00:00You
00:30Halo Campaign Evolved is the next project coming out of Halo Studios.
00:42It is the ultimate Halo CE campaign remake.
00:46It is coming to Xbox, PC, and for the first time, PlayStation.
00:50It'll be arriving next year.
00:52To talk more about it, we've got Dan, Max, and Greg from the development team.
00:56Guys, let's get into this.
00:57Why is this the right game for right now?
00:59We did this work on Halo Anniversary.
01:01I felt like there were certain things that were left unsaid.
01:04There were certain things that we weren't able to achieve at that time.
01:06There were certain things we weren't able to do.
01:07It's a great time to revisit Combat Evolved for new players, for established Halo players,
01:13and maybe even for old friends playing on different hardware today
01:16to allow them to play together and enjoy the franchise together again.
01:19Going back to the Halo ring again for the first time.
01:21For the first time is really important for them to be surprised by new content
01:25and feel excited again about exploring the ring world.
01:27For new players, this is the right time for you to jump in.
01:31Think of this as your introduction into this huge franchise we've been building for the past 25 years.
01:38I'm curious how you're going to focus on capturing the essence of the original,
01:43knowing that you need to evolve to kind of move the experience forward.
01:46Yeah, from design, we don't take that lightly at all.
01:48Whenever we make a change, the number one thing was to be true to the original game.
01:52For every one of those topics that comes up, there's someone who is incredibly passionate on the other side,
01:57saying, like, that is sacred. We do not move that crate.
02:00It's really about looking across, you know, what we've learned over the years,
02:03what technology we've built, and how we can tie that back into this experience.
02:06So in this game, up to four people can play the campaign together,
02:10regardless of which platform they're on.
02:12And then, we're kicking it old school, we can play two-player co-op on consoles,
02:16on the couch together, just like we did back in the original.
02:20What do you have to do differently to account now for four people running around?
02:24For different co-op counts, we will make some of the spaces larger.
02:28We also want to make sure we're authentic to the encounters themselves,
02:30so it's a balancing act between that difficulty tuning
02:33and, you know, making those encounters the right size for the right space.
02:37I understand that we've done some special tune-up works to the beloved Warthog.
02:41We have. There's a new seat.
02:44What I like to call the golf cart seat, or the bumper seat.
02:46This is on the back of the Warthog, so now you can bring everyone with.
02:51Mind if I join you?
02:52Let's talk a little bit about one of my favorite aspects of the Halo franchise.
02:55What is a skull? What's cool about it? What does it do?
02:58A skull is a gameplay modifier, generally mean-spirited.
03:02It makes the game more challenging for the player.
03:06The combination, the pairing of these different skulls
03:09and how that's going to create that new gameplay experience,
03:12huge amount of replay options for folks.
03:13I love the replayability that skulls bring to a campaign.
03:16It's just, there's, it is almost endless variety.
03:19We have dozens of skulls this time.
03:21The most that we've ever had in a Halo game.
03:23Are you a lasso guy?
03:24I think you yourself told me that you don't think anyone would ever be able
03:27to complete this game with Legendary All Skulls On?
03:29I don't think so.
03:30I mean, there's, there's a lot.
03:32And so if you can do a true Legendary All Skulls On run, let us know.
03:37Because I'd love to see it.
03:38I, I think that, I mean, that'd be really hard.
03:40If there's one thing that this community has shown us is do not underestimate them
03:44and they will find a way.
03:47So Halo's always been known for a sandbox.
03:50How has this evolved?
03:51We made sure that anything we included isn't going to drastically change the way the game plays.
03:56They changed the sandbox in a drastic way.
03:57But there's some really fun kind of additions, nuts across, you know, enemies, weapons, vehicles,
04:02things that in the original CE weren't able to do before that you now can.
04:05You finally kill the elite with the sword.
04:07That weapon hits the floor and you can pick that up.
04:09You just, you know, kind of really take it to the, take it to the enemy.
04:14The sound.
04:17All these weapons, by the way, have been painstakingly remodeled, rebuilt, higher fidelity.
04:22How do all these things kind of come to life?
04:24That comes across through the way they look, the way they sound, the effects,
04:29the actual panels on the weapons themselves, the ammo counters.
04:33With Unreal, the fully dynamic lighting within Lumen allows us to get those effects, right?
04:36That rich plasma lighting up and brightening the environment.
04:41Of course, one of the hallmark elements of Halo CE is what becomes kind of a three-way battle
04:46with the introduction of the Flood.
04:48There was quite a bit of development between Halo CE and 3 to kind of how the Flood behaved
04:52and just how they interacted with the player.
04:54So we've pulled a lot of those Flood behaviors into this game.
04:58And I would say this is a learning specifically from CE2 Anniversary,
05:01which is just kind of that mood, the atmosphere, the tension, the horror,
05:05and really delivering on that from the way that we staged the encounters and the setup
05:09and how we reveal the Flood.
05:11In Halo Legacy, there were some pure form units.
05:14We've pulled in a familiar friend, familiar fiend, if you will, to challenge the player.
05:19Talk to me just a little bit about how we're approaching the narrative aspects
05:25to bring it up to the same level as the rest of this game.
05:29We want to tell an authentic story and we want to level up the cinematics from the source.
05:35As we were building this out, we didn't just kind of put a new coat of paint over the original cinematics, right?
05:40We ended up revisiting exactly how they were blocked out, how they were sequenced,
05:44how they were put together, and we've done that across the board.
05:46We have access to original source assets, original source code, and access to the original storyboards.
05:51We are remastering, remixing the music to go along with these cinematics.
05:55We also had the core principal cast come in and re-record all the lines.
05:59How much firepower would you need to crack one of the engine's shields?
06:02This really provides a degree of fidelity that we weren't able to do for Halo Anniversary.
06:05Now would be a very good time to leave.
06:09I'm super excited that this game will include three brand new bonus missions.
06:14Tell me a little bit about that.
06:15It was really important that we preserve the original story as it is.
06:19So these missions specifically are meant to be a prequel setup for, you know, the main course.
06:24These new missions are going to offer some new opportunities for character interactions,
06:28maybe between, you know, Chief and Johnson.
06:30We've got some new mechanics, maybe some AI behaviors,
06:33things that haven't been done before in Halo CD.
06:36I think we're just getting started.
06:38So where are we right now at this stage in development?
06:43What can you share with us?
06:44In the past few weeks, we've been able to start engaging and sending builds out to some of our community members.
06:48We can now see so many of the elements of the level really coming together.
06:52There's a point in every game's life cycle where it kind of just comes online.
06:58Seeing really high-fidelity versions of the cinematics, elements of the sandbox, and encounter tweaks, and the lighting.
07:05You go to someone's desk and give feedback live on an experience,
07:08and to me that's like a really exciting time in game development.
07:10The ultimate love letter to the game that started it all.
07:13I would call upon our entire Halo community to welcome with open arms this next generation of players.
07:20I'm excited to just relive these experiences again for the first time.
