Halo will always have a special place in my heart. Long before military shooters dominated the genre, Halo’s imaginative science fiction world and industry defining gameplay was the perfect representation of what made playing social gaming so much fun. For that reason, I’ve been hopeful that the team at Halo Studios (formally 343 Industries) will eventually find a way to make the series as relevant as it once was.
However, the latest update about what’s next for Halo doesn’t fill me with the excitement I was hoping for. And while I’ll certainly be there on day one to play, I don’t think it’ll be the hit that the series needs after all this time.
At the Halo World Championships taking place in Seattle later this week, Halo Studios will reveal details about a new Halo project. It’s been reported that the game set to be announced will be a remake of the first Halo game, releasing in time for the franchise’s 25th anniversary. However, well-sourced industry insider Rebs Gaming has shared that a second project is also in the works for 2026, and is a live service multiplayer game.
Unlike 2021’s Halo Infinite, which had both a single player campaign and a free-to-play multiplayer suite anyone could access, Rebs Gaming says that this multiplayer game would be a separate game from whatever’s included in the Halo remake. He also reports that the live service components will be “like Fortnite” in some way. While the report doesn’t specify, by guess is that in this new game, Halo Studios will want to replicate how frequently Fortnite drops new content, especially since that was the biggest criticism for the otherwise excellent Halo Infinite multiplayer.
It’s great to see Xbox and Halo Studios haven’t given up on what was once the crown jewel franchise. However, I can’t help but feel like both plans in the series’ immediate feature doesn’t move the needle in the way it needs to. As far as a Halo remake goes, the excitement for such a project is undercut by the fact that we’ve seen this before. 2011’s Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was a received and faith overhaul of the original Xbox game, which doubled as Halo Studio’s first shot with the series. An Unreal Engine 5 facelift and gameplay changes that modernize 25-year-old mechanics doesn’t help me shed the “been there, done that” feeling that I have about this.
Similarly, a live service game feels unnecessary. As disappointing as Infinite’s multiplayer launch was, the game itself was as perfect a multiplayer Halo experience can be. Gunplay was tight, maps were strong, and legacy features added post-launch like custom games did a lot to bring back the old feeling. Halo Studios did a lot to correct the issues players had, even if it wasn’t enough to pull people back in.
Re-energizing the Halo brand with another Combat Evolved remake, and a second free-to-play shooter doesn’t feel like what the series needs.
Throwing away all of that progress only to launch another free-to-play shooter doesn’t feel like an evolution. It feels like the series is stuck in the same rut it;s been in for years now. It also seems weird to have this game co-exist with whatever multiplayer features are included in the Halo remake and potentially other titles released in the future. Also, launching a new free-to-play shooter at a time when players are sticking with the games they know and already play is also its own risk.
I want to be proven wrong, of course. Maybe this second remake of the first Halo game has something to offer that really stirs up fan and newcomer interest in a way I’m not thinking about. And perhaps Halo’s timeless multiplayer mechanics will shine again when there are fewer issues and missing features at launch.
As a fan, I’m hoping that whatever’s in store for Halo hits big. It’s an important series that I want to see continue evolving. But the immediate plans to retread familiar ground across both games feels like a haphazard way to advance the series after a long five-year hiatus.
