While Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto had previously spoken about having fun with Halo: Campaign Evolved, in a more recent series of posts, he has criticized some of the remake’s choices when it came to art direction. More specifically, he pointed to how the team at Halo Studios got it wrong with depicting Forerunner technology.
With side-by-side screenshots of the titular ring from Combat Evolved and Campaign Evolved as shown in both titles’ main menus, Lehto noted that the one from the remake “looks like it was built a few years ago” despite being an ancient structure that has “seen hundreds of millennia of conflict.”
“While Forerunner tech was metal (not stone), it was also ancient, vast, alive, and a tomb to the horrors that lurked within. It had seen hundreds of millennia of conflict. Yet the game shows it as shiny metal that looks like it was built a few years ago.” In a further post, he called the ring from the Campaign Evolved main menu “the most offensive thing we see every time we boot up the game.”
“It should feel massive, dark, mysterious, sinister, but also full of wonder. This new ring looks like a shiny new toy – out of scale, no mystery, damn ugly.” Going further, he also mentioned how space, as shown in the background of the image, is quite empty in the remake. “For the lore, the ring in [Combat Evolved] resides far out on the fringe of the Milky Way galaxy, which we see in the background.”
Not all of the art direction in Halo: Campaign Evolved has been subject to this criticism, however. In another post, Lehto acknowledged that the team had done a “wonderful” job with the aesthetics of the Covenant and the Flood.
Previously, Lehto had spoken about having fun with the game, and how all of the strange complaints that had been making their way online were overblown. “Been slowly playing through Campaign Evolved on Heroic (the difficulty we designed the game for 25 years ago). Overall, I really love the upgrades – movement, cinematics, visuals – damn, the lighting is brilliant. Do I have gripes? A few, but they are taking a back seat to the fun.”
He blamed the nature of social media for being able to signal boost hatred expressed by posters. “This platform fosters that hate. Get us all in a room – in f*****g person – and I bet we would all eventually have a pretty damn good time playing the game together.”
Halo: Campaign Evolved was released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S just last month. According to Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliot, the title has sold 1.2 million copies across all platforms, bringing in an estimated $67 million in revenue. Xbox – which includes PC and console – seems to have made up around 42 percent of players, with 41 percent being on PlayStation. Game Pass has seemingly contributed to 2.1 percent of the player base.
For more details, check out our review of Halo: Campaign Evolved, where we gave it a score of 9 out of 10.
