Halo: Campaign Evolved Launches Today — A Faithful Reinvention That Might Be the Best Master Chief Yet
Date: July 23, 2026 — After months of anticipation, heated debates among original Bungie developers, and a marketing campaign that dared to show PlayStation 5 Pro footage of an Xbox icon, Halo: Campaign Evolved is finally here. The remake of Halo: Combat Evolved, built from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5 by Halo Studios, lands today on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC. And if early hands-on impressions are anything to go by, it might just be the most surprising and triumphant return Master Chief has ever made.
But that’s far from the only story breaking in gaming today. From Splatoon Raiders launching alongside Halo on Nintendo Switch 2, to Grand Theft Auto 6 finally opening pre-orders, to Microsoft announcing Xbox backward compatibility on PC, to Steam shattering revenue records while console giants flounder — this is one of the most packed news days of the summer. Let’s break it all down.
Halo: Campaign Evolved: The Remake Nobody Knew They Needed
When Microsoft first announced Halo: Campaign Evolved — described as “a faithful yet modernised remake of Halo: Combat Evolved’s campaign” — the reaction was, to put it mildly, divided. Original Bungie developers publicly squabbled over prop placement and vehicle mechanics. Long-time fans questioned why a game already remastered in The Master Chief Collection needed another coat of paint. The decision to bring Halo to PlayStation 5 for the first time in the franchise’s history felt like a seismic shift that some read as desperation rather than ambition.
Then people actually played it.
Eurogamer’s Dom Peppiatt, who went into the demo openly sceptical, came out the other side a convert: “Halo: Campaign Evolved is an absolute blast.” After playing two levels — “The Silent Cartographer” and “Assault on the Control Room” — he booted the demo back up on Legendary. That’s the Halo litmus test, and it passed with flying colours.
What Makes It Different?
The game is built in Unreal Engine 5, a choice that raised eyebrows given the engine’s reputation for a certain uniform sheen. But Halo Studios has apparently worked wonders with Epic’s technology. The soft lighting in dimly illuminated Covenant tunnels, the snow deformation from blasts and Ghost tracks, the way plasma grenade detonations illuminate the environment before charring it — it all adds up to what might be one of the best-looking games on the Xbox Series X.
Crucially, it looks the way players remember Halo looking, not the way it actually looked. The original Combat Evolved, even in its remastered MCC form, has aged considerably. Campaign Evolved captures the feeling — the awe of emerging from a structure into a snowy landscape, the frantic purple-green-orange chaos of a Wraith battle — and amplifies it with modern rendering technology.
Gameplay Changes: Evolution, Not Revolution
The remake introduces several quality-of-life improvements that bring it in line with modern Halo titles:
- Sprinting — yes, you can finally sprint in a Combat Evolved campaign (purists can turn it off via skulls)
- Aim-down-sights on the Needler and assault rifle
- Energy Sword usability — not available in the original, now a viable weapon
- Wraith driving — another addition that feels like it was always there
- Four-player co-op — up from the original’s two-player split-screen
- Faster reload speeds and rechargeable health (no health packs)
- Fall damage returns, making platforming sections more deliberate
The AI has been reprogrammed for the new engine but retains its goofy, unpredictable charm. Grunts still scream absurd one-liners before suicide-bombing you. Hunters still hit hard enough to send your ragdoll flying into a dark corner. The sound design remains loyal to Bungie’s original opus — Covenant guns feel spacey, UNSC guns feel kinetic, and the environmental acoustics are so natural you barely notice how good they are.
The PlayStation Question
Perhaps the biggest story surrounding Campaign Evolved is its release on PS5 — the first time a Halo game has appeared on a Sony platform. PS5 players will need an Xbox account and gamertag to play, and the game has already been climbing PlayStation pre-order charts. Halo Studios has gone to great lengths to reassure physical media enthusiasts: PS5 buyers can request an actual physical disc, even if they purchase digitally. It’s a strange new world where Master Chief stands alongside Kratos on the same storefront.
Cancelled Projects and Studio Turmoil
The launch comes amid a turbulent period for Halo Studios. Just ten days ago, it was reported that Halo Studios cancelled Project Ekur — a multiplayer title with customisable Spartans and Elites featuring large-scale battles — which was being developed by Certain Affinity. The cancellation is part of a broader pattern of restructuring at Microsoft Gaming, which has seen devastating layoffs of 1,600 staff with another 1,600 planned, and the closure or detachment of at least four studios: Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, and Undead Labs. The status of Blade developer Arkane remains unclear.
Against that backdrop, Campaign Evolved represents both a triumph and a question mark — a stellar game born from a studio in crisis.
Splatoon Raiders: Nintendo’s Salmon Run Spin-Off Is a Hectic Delight
Launching on the very same day as Halo, Nintendo’s Splatoon Raiders arrives on Switch 2 as a standalone spin-off of the beloved Salmon Run mode. If you’ve ever wanted a third-person shooter that channels the relentless forward momentum of modern Doom games but swaps demons for grime-caked fish monsters, this is your jam.
The premise is beautifully simple: drop onto strange islands, kill everything that moves, collect the loot, return to your makeshift raft base, upgrade, repeat. You can play solo or with three friends, online or via local wireless. The core Splatoon mechanics remain — ink as ammo, squid form for traversal and reload, enemy ink slowing you down — but Raiders removes the territory capture focus in favour of pure, unadulterated combat.
Weapons and Enemies
The full Splatoon arsenal is here: machine guns, paint rollers, and the elegant single paint brush that series veterans know is the rapier of the ink-flinging world. Enemy variety expands on Salmon Run’s roster with mechanical eels that charge like freight trains, tower enemies that mount laser beams on teetering piles of saucepans, and hulking behemoths that do as much damage in death as they did in life.
The game’s relentless pace comes from a key design choice: incoming damage doesn’t interrupt your actions. You’re always shooting back, always reloading, always moving forward. Death comes as a genuine shock — “I had no idea I was even sick,” as one reviewer put it — and the constant sense of momentum is exhilarating.
Early reviews are strong, with Eurogamer praising its “apocalyptic simplicity” and comparing it favourably to Donkey Kong Bananza for its commitment to joyful, chaotic destruction. If Halo is the thinking person’s shooter this week, Splatoon Raiders is the pure adrenaline shot.
Grand Theft Auto 6 Pre-Orders Are Finally Live — November 19 Release Confirmed
After what feels like eighty-four years (to borrow Eurogamer’s headline), Grand Theft Auto 6 is officially available for pre-order. The game is set to launch on November 19, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, with both physical and digital editions available.
Pricing and Editions
The Standard Edition retails for $79.99/£69.99 and includes the “Vintage Vice City” pack for anyone who pre-orders before November 20th. This bonus pack includes:
- The ’55 Vapid Stanier sedan and Shore Court Garage
- Vice City-inspired outfits and hairstyles for both Jason and Lucia
- An exclusive weapon pattern channelling Tommy Vercetti’s iconic palm tree aesthetic
The Ultimate Edition costs $99.99/£89.99 and includes a staggering amount of additional content: the ’67 Vapid Dominator Buggy, ’95 Grotti Cheetah, a Classic Car Collection with restoration missions, exclusive weapon variants, vehicle mod shops, tattoo parlours, clothing stores, and a gang raid missionline involving the PTT Youngin$ compound.
The Physical Disc Situation
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed earlier this year that physical editions were “the plan,” and indeed they exist — but with a catch. The physical edition is essentially a code in a box, with no actual game disc included. Rockstar claims this is to prevent leaks. Physical buyers do get a one-week head start on pre-loading (November 12th), ensuring the game is ready to play the moment November 19th arrives.
The road here has been long: the first trailer dropped in December 2023, the game was delayed from Autumn 2025 to May 2026, then again to November 2026. But the finish line is finally in sight, and if the pre-order enthusiasm is any indication, GTA 6 is poised to be the biggest entertainment launch of the decade.
Xbox Backward Compatibility Comes to PC — Classic Games on Your Desktop and Handheld
In a move that feels like a direct counter to the negative press surrounding Xbox’s layoffs, Microsoft announced Xbox Backward Compatibility on PC on July 22nd. For the first time, classic original Xbox titles will be playable on PC and handhelds like the Xbox Ally X.
The program launches in early preview with four titles:
- Blinx: The Time Sweeper
- Conker: Live and Reloaded
- Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
- Fuzion Frenzy
Anyone who already owns these games will automatically have a license granted on PC. They’ll also be added to Xbox Game Pass for PC subscribers, and — naturally — available via Xbox Cloud Gaming for streaming on virtually any device.
Technical Enhancements
The PC versions come with meaningful upgrades:
- Up to 4x resolution upscaling
- VSync support
- Fullscreen and windowed display modes
- Anisotropic filtering
- Enhanced anti-aliasing
- Customisable language and audio settings
Achievements are not available at launch but will be added via an update later this year. Xbox hardware architect Jason Ronald framed the initiative as “another step toward preserving the games from the past and making it easier for you to enjoy and play more of the games you already own across the devices you use every day.”
The announcement also follows reports that Project Helix — the next-generation Xbox console — will not feature a disc drive, and that Microsoft is exploring a disc-to-digital-license transferal program. Sony, for its part, has confirmed it will cease production of physical game discs starting January 2028. The all-digital future is arriving, whether consumers like it or not.
Steam’s Record-Breaking 2026: $11.1 Billion in Six Months
While Xbox and PlayStation face declining revenues, layoffs, and consumer backlash, Valve’s Steam platform is having its best year ever. According to estimates by Alinee Analytics, Steam generated $11.1 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026 — its highest-ever half-year result and significantly more than the same period in 2025.
“Zoom out over the last decade and things get really crazy,” said Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinee. “There’s obviously a visible dip as the market normalised after the pandemic sugar-high, but the long arc is relentlessly up, with seven half-years of growth.” Over the past decade, Steam has nearly quintupled its revenue.
What’s Driving the Growth?
Several factors contribute to Steam’s dominance:
- The Chinese market — as of February 2025, 50% of all Steam accounts belonged to Chinese-speaking users
- Higher game prices — the new $79.99 standard pricing has boosted per-unit revenue
- Third-party publishers returning — Ubisoft and others have dropped proprietary launchers in favour of Steam
- A string of massive hits
The Biggest Games of 2026 So Far
- Forza Horizon 6 — $197.7 million in under two months
- Resident Evil Requiem — $194.5 million since February (3.4 million Steam sales alone)
- Crimson Desert — $190 million since March launch (a new franchise)
- Slay the Spire 2 — $141.7 million
- Subnautica 2 — $133.6 million
- Meccha Chameleon — $71.3 million
The contrast with console platforms is stark. Microsoft’s gaming revenue is down 7% year-on-year. PlayStation has been selling fewer first-party exclusives since 2020 and has just announced it will no longer bring future exclusives to PC. Both companies are feeling the bite of AI-fuelled RAM price increases driving hardware costs up. Consumer sentiment towards both has tanked — Sony for killing physical discs in 2028, Microsoft for the brutality of its layoffs. PC gaming, it seems, is the safe harbour.
Capcom Addresses Generative AI Use: “Creativity Should Be Handled by Humans”
Capcom has clarified its stance on generative AI in game development, stating that its policy is “to improve the efficiency of routine operations so that our developers can devote more time to essential value creation.”
In a recent investor Q&A, the Resident Evil and Pragmata publisher elaborated: “We believe that what games must deliver most is an experience that exceeds users’ expectations, and that the creativity at the core of such experiences should be handled by humans.” The company confirmed it is “seeing a certain degree of effectiveness from the use of generative AI for improving operational efficiency” and is “actively incorporating it into each stage of the development process.”
Capcom falls into what might be called the “dabbling” camp — using AI for routine tasks but keeping creative decisions in human hands. This positions it between studios that have fully embraced AI and those that have shunned it entirely. The debate remains fierce: Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said it made “no sense” for studios to disclose AI use, comparing it to asking what shampoo they use. Meanwhile, The Blood of Dawnwalker director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz believes “games created with only AI will have no soul,” and Horizon actress Ashly Burch insists AI should never replace human creativity.
The data supports the trend, though: a 2024 Unity report claimed 62% of studios using its tools used AI at some point in development, a GDC survey found roughly one-third of developers using AI tools, and a 2025 Tokyo Game Show survey reported over half of Japanese game companies are using AI in development.
Capcom’s cautious approach hasn’t hurt its output. Pragmata launched in February to critical acclaim, selling 2 million copies. Resident Evil Requiem became the fastest-selling entry in the series’ 30-year history, passing 7 million sales by April. The company also teased that the Resident Evil series could finally visit Japan in a future instalment, with the producer noting “every member of the team has given it some thought.”
Summer Games Done Quick 2026 Raises $2.4 Million for Doctors Without Borders
The annual speedrunning marathon SGDQ 2026, held in Minneapolis this past week, raised $2.4 million (£1.8m) for Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières. The event welcomed approximately 2,500 in-person attendees alongside thousands more watching via livestream.
Standout runs included:
- Kirby Air Riders — Bluekandy set a new world record during the event
- Balatro — a run that “beat all odds” (fitting for a game about beating the odds)
- Resident Evil: Requiem — featuring impromptu beatboxing during the run
Since 2010, Games Done Quick has collectively raised more than $62 million for charities worldwide, including the Malala Fund and Organization for Autism Research. AGDQ 2026 raised $2.44 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation earlier this year.
A short documentary detailing Doctors Without Borders’ humanitarian work in Gaza was shared with attendees during the event, underscoring the real-world impact of the community’s generosity. All runs are archived on the Games Done Quick YouTube channel for anyone who missed the live broadcast.
The Bigger Picture: A Gaming Industry in Transition
Today’s news paints a picture of an industry at a crossroads. On one hand, the games themselves have never been better — Halo: Campaign Evolved and Splatoon Raiders launching on the same day represents a bounty of quality that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Steam’s record revenues prove that PC gaming is thriving. Capcom is delivering critically acclaimed hits at a pace that recalls its golden era.
On the other hand, the industry’s foundations are shifting dramatically. Microsoft’s layoffs and studio closures represent a structural realignment that will reshape Xbox for years. Sony’s decision to abandon physical discs by 2028 signals the end of an era for media collectors. The rise of generative AI in development pipelines raises questions about the future of creative labour. Console exclusivity is dissolving — Halo on PlayStation, Microsoft games on PC, Sony pulling back from PC ports — as the walls between platforms continue to crumble.
For players, the immediate future is bright: GTA 6 in November, a reinvigorated Halo today, Splatoon Raiders for the Switch 2 crowd, and a Steam library that keeps growing. For the people who make those games, the picture is far more complicated. The industry that delivers these experiences is being remade in real time, and not everyone will survive the transition.
But for today — July 23, 2026 — there are new games to play. And in the end, that’s what matters most.
Article by Vito Ruocco for ruocco.it — covering the latest in gaming news, trends, and industry analysis.