team Doesn’t Sound Thrilled With Microsoft’s Halo: Campaign Evolved – IGN

Microsoft has lifted the lid on Halo: Campaign Evolved, a full remake of the original campaign slated for 2026, and the community is already split on the changes. A sleeker art direction, optional sprint, and tweaked level geometry are drawing strong reactions—especially from one of the people who helped define Halo’s core.

A veteran designer calls foul on encounter design

Jaime Griesemer, a key designer behind Halo’s hallmark “30 seconds of fun” and major architect of the Combat Evolved campaign, shared a blunt early verdict after watching the new footage. His main gripe: the remake appears to reopen paths and loosen restrictions that were intentionally closed off in 2001, flattening the carefully staged flow of combat.

In the classic mission The Silent Cartographer, the first Hunter duel was designed to be fought on foot. Players eventually found ways to bully a Warthog into the arena, but the intent was clear. In the remake footage, the vehicle seems free to plow straight through.

“You aren’t supposed to be able to take the Warthog up to steamroll the Hunters… I intentionally placed obstacles so you had to fight them on foot. When you can just smash the crates out of the way, it wrecks the encounter.”

He also lamented changes to a beloved setpiece jump—nicknamed the “WooHoo” jump because the Warthog gunner used to cheer during the airborne moment—saying new trees clutter the landing zone and sap the thrill.

Griesemer argued that if objects like crates are now dynamic, encounters built around them as reliable cover should be rethought from the ground up. He described the original Hunter rollout as a three-act design: first, a bright introduction that teaches the threat; next, a tighter, darker space where they feel more oppressive; and then later, the moment you gain rockets and vehicles to flip the power dynamic. In his view, streamlining these beats dilutes the payoff.

“It’s like a dance remix of a classic song that skips the intro and the bridge and just thumps the chorus over and over.”

He even floated a reason for the geometry tweaks: vehicles appear to take more damage now, which could make the old vehicle “tricks” unreliable. If pushing a Warthog over rocks is just as likely to destroy it as succeed, he argues, the change undercuts both the intent and the emergent fun.

The sprint debate returns

Optional unlimited sprint is another lightning rod. While you can ignore it, Griesemer warned that adding speed without scaling the world can break the pacing—one of Combat Evolved’s secret weapons. He pointed out a moment where sprinting straight into a shaft vignette seemed to trip the music transition, and suggested players might simply outrun or bypass encounters if spaces remain tuned for the slower, original cadence.

“If the world isn’t scaled to sprint, you will be able to trivially skip encounters.”

When readability meets redundancy

The Needler, famous for telegraphing its remaining shots via the crystalline quills protruding from the weapon, now sports an on-gun ammo counter. To Griesemer, that’s a solution in search of a problem.

“Why add an ammo counter to a weapon that already is its own ammo counter?”

Beyond any single tweak, his broader concern is that changes like faster reloads, the removal of health packs, and altered fall damage may make the remake feel slicker while sanding away the strategic texture that made Halo stand out.

“I made it right and they are breaking it for no reason.”

Can Halo be both modern and Halo?

The larger question looming over the project: how do you modernize a shooter so anchored to its era without losing its soul? Griesemer’s take is that Halo is unusually time-specific. Attempts to drag it out of 2001 risk breaking its identity; attempts to bottle 2001 wholesale can feel like hollow nostalgia. That tension has dogged the series’ post-Bungie years, as new entries chase contemporary trends while fans cling to what made the original trilogy sing.

Not every original dev is down on it

There is optimism from other veterans. Marcus Lehto, the original art director on Combat Evolved, praised the project after seeing the new look, calling it gorgeous and true to the spirit he wished he could have realized with 2001 hardware. For him, the visual refresh lands as a heartfelt modernization rather than a betrayal.

2026 is a long runway

Halo: Campaign Evolved is targeting 2026, likely near the series’ 25th anniversary. That gives the team time to consider feedback and iterate—or to commit to its current vision and own the trade-offs. Either path will rile or reassure different corners of the community. If nothing else, the conversation underscores why Halo remains a lightning rod: its combat loops, encounter setups, and pacing aren’t just mechanics; they’re memory. Change them, and you change the feeling people return for.

Whether the remake becomes a careful restoration with modern comforts or a bold reinterpretation with new priorities, fans will be dissecting every crate, rock, and Needler crystal until launch—and likely long after.