While rumours have been going strong that one of the projects under development at Halo Studios has been a remake of the first game in the series, Halo: Combat Evolved, a new report indicates that it is being co-developed by the studio alongside one of the studios under the Virtuos banner. The report comes courtesy of YouTube channel Rebs Gaming, with corroboration by Xbox Era.
The specific studio under Virtuos working on the Halo: Combat Evolve is reportedly Abstraction. The remake is also expected to be making use of a “hybrid engine”, with comparisons drawn with Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. This means that the core foundations of the remake will still run on the original engine, while newer features like modern visuals and physics will be powered by something like Unreal Engine 5.
Rumours from earlier this year also indicated that the remake of the original Halo will not feature any multiplayer modes. Rather, the remake is expected to focus solely on the single-player campaign, with options for co-op. These rumours come courtesy of a report that indicated that no work on developing multiplayer for the remake had been done so far. The report also indicated that another project at Halo Studios – dubbed Project Ekur – is a multiplayer-only battle royale title.
Earlier this week, Halo Studios wrote about how the upcoming Halo World Championship event – taking place on October 24 – will also involve the studio showcasing what it has been working on. This is believed to be the first look that we will get at the Halo: Combat Evolved remake.
“Back in June we let the community know that we’d be continuing the conversation from last year’s HaloWC and the ‘A New Dawn’ video and sharing more about what we’ve been working on,” wrote Halo Studios. “Like last year we’ll be on the Main Stage to talk about it but this year we’ve also got a “deep dive” panel planned for the Community Stage that you won’t want to miss.”
Halo: Combat Evolved was originally released all the way back in 2001 on the original Xbox and PC. Along with being the first game in the franchise, the title also acted as an introduction to some of the grander aspects of the Halo universe. It was also the game that established many of the gameplay elements that would go on to define the Halo franchise over the years, such as a regenerating shield, the HUD being part of the helmet worn by protagonist Master Chief, and the ability to only carry two weapons at a time.
The original Halo was also where much of the combat design that the series is famous for was established, since it would pit players against several enemies from a variety of different alien species in large sandbox-styled levels. This combat design encouraged players to get creative not only in how they tackled threats, but also with their weapon loadouts, since players would have to leave behind empty guns and grab strange alien weaponry from their fallen foes.
