If there are two features I'll turn off in every single video game in which they are present, it would be chromatic aberration and film grain.

I get why it exists, but I wish it didn't because it never gives the look (in my opinion anyway) that you think the developers are aiming for.

So, not being able to turn either off in Halo: Campaign Evolved, a shiny futuristic space epic, seems like a misstep.

On PC there were ways around it, but now that won't be necessary, as the next update will allow both to be disabled. As it should have been from the start.

Such is my dislike for both of these graphical 'features' that I haven't even opened Halo: Campaign Evolved yet. I shouldn't need to use config files to turn off something this basic.

The updates to Sgt. Johnson sound pretty important, too, if progression being blocked has been an issue until now.

There isn't much to go on besides the X post shown above, with the update scheduled for some time next week. Full patch notes will be available at that time, and these are just the "highlights," so there'll be a bunch of lower-level stuff as well, it seems.

Crucially, it looks like you'll need to make sure you're at a save point at the end of a mission before the update drops, or else you'll lose some of your progress. The post specifically only mentions mid-mission save points, so everything else will be fine.

In our full review of Halo: Campaign Evolved, my colleague Brendan Lowry said:

"Campaign Evolved ultimately delivers an incredible reimagining of the original Halo, enhancing it with jaw-dropping audiovisual presentation, carefully considered gameplay and level additions, an enjoyable new three-mission story, and a suite of over three dozen collectible Skulls for tons of replay value."

It's not perfect, sure, and it literally is just the campaign with some new missions added, but overall it's pretty well executed. The next update at least will fix some of the irritations.

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Halo: Campaign Evolved launched just days ago, and it appears Microsoft is moving quickly to make cuts at Halo Studios now that the game is out. A number of developers who were previously employed at Halo Studios have posted on LinkedIn today confirming that some roles have been laid off. (via Insider Gaming)

Halo Studios producer Nick Treitman confirmed that he was impacted by the layoffs, stating that "after 6.5 years working on Halo and dodging just as many rounds of layoffs - it has finally caught up to me. I have nothing but love for Halo and the folks at the studio, this is just a tough reality in the gaming industry right now."

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Paul Morris, listed as Scrum Master at Halo Studios, also confirmed that his role had been impacted by layoffs this week. "Today, I learned my time at Halo Studios will be coming to an end following the successful launch of our latest game, Halo: Campaign Evolved. I know this is one of the most challenging job markets our industry has seen, and I know the road ahead won’t be easy."

A number of other Halo Studio employees have updated their LinkedIn pages confirming that they are now available for work. The layoffs come as new reports claim Halo: Campaign Evolved's development was troubled throughout, taking up more resources than originally planned and causing other projects such as a Halo multiplayer game to be canceled.

Halo Studios had confirmed plans to use Unreal Engine 5 in future Halo titles to help streamline development and make building Halo games faster. But for the Halo remake, it chose to use a modified version of the Halo: Reach engine known as Blam, but with Unreal Engine 5 graphics and assets on top.

Unfortunately for the studio, this led to development being more complex, with third-party studio Abstraction struggling to meet deadlines imposed by Halo Studios and being ultimately kicked off the project, forcing Halo Studios to scrap much of the work done by Abstraction and rebuild assets in the Blam engine instead.

If this story sounds familiar, that's because it closely mirrors the development of Halo: Infinite. That game also suffered from a troubled development cycle, with contractors struggling to meet deadlines and work in the Slipspace Engine (which was just the Blam engine with a new name.)

Now, with layoffs impacting Halo Studios, it's clear that Microsoft is moving forward with its confirmed 3,200 layoffs, 1,600 of which were already made back in July.

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Nobody could've seen this one coming!

Much has been said about Xbox's previous approach to its gaming portfolio. In a sprint to boost margin mandates seeded by Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, Xbox leadership put together a haphazard plan to publish icons like Gears of War, Halo, and Forza onto PlayStation. Forza has been an utterly resounding success, but ... the other two not so much.

It's arguably been particularly damaging with regards to Halo. Halo is to Xbox what Mario is to Nintendo, and for Xbox to put Halo on its arch-rival could be interpreted as a very visible signal that Microsoft isn't in it for the long haul.

Every hardware ecosystem tends to have some form of exclusive content, whether it's creative software on Apple products or native Google services on Android. Microsoft decided it wanted Xbox to be the only closed platform in history without any form of exclusive content. Was the juice worth the squeeze?

Well, the data very much says "not," I think.

According to Circana's Player Engagement Tracker, on July 28th Halo: Campaign Evolved ranked 4th in US DAU on Xbox platforms (8% of total Xbox players on that date launched the game), while placing 14th on Steam (2% of actives) and 29th on PlayStation (1% of actives).

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-01T08:44:24.344Z

Despite some clear sales success, Halo: Campaign Evolved has hardly lit the PlayStation world on fire. Halo: Campaign Evolved defeated some service game staples on Xbox during its launch week, claiming the 4th highest daily active users across Xbox Series X|S consoles. It managed to rank a lowly 14th on Steam, and an even worse 29th on PlayStation, claiming just 1% of PlayStation's install base.

I would argue that the immeasurable brand damage putting Halo on PlayStation has wrought on Xbox is hardly worth this paltry figure. Circana senior director Mat Piscatella noted that the data shows "the massive challenge for new games in an environment dominated by the live service behemoths."

For Xbox, I would argue that Halo Campaign Evolved's performance represents a larger problem.

Halo Campaign Evolved has been generally controversial for its lack of multiplayer, perceived (or unperceived) "liberties" taken with the art direction and detailing, while accentuating a lack of visible roadmap for the future of the franchise. Sources familiar tell us that Halo Studios recently canceled a multiplayer-focused Halo game titled Project "Ekur," formerly "Tatanka," a short while ago, leaving the franchise somewhat adrift.

Microsoft's handling of Halo in general has been legendarily poor. The franchise was formerly a staple of the industry landscape and a cornerstone of Xbox's identity. In 2026, it feels like a shadow of its former glory, with a weak TV adaptation doing its own damage to the brand, and repeated "soft reboots" leaving the central narrative in a confused state.

The PS5 version doing poorly is a reflection on how much lustre Halo has lost in the wider gamer consciousness. Xbox fans have been jumping in for the nostalgia, but the fact nobody else cares is an indictment of how the franchise has been handled in general.

Putting Halo on PlayStation 5 did a ton of brand damage to Xbox in general, and I seriously doubt any future Halo will launch on PS5 given Xbox's shift back towards exclusive games. Gears of War: E-Day will be permanently Xbox exclusive, for example, and the E-Day previews have come in extremely positively recently.

Making Halo exclusive to Xbox again is low-hanging fruit ... delivering a Halo that can reclaim the franchise's lost glory is going to be much, much harder, as faith in Halo Studios seems to be in short supply, to put it politely.

As incoming Xbox CEO Asha Sharma seeks to reset the brand and double down on Microsoft's core IP library ... I think of all Xbox's problems, repairing Halo's prestige is by far the biggest challenge facing Xbox. What do you think?

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Content creator Sean Dubs TV, who regularly covers Halo, recently took a closer look at a Microsoft trademark filed back in 2021 for Halo: The Endless.

At the time, many assumed it was connected to Halo Infinite, possibly as the title of a campaign expansion, but that never materialized. What's particularly interesting is that Microsoft continued fighting to secure the trademark until April 2026, suggesting it may have been intended for something else entirely.

For those unfamiliar with Halo lore, the Endless are a mysterious species introduced in Halo Infinite. While very little is known about them, some fans have speculated they're connected to the Precursors, the ancient race said to have created all life in the Halo universe.

The timing is what makes this particularly interesting. Microsoft formally abandoned the trademark just weeks before reports emerged that Halo Studios had canceled their multiplayer project, Project Ekur.

That doesn't prove the events are related, but it certainly raises questions about whether Halo: The Endless was once part of an earlier vision for the franchise that has since been left behind.

Sean Dubs TV also uncovered a little-known interview with Halo Studios head Pierre Hintze, in which he reflects on lessons learned from previous Halo games. Speaking about Halo 5, Hintze said:

“We chose to go a different direction when it comes to the narrative where Master Chief was not the main protagonist and the backlash was imminent, and for us there are certain things which we have to deliver in terms of the expectation of our players.”

Personally, I think Halo Studios may be taking away the wrong lesson from Halo 5. It wasn't simply that players wanted more Master Chief, but that the game was marketed around him only to shift focus to Spartan Locke.

Bungie also proved with Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, while Ensemble Studios did the same with Halo Wars, that Halo stories can succeed without Master Chief when expectations are set appropriately.

Hintze also spoke about the kinds of experiences he believes will become more important in gaming over the coming years, saying:

“I think we're going to see deeper experiences where the line between playing with and against humans becomes more blurred... Yes, it is incredibly rewarding if you go into a first person shooter and play one v one and win. But it is also incredibly rewarding if you are completing an objective or completing a raid in an MMO and you see the solidarity and the help and support we can lend each other.”

It's worth stressing that Hintze was answering a broader question about the future of gaming, not Halo specifically, and he never suggests Halo is becoming an MMO.

Even so, the comments have attracted attention online, and when combined with Microsoft's decision to abandon the Halo: The Endless trademark, they've left fans, myself included, wondering exactly what direction Halo Studios is now taking.

Halo: Campaign Evolved releases soon, but I'm even more eager to find out what Halo Studios has planned for the future of the franchise. I've always felt Halo is massively underutilized, and with Xbox now looking to invest more heavily in its biggest franchises, I'm hoping we finally see the series branch out into more genres. Who knows, maybe even the canceled Mega Bloks game could make a return one day.

Let me know what you'd like to see from Halo in the comments, and as always, be sure to take part in our poll!

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I know Xbox is currently amid the biggest restructuring in its history, and yes, it all sucks, even if it's probably a necessary change for the company's future. Instead, though, I want to take you back to days gone by, when the infamous Don Mattrick was at the helm.

By all accounts, Mattrick inherited a golden goose in the Xbox 360, only to smash it into a million pieces with the disastrous reveal of the Xbox One. That moment all but erased the goodwill Xbox had built throughout the Xbox 360 era, effectively handed the entire console generation to PlayStation, and created problems the brand is arguably still dealing with today.

Over on BlueSky, former Halo 4 developer Don Callan spoke out about a meeting that was held between 343 Industries at the time and Don Mattrick. Callan recalls it as follows:

“I have very distinct memories of having to demo Halo 4 for Don Mattrick and realizing that these people just live on different planes of reality... I was showing off my mission and when the Mantis showed up... he raised his hand and said to the group, 'Has anyone here played... Diablo 3?'... He then went on to suggest we should copy their idea of a real money auction house for campaign mech skins…”

Callan went on to explain that while everyone around Mattrick outwardly reacted as though it was a brilliant idea, they privately thought it was beyond stupid, especially considering Halo 4 was already around 90% complete. He ultimately summed up his experience by saying, "game execs remain stupid detached money grubbing idiots."

I must admit, as much as I dislike Halo 4 and its gameplay loop (don't worry, I enjoyed the campaign), this really would have been a baffling decision, and one I'm glad never became reality. It's also worth remembering that Diablo 3's real-money auction house was widely criticized at launch and was eventually removed from the game.

Hopefully, Xbox's new leadership has more sense than whatever Mattrick was thinking at the time. With the company still in the middle of a major restructuring, tensions are understandably high both inside Xbox and among fans watching from the outside. But let me know your thoughts. Would Halo 4 have been even worse with a real-money auction house? Leave a comment below and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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One of this year's biggest new games for Microsoft and Xbox is Halo: Campaign Evolved — a full-fledged remake of the first game, 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved, that features new gameplay additions, expanded replayability, and an Unreal Engine 5-powered graphical makeover.

It's headed to Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5 late next month, with Xbox confirming its long-rumored release date of July 28 during the Xbox Games Showcase. Notably, you can jump in on July 23, five days early, if you purchase the Premium Edition; I imagine that's incentivized many players to preorder, leading to the game climbing the Steam sales chart.

Now that the Halo remake is just over a month away from its full launch, something PC players in particular have been wanting to know is what the game's system requirements and recommended specs are.

Thankfully, they've now been announced by Xbox and developer Halo Studios, and I've included them in the below image and table for your convenience:

All in all, for an Unreal Engine 5 title that's aiming to deliver peak visual fidelity, Halo: Campaign Evolved's CPU, GPU, and VRAM requirements aren't too bad at all. Targeting a 1440p / 4K resolution with 60 FPS and Medium or High settings can be done with hardware that's five to six years old, which is likely what many gaming rigs are equipped with.

The memory and storage requirements, though, are a bit harsher. Demanding 16GB of memory for the lower quality levels at 1080p and 1440p is fine — most players have that much — but the requirement for 32GB if you want to push higher is a little debilitating, especially during the ongoing RAM crisis.

Campaign Evolved requires a steep 100GB of SSD space, too, which is quite a lot for a campaign-only FPS game. You'll need to uninstall a game or two if your gaming hard drive doesn't have triple-digit room available.

Something worth noting is that it's unclear if these requirements were determined with or without performance-enhancing technologies like Super Resolution and Frame Generation factored in. What we do know, though, is that Campaign Evolved supports their use, alongside things like NVIDIA Reflex and other anti-latency tools. These will make taking advantage of the game's uncapped framerate easier.

Ultimately, the 100GB requirement aside? I'd say it sounds like the Halo remake has been optimized fairly well, and should run well on most PCs with optimal settings chosen. I can't say that for sure until the game is out, though.

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