Given the various leaks and rumours, the existence of a Halo: Combat Evolved remaster or remake seems to be all but officially confirmed at this point. Now, we may have more evidence of its existence, albeit through a secondary source.
The keeper of this holy Halo knowledge is Reb’s Gaming, a Youtube channel that might be small in subscriber count but is big in reliability. Reb has frequently had the inside track on all things Halo, but does point out to his viewers that they should be sceptical until an official announcement is made.
In this case, Reb claims his source was at a private event where they talked to a developer working at a studio which is co-developing the Halo: Combat Evolved remake.
First things first, let’s tackle the co-development studio, which is working alongside Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) on the remake.
“To protect the privacy of the studio and the developer, my source requested that I don’t share the studio’s name… but what I will say is this studio previously partnered with 343 Industries to create new features for the Master Chief Collection,” says Reb.
Reb does specify that the mystery studio isn’t Certain Affinity, and that they are involved quite heavily in the project.
Numerous teams worked on The Master Chief collection, but the most likely candidates are Saber Interactive, Ruffian Games and Splash Damage. All of these studios worked on major components of MCC.
Getting into the remake itself, Reb explains what could be the single biggest change: “The big piece of information is that the current build being tested has sprinting. Combat Evolved did not have sprint. So, if this information is true, the remake will include modern gameplay features.”
Amusingly, Reb says his source told the developer that they don’t like the idea of introducing sprinting into the remake.
There will also be some gameplay changes, specifically around the Library mission, with the goal of reducing repetition.
“There will be level design changes mostly to the library mission which involves Master Chief battling the flood through the library of installation 4 and repetitive areas of each mission.”
The game will apparently use a dual engine method similar to the one seen in the recent remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. A modified version of Halo: Reach‘s Blam! engine will handle all of the gameplay, while Unreal Engine 5 will do all of the graphical rendering.
Finally, the source also confirmed the existence of a seperate Halo multiplayer game, likely the same one that was found recently in a datamine. It’s supposadly based on the cancelled Halo Infinite battle royale concept and is being made by Certain Affinity, which would also explain why that team is not working on the Combat Evolved remake.
