There’s a serious rationale for bringing Halo: Campaign Evolved to PlayStation, and the shooter’s creators say it comes down to “honoring” the franchise. Halo Studios argues that Halo plays best with a large, healthy community, so a PS5 release is about growing the fanbase.
Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) delivered one of 2025’s biggest headlines by confirming Master Chief’s return in Halo: Campaign Evolved, alongside launches on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. Social media immediately lit up with reactions, arguments, and hot takes, because it meant one of Xbox’s most iconic faces was finally stepping into the PlayStation ecosystem. From the developers’ point of view, though, the decision is perfectly coherent, because expanding Halo’s player base is what they consider true “respect” for the saga.
That’s the stance laid out by executive producer Damon Conn and creative director Max Szlagor in an interview with GamesRadar+, where they talk about both their philosophy for revisiting Master Chief’s first major trip into the Halo universe and what a PlayStation launch actually means. “We want the veterans who’ve been with us for the last 25 years to come back, and we want them playing alongside a completely new generation”, Conn says. “There are people who have never had any contact with Halo at all”, he adds. “Maybe they’ve always been on Sony hardware, maybe they switched platforms at some point, or maybe they just missed it the first time”, he continues. “We want to bring the players back together”, he says.
Szlagor chimes in, stressing that “Halo is best played when we have a large and healthy community”. Halo Studios frames the PS5 release of Campaign Evolved as “a way to grow, expand, and reconnect with the Halo community”. Conn continues that “we want to honor Halo’s legacy on PlayStation, and we’re paving the way to expand our Halo universe – that’s how we see it”. “And it’s not a small thing”, he adds. “We don’t take it lightly, and we won’t”, he continues. “We absolutely feel the weight of it”, he says.
Halo: Campaign Evolved will ship with three additional story missions
Halo Studios clearly has a major task on its hands. The team says it’s moving carefully, aiming to build the game so it “stays true to the original tone, atmosphere, feel, and emotional impact”, while still adding new features that broaden the 2001 experience. Conn says “we made a few adjustments that just made sense”. “For example, you can use the Energy Sword, the Directed Energy Cannon, and the Sentry Beam”, he lists. You’ll also be able to drive the Wraith tank. Those are all things you simply couldn’t do in Combat Evolved.
Even with a philosophy centered on “being authentic with the existing material”, the studio also used the project to look at deeper shifts and address points the community has raised over the years. Szlagor says “we’re also building three new story missions focused on Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson”. “They take place before the events of Combat Evolved, and they’ll cover missions Master Chief and Johnson would have run in that window, with new environments, enemies, characters, and weapons”, he explains. Halo: Campaign Evolved still doesn’t have a specific release date, but Microsoft has confirmed that Master Chief will return at some point in 2026.
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