Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved
General Information
Release Date(s)	Xbox US: November 15, 2001 UK: March 14, 2002 PC US: September 30, 2003 UK: October 10, 2003 Mac US: December 3, 2003
Genre	First-person shooter
Platform(s)	Xbox, Windows, Mac OS, Xbox 360, Steam, Microsoft Store PC
Game Mode(s)	Single-player campaign, Multiplayer
Distribution Format(s)	CD, Digital
Rating(s)	ESRB: Mature for Blood, Gore, and Violence PEGI: 16 for violence ACB: MA (15+) for Medium-level animated violence
Series Information
Series	Halo (series)
Successor	Halo 2
Technical Details
Engine	Blam! Engine
Production Information
Developer(s)	Bungie Studios
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Director(s)	Jason Jones
Programmer(s)	Paul Bertone, Tyson Green, Jaime Griesemer, Dan Orzulak
Artist(s)	Marcus Lehto
Writer(s)	Joseph Staten
Composer(s)	Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori

Halo: Combat Evolved, also known as Halo: CE or Halo 1, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released as a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox video game console on November 15, 2001. Microsoft released versions of the game for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X in 2003. The game was later released as a downloadable Xbox Original for the Xbox 360. Halo is set in the twenty-sixth century, with the player assuming the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier. The Chief is accompanied by Cortana, an artificial intelligence. Players battle various aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous Halo, a ring-shaped artificial world.

Bungie began the development of what would eventually become Halo in 1997. Initially, the game was a real-time strategy game that morphed into a third-person shooter before becoming a first-person shooter. During development, Microsoft acquired the studio and turned the game into a launch title for its new video game console, the Xbox.

Halo was a critical and commercial success, and has been praised as one of the greatest video games of all time. The game's popularity led to labels such as "Halo clone" and "Halo killer", applied to games either similar to or anticipated to be better than it. Its sequel, Halo 2, was released for the original Xbox in 2004, and the game spawned a multi-billion-dollar multimedia franchise that incorporates games, books, toys, and films. In addition, the game inspired and was used in the fan-created Red vs. Blue video series, which is credited as the "first big success" of machinima (the technique of using real-time 3D engines, often from video games, to create animated films).

More than six million copies were sold worldwide by November 2005. A high-definition remake, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, was released for Xbox 360 on the 10th anniversary of the original game's launch. Anniversary was re-released for Xbox One as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection in 2014 and for PC on May 12, 2020.

Campaign

Halo's storyline is linear, presented through cut-scenes. There is only one ending. The Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved allows one player to play the campaign alone, as well as two players to play cooperatively in split screen. The PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved allows only one player to play through the campaign.

The Halo: Combat Evolved campaign consists of 10 levels:

Mission	Description
The Pillar of Autumn	"Escape intact as Covenant forces board your ship."
Halo	"Seek out surviving Marines and help them fight the Covenant."
The Truth and Reconciliation	"Board a Covenant ship in an attempt to rescue Captain Keyes."
The Silent Cartographer	"Search for the Map room that will lead you to the secrets of Halo."
Assault on the Control Room	"Defend the Control Room against wave after wave of Covenant troops."
343 Guilty Spark	"Creep through a swamp to meet the only enemy the Covenant fear."
The Library	"Fight your way through an ancient security facility in search of the Index."
Two Betrayals	"Re-activate the weapon at the heart of Halo... and learn the truth."
Keyes	"Stage a one-cyborg assault on a Covenant ship and bring back the Captain."
The Maw	"Destroy Halo before Halo destroys all life in the galaxy."

Plot

Master Chief speaking to Captain Keyes and Cortana on the first level and ship, Pillar of Autumn.

Halo, more formally known as Installation 04.

Shortly after the UNSC Pillar of Autumn made a blind slipspace jump from the planet Reach, the crew discover a large mysterious ring world in the orbit of a large gas giant. With the Covenant, a religious alliance of aliens and the mortal enemies of humanity, right on there tail, Captain Keyes decides to evacuate the ship, and initiates the order to thaw the Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 out of cryo-stasis. As the last Surviving SPARTAN II, the Master Chief is the only chance the AI construct known as Cortana has to make it off the ship alive. Keyes explains that Cortana must make it off the ship because if the Covenant capture her they can learn everything about Humanity, including Earth.

Master Chief's lifeboat crashes into Halo.

Keyes decides to go down with the ship while the Master Chief escapes with Cortana. they climb into a life boat with a full crew and attempt to land on the Ring World below them as the Pillar of Autumn is being overrun by the Covenant.

Foehammer picks up Master Chief and the Marines he saved.

Master Chief wakes up and discoveres that he is the only one who survived the crash. He makes his way across a bridge and into some mountains, still unaware of where he is or if anyone else is alive. He discovers a small Forerunner Relay Outpost, with some surviving UNSC Marines under Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson fighting the Covenant around it. Master Chief saves the Marines, and attempts to save the other surviving Marines who made it off the Autumn with assistance from Pelican Pilot Echo 419, or "Foehammer."

After rescuing Captain Keyes, they escape the ship.

Foehammer discovers that Keyes has been taken hostage and is on board the Covenant battlecruiser Truth and Reconciliation. The Master Chief and the Marines infiltrate the ship and rescue the captain, who was being held hostage. Keyes explains that he overheard his guards calling the ring world, "Halo." Cortana accesses the Covenant battlenet communications system where she learns that Halo holds great religious significance to the Covenant, and that it is some kind of weapon with "vast, unimaginable power."

Master Chief leads Marines in the Silent Cartographer.

Halo's map room, the Silent Cartographer.

Realizing that the Covenant cannot be allowed to control Halo, Keyes dispatches Master Chief to find and secure Halo's Control Room while he leaves with Johnson to secure a Covenant weapons cache. With the UNSC Marines as support, Master Chief leads an assault on the Silent Cartographer, a Map room which holds information on every location on the ring, including the Control Room. After unlocking a door on the other side of the island, Master Chief is able to go underground and locate the Map room. Cortana learns that the quickest path to the Control Room is through Halo's underground system. After fighting through waves of Covenant through Forerunner buildings and snowy wastelands, the Master Chief eventually locates the Control Room inside a large pyramid-like structure.

Master Chief arrives at Halo's Control Center.

Heading to the ring's Control Room, Cortana is inserted into the ring's computer system and learns that Halo was made by the Forerunners, an ancient alien race that the Covenant worship as gods. However, Cortana soon learns that there is something else on Halo - something that terrifies the Covenant. Frightened, she says that Master Chief has to stop Keyes from accessing the "weapons cache" before it is too late.

Master Chief finds a dead marine and Jenkin's helmet.

Master Chief leaves for the last location where Keyes and Sergeant Johnson's squad last transmitted on the ring, an underground Forerunner research facility in a swamp. He finds evidence of battle all over the facility. As he delves deeper into the facility, he finds a Marine who begins shooting at him, screaming at the top of his lungs to stay away. Master Chief leaves him and finds a door with a UNSC override device on it. He approaches the door cautiously and listens for any movement inside. Just as he is about to type a command into the spoofer, there is a noise behind him. He turns around, gun ready to shoot, but sees nothing.

Johnson, Keyes, and other marines are attacked by the Flood, as shown in Jenkin's cam.

He opens the door, and the body of a dead Marine falls into his arms. He gently places places the body on the floor as he cautiously walks in. The floor is covered in blood and UNSC weapons. Master Chief finds a helmet from Private Jenkins on the ground with the helmet's recorder chip is still intact. He inserts the chip into his own helmet and watches the recording from Jenkins' point of view. What began as a normal mission and infiltration into the facility turned into a mystery for the squad, as they found already-dead Covenant bodies. They are then attacked and killed by unknown parasitic life forms.

343 Guilty Spark introduces itself to Master Chief.

Chief escapes the facility after being ambushed by an army of mutated Marines and Covenant Elites, and is rescued by flying drones and a friendly flying robotic sphere known as 343 Guilty Spark. Spark is the Monitor of "Installation 04," tells Master Chief that "someone has released the Flood," and that Spark's function is to prevent the Flood from leaving the installation.

Master Chief secures the Index.

Spark transports Master Chief to the Library, an underground research facility that the Flood has infested. It explains that Master Chief, who it calls "Reclaimer," must retrieve the Index to activate Halo and stop the Flood. Master Chief fights his way through locked rooms, hallways, and four floors before retrieving the Index. Spark takes the Index for safekeeping and transports them directly to the Control Room.

343 Guilty Spark and Cortana argue between Master Chief in the level Two Betrayals

Upon entering the Control Room, Master Chief tries to activate the installation. However, Cortana stops him, angrily explaining that she spent 12 hours in the system watching them while laerning Halo's true purpose. She absorbs the Index and explains that Halo doesn't kill Flood, it kills their food - Human, Covenant, and any sentient life. She explains that the only way to kill the Flood is to starve them to death, which is what Halo is designed to do. Spark confirms Cortana's claims, confused that the Master Chief didn't already know this, and tries to reason with Master Chief. After seeing Master Chief put Cortana's chip back into his helmet, and realizing that it cannot persuade him, Spark sends Sentinels to take the Spartan's head, and the AI inside his helmet, in order to take back the Index. Spark then teleports away before the fight begins.

Chief destroys one of Halo's generators.

Cortana explains that they must destroy Halo to keep it from being fired and decides that the best course of action is to detonate the UNSC Pillar of Autumn's fusion engines which should destroy the ring. To buy them some time in case the Monitor finds another way to activate Halo, Cortana tells the Master Chief to disable the three phase pulse generators in the area to force the Monitor to make repairs before Halo can be fired. Cortana is able to use the Covenant battlenet to locate the Pillar of Autumn's crash site, but explains that they need Keyes' neural command codes to activate the ship's self-destruct. She locates the captain's body and transports Master Chief using the same system the Monitor used.

Master Chief finally locates what remains of Captain Keyes.

Master Chief and Cortana are transported back the Truth and Reconciliation ship, and Cortana discovers that Keyes is still alive and his neural implants are intact. They make their way through the ship, noticing that the Flood have already arrived, while Keyes radios in, telling them to leave him. They find a large hull breach in the ship, but notice that the Flood become too numerous to fight, so Master Chief jumps from the ship into the pool of coolant below. He fights his way through Flood and Covenant to get back into the ship. Soon after, they locate Keyes, but he is different - he is now a biomass of Flood and is dead. With no other choice, Master Chief physically removes the Captain's implants which contain the access codes to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn. He then hijacks a Banshee and escapes.

The Pilalr of Autumn's crash site.

Once reaching the Pillar of Autumn's crash site, Cortana tells Master Chief to go to the bridge so that they can use the Captain's neural implants to initiate an overload of the ship's fusion engines and destroy the ring. Fighting his way through Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels, Master Chief locates the bridge and inserts Cortana into the ship's system. Cortana successfully activates the ship's self destruct, but 343 Guilty Spark interupts them. He is in the ship's engine room, scanning computer consoles. He excitedly exclaims the wealth of human history stored on the ships systems, while also aborting the ship's self-destruct sequence. Master Chief decides that the only way to destroy the ship is to do it manually - with grenades.

Cortana activates the Autumn's self-destruct.

As he enters Engineering, Cortana explains that they can't restart the countdown and have to detonate the ship's fusion reactors. While they make their way through the room, battling Flood and Sentinels, Spark attempts to convince them to spare his Installation. The four fusion reactors are eventually destroyed, and Cortana tells Master Chief that they have 15 minutes to leave the ship. She signals for Echo 419 while Master Chief gets on an elevator, and requests immediate extraction from the ship. They enter a Warthog as Cortana explains that they did more damage than she thought, and that they only have five minutes before the ship explodes.

Chief runs to the Longsword while pursued by the Flood.

Driving through the Autumn's service cooridors while being attacked by all of the Flood and Covenant forces on board, they stop at the designated drop zone for Foehammer to pick them up. Upon approach, she is persued by Banshees and Echo 419 is shot down. She is gone. Cortana finds an alternate escape route in a hangar bay, and Master Chief drives as fast as he can toward it. After launching the Warthog over a massive gap, they see a Longsword in the distance. The Covenant have set up a barricade, so Master Chief exits the Warthog and runs toward the ship while being attacked by the Flood. He boards the Longsword and immediately pilots it away from the Autumn right before it explodes.

Halo destroyed from Pillar of Autumn's explosion in The Maw

As the Longsword sweeps past the view, the distant side of Halo is drowned out in a blinding explosion as the Pillar of Autumn's engines detonate. A massive shockwave sweeps through the Installation. With its structural integrity compromised, the rotating ringworld begins to fragment. Halo has broken into a dozens large fragments, all of which are slowly spinning away from each other. One massive fragment is swiftly launched into the far side of the ring, colliding with it and splitting the ring in half.

Chief finally relaxes by taking off his helmet.

Master Chief asks if anyone else made it. Cortana scans for lifesigns, but is unable to find anything. She rationales that they did what they had to do for Earth and that Halo is finished, but Master Chief believes that they are just getting started.

As they float through space, Chief finally relaxes and takes off his helmet, but his face is hidden by the framing of the ship.

After the credits, it's slowly revealed that 343 Guilty Spark survived Halo's explosion as it flies through space.

Backstory

The events which transpire in Halo's gameplay must be understood in the context of its backstory, created by Bungie and elaborated in several novels written after the release of the game. Noteworthy is its use of the oft-used battle between monoculture radicalism and free culturalism. Also present, although less pronounced, is the likewise popular theme of blind religion (Covenant) versus free-thought secularism (UNSC). A summary of this back story is presented below.

Early conflicts

2160-2200: This is a period of brutal unrest in Human history in which National governments and break-off factions fight for control of Earth and its colonies.

As overpopulation and unrest mounted on Earth, a number of new political movements were formed including the neo-communist Koslovics, led by Vladimir Koslov, and the neo-fascist Frieden based on the Jovian Moons, which attacked the UN Colonial Advisers on one of the moons. UN-sponsored military forces began a pattern of massive build-ups which culminated in the Jovian Moons campaign, the Rainforest Wars and the first Interplanetary War. After the successful Marine attack on Mars, recruitment drives and propaganda tactics strongly bolstered UNSC forces. They defeated the Koslovics and the Frieden on Earth and crushed their remnants throughout the Solar System. Both factions were defeated in the face of massive, unified UN military.

Human colonization of the Orion Arm

In the year 2291, the UNSC successfully developed humanity's first Slipspace drive, the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. For the first time in history, the rapid colonization of other worlds was made possible. By 2390, 210 worlds had been occupied by humans, and were being actively terraformed to suit man's needs. These worlds were to become known as the Inner colonies. By 2490, the UNSC's fledgling interstellar empire had expanded to over 800 planets throughout the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. During this period, the planet Reach became the headquarters of the UNSC military, and was destined to become the most heavily fortified world under human control.

The SPARTAN-II Project

In 2517, several years before contact with the Covenant, the UNSC military embarked on a secret project to create a group of super soldiers that would deal with occasional unrest in the Colonies. Codenamed SPARTANs, these genetically enhanced troops were trained from the age of 6 into a life of battle, and became a great asset against the Covenant. While humans suffered defeat after defeat in space, they could almost always prevail with the help of the SPARTANs in ground engagements. The main character of Halo's gameplay, Master Chief, is a veteran SPARTAN of the SPARTAN-II project after an unfortunate failure of the first SPARTAN program (code name Orion). All SPARTAN-IIs were given special armor designated Mjolnir, which can increase their strength and speed. They were the only ones who could wear it as those without physical augmentation would not be able to withstand the reaction times of the armor and die.

Fall of the Outer Colonies

After first contact with the Covenant was made on the colony of Harvest in 2525, a series of brutal engagements followed. Admiral Preston Cole's fleet managed a victory at Harvest, but at a high cost - two thirds of his ships were destroyed. Despite significant tactical brilliance on the part of Human commanders, Covenant technology guaranteed a four to one kill/loss ratio in most space battles. One by one, the Outer Colonies fell below the onslaught, and by 2535, virtually all had been destroyed.

Fall of Reach

By 2552, the Covenant had destroyed many of Humanity's Inner colonies. In a move of desperation, UNSC orders a secret plan to capture a Covenant ship using a SPARTAN task force and find the coordinates of their home planet. All of the Spartans except three are chosen for this mission, and, led by Master Chief, board a specially outfitted ship known as the Pillar of Autumn (under the command of Captain Jacob Keyes). This plan, however, is interrupted when the Covenant launch a surprise attack on the fortress world of Reach.

During this battle, Reach is overrun and the human fleet is obliterated. Worse still, Master Chief thinks that all of the SPARTANs but himself are killed on the surface of the planet. The (supposedly) last remaining Spartan, Master Chief, escapes with the Pillar of Autumn. In accordance with the Cole Protocol, the Autumn makes a blind Slipspace jump, and emerges in the vicinity of an unexplored and remarkable world.

Arrival at Halo

The Pillar of Autumn exits Slipspace to find a mysterious ring shaped space station orbiting a gas giant. The ring, quickly named "Halo," is obviously artificial. A Covenant fleet, however, is also present, and a subsequent battle heavily damages the Autumn. Captain Keyes initiates the Cole protocol 2 - all records of Earth's location are erased, the shipboard AI Cortana is given to Master Chief to protect from the Covenant, and the Autumn is crash landed onto Halo. Cortana leaves the Autumn with Master Chief in a Bumblebee escape pod which also crash lands on Halo.

Game play begins in earnest with Master Chief's escape from the Autumn, and continues upon landing. The player will soon discover the origins and purpose of this world - and uncover a threat that forces even the Covenant into retreat.

Characters

Main Characters	Minor Characters
Human Master Chief John-117 Captain Jacob Keyes Carol "Foehammer" Rawley Sergeant Avery Johnson AI Cortana 343 Guilty Spark	Bisenti Chips Dubbo Kappus Lovik M. Fitzgerald Manuel Mendoza Marcus Stacker Riley Samuel Marcus Thom Shepard Wallace Jenkins

Enemies

The A.I. in Halo was superior to many other games at the time because the A.I. was sophisticated enough to attack other enemies in the vicinity, not just Master Chief. If there is another faction in the area, the A.I. will engage it in the same way as they would fight Master Chief.

Three factions of enemies are encountered on Halo:

• The Covenant: The Covenant, whose Fleet of Particular Justice was led by the Supreme Commander, Thel 'Vadamee, is an alliance of different species. This includes the cowardly Unggoy, the Kig-Yar with their portable Energy Shields, the Sangheili, master tacticians with their body-covering Energy Shields, and the huge, metal Hunters with remarkably strong armor composed of some unknown alloy. The Covenant troops mostly carry plasma weapons of various power. They also make extensive use of vehicles such as Ghosts, Wraiths, Shades, and Banshees.
• The Flood: The parasitic Flood are encountered in three forms. The Infection Forms themselves, which usually die from a single shot or Master Chief's energy shield. Exploding Carrier Forms, which cause major splash damage and release Infection Forms. Not forgetting the Combat Forms of former Humans or Sangheili whose nervous systems have been taken over by the parasite. Combat forms are the main and toughest of the three types. They often carry a Human or Covenant weapon.
• Forerunner: Though Forerunners aren't actually present, they have left their ancient robotic constructs called Sentinels controlled by the Forerunner AI Monitor of Installation 04, 343 Guilty Spark. 343 Guilty Spark is tasked with the defense of the ring against possible threats and to control the Flood infestations. Sentinels fire an orange colored beam that can strip hostiles of their Energy Shields. This weapon is designed to burn the Flood and has proven effective against many other enemies.

Allies

• UNSC Marines: The Pillar of Autumn's complement of Marines assists the player often in the game. They are helpful, but on higher difficulties they are easily killed by enemies. They wield a variety of weapons. These include the Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, Needler, and Plasma Rifle. Marines armed with Assault Rifles will occasionally throw Fragmentation Grenades. The Marines will willingly ride in Scorpions and Warthogs with the player and use the Chaingun on the Warthog while the player is driving. Unfortunately they are incapable of actually driving either vehicle. The only vehicle that Marines can drive is the Ghost, which they pilot only briefly. They appear in every level until the Library. When Marines are near death they will go into a berserk state, attacking every visible enemy.
• UNSC Crewmen: The crewmen of the Pillar of Autumn appear briefly as allies in the game. They are armed with Pistols, but occasionally appear in combat unarmed. They have lower health than Marines and are prone to retreating and cowering in battle. They only appear in the levels Pillar of Autumn and Halo. One melee is often enough to kill them and their habit of cowering tend to make them an obstacle to their comrades.
• Sentinels: Part of Halo's defense system, the Forerunner Sentinels, led by the Monitor 343 Guilty Spark, are hovering robotic drones. They attack the Flood, Covenant, and eventually Master Chief. Although possessing a powerful Beam Weapon, they are not particularly resistant to damage (Their shields are especially vulnerable to Covenant weaponry, especially overcharged Plasma Pistols and explosives). There are 2 variants that show up in Halo CE; Normal and Shielded variants although both can be destroyed relatively easily. They help the player in the levels 343 Guilty Spark and The Library, but are enemies from the level Two Betrayals until the end of the game, acting as a Fourth Faction that attacks the Flood, Covenant, and the player when encountered.

Development

Prototypes

Evolution of Halo Part 1- Pre-Xbox RTS to Third-Person Versions

Pre-Xbox RTS and third-person footage

Halo was conceived as an indirect successor to Bungie's previous first-person shooter games, Marathon and Marathon 2: Durandal. After the 1995 release of Durandal, Bungie considered ideas for their next game and wanted to try something other than a direct sequel. One of the ideas that the team began to develop was that of a first-person shooter game described by co-founder Jason Jones as "the natural extension of Marathon, which would have turned out to be something along the lines of Quake". Concurrently, the team explored the concept of a vehicular combat game that featured tank battles in a futuristic setting, internally dubbed "The Giant Bloody War Game". Jones started the design of a 3D engine that could generate height-mapped graphics to visualize elevated surfaces, and he eventually suggested that Bungie use the technology to realize the "tank combat" idea. The team was enthusiastic about that prospect and proceeded to cancel their first-person shooter project–to commit to the creation of "The Giant Bloody War Game". However, Jones struggled to implement a physics model to simulate vehicles in the game, which led Bungie to change their plans and develop the real-time strategy game (RTS) Myth: The Fallen Lords, released in 1997.

Around this time, Bungie comprised around 15 people working in south Chicago, Illinois. After Myth was completed and Bungie decided on a sequel, Myth II: Soulblighter, Jones delegated its development to the company's other designers and resumed his work on the technology that had not been applied to the 1997 title. A group of three Bungie staffers began to develop an RTS with a focus on science fiction, realistic physics simulations and three-dimensional terrain. Early versions used the Myth engine and isometric perspective. The project had the initial working title Armor, but was changed for being "boring" and for the project's dramatic changes from what was first envisioned. It was switched to Monkey Nuts, then Blam! after Jones could not bring himself to tell his mother the original name.

Experimenting with ways of controlling units, Bungie added a mode that attached the camera to individual units. The vantage point continually moved closer to the units as the developers realized it would be more fun for players to drive the vehicles themselves, rather than have the computer do it. "And controlling [the vehicle], just that double tactile nature of load a dude in, get a dude out, hands on the steering wheel—it was like, this shouldn't be an RTS game," recalled Seropian. By mid-1998 the game had become a third-person shooter.

Peter Tamte, Bungie's then-executive vice president, used his contacts from his former position at Apple to get lead writer Joseph Staten and project lead Jason Jones an audience with CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs, impressed, agreed to debut the game to the world at the 1999 Macworld Conference & Expo. Anticipation built for the unknown Bungie game after favorable reviews from industry journalists under non-disclosure agreements at Electronic Entertainment Expo 1999.

Days before the Macworld announcement, Blam! still had no permanent title; possible names included The Santa Machine, Solipsis, The Crystal Palace, Hard Vacuum, Star Maker, and Star Shield. Bungie hired a branding firm that came up with the name Covenant, but Bungie artist Paul Russell suggested alternatives, including Halo. Though some did not like the name—likening it to something religious, or a women's shampoo—designer Marcus Lehto said, "it described enough about what our intent was for this universe in a way that created this sense of mystery." On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Jobs announced that Halo would be released for MacOS and Windows simultaneously.

The game's premise at this point involved a human transport starship that crash-lands on a mysterious ringworld. Early versions of the Covenant arrive to loot what they can, and war erupts between them and the humans. Unable to match the technologically advanced alien race, the humans resort to guerrilla warfare. At this point, Bungie promised an open-world game with terrain that reacted and deformed from explosions, persistent environment details such as spent shell casings, and variable weather, none of which made it into the final product. These early versions featured Halo-specific fauna, later dropped following design difficulties and the creatures' detraction from the surprise appearance of the Flood. The Master Chief was simply known as the cyborg. When Halo was shown at E3 in June 2000, it was still a third-person shooter.

Move to Xbox

Bungie's financial situation during Halo's development was precarious. Ahead of Myth II: Soulblighter's release, Bungie was surviving on Myth sales and had missed release dates. A glitch that caused Myth II to wipe the contents of the directory it was installed to was only discovered after 200,000 copies had already been produced for the December 1998 launch. Bungie recalled the copies and issued a fix, costing the company $800,000. As a result, Bungie sold a share of the company and publishing rights to Take-Two Interactive.

Still facing financial difficulties, Bungie's Tamte contacted Ed Fries, the head of Microsoft Game Studios, about a possible acquisition. Fries was working on developing the software lineup for Microsoft's first game console, the Xbox. Fries negotiated an agreement with Take-Two Interactive wherein Microsoft gained Bungie and the rights to Halo, while Take-Two kept the Myth and Oni properties. Jones and Seropian pitched the purchase to the rest of Bungie as the way they could shape the future of a new game console. Microsoft announced its acquisition of Bungie on June 19, 2000. Halo was now to be the tentpole launch game for the Xbox.

In less than a year, Bungie had to turn Halo from a loose collection of gameplay and plot ideas into a shipping product on an unproven console. To make players feel more connected to the action, Jason Jones pushed to turn the game's perspective from third-person to first-person. A key concern was making sure the game played well on the Xbox's gamepad; at the time, first-person shooters on consoles were rare. Spearheading the effort, designer Jaime Griesemer wrote code to discern player intent and assist the player's movement and aiming without being obvious. The game buffered player inputs so that the result was the desired player movement, rather than the movement players were actually making.

Other Bungie projects were scrapped, and their teams absorbed into Halo in the rush to complete it. Griesemer said that after the Bungie team moved to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, he was so busy he did not unpack his belongings for six months. The designers prototyped encounters and enemy AI on a sandbox level, "B30". The success of gameplay on this small chunk of the game energized the team, and B30 became "The Silent Cartographer", the fourth mission.

To make the release date, Bungie made drastic cuts to the game's features and scope. The open-world plans were scrapped, and it became clear the lengthy planned campaign was not feasible. One level was cut and replaced with an expositional cutscene. Staten described his role as putting "story duct tape" over gaps that appeared to smooth them over. To save time, Lehto suggested reusing campaign levels; glowing directional arrows were added after playtesters got lost backtracking. Microsoft game writers Eric Trautmann and Brannon Boren performed last-minute rewrites to the script. An online multiplayer component was dropped because Xbox Live would not be ready. Only four months before release, it was decided that the multiplayer was still not fun, so it was scrapped and rebuilt from scratch, using team members who moved from the defunct Bungie West team after completing Oni. Some personnel took to sleeping in the office for the last few months to make sure the game made its deadline.

Design

Bungie's social culture—and the rush to complete the game—meant that team members provided input and feedback across disciplines. Aspects such as level design demanded collaboration between the designers creating the environments for players to explore, and the artists who developed those environments' aesthetics. Initially, artists Robert McLees and Lehto were the only artists working on what would become Halo. Bungie hired Shi Kai Wang as an additional artist to refine Lehto's designs. The aliens making up the Covenant began with varied exploratory designs that coalesced once each enemy's role in the gameplay was defined.

Spearheaded by Paul Russell, the game's visual design changed in response to the changing gameplay and story. The artists made efforts to distinguish each faction in the game by their architecture, technology, and weaponry. The UNSC's original curved look was made blockier to distinguish it from the Covenant; likewise human weapons remained projectile-based to provide a contrast to the Covenant's energy weapons, and their vehicles based on animals, with the Warthog being inspired by Lehto's love of off-roading. The interiors of Pillar of Autumn drew significant influence from the production design of the film Aliens. Organic, curvilinear forms along with a color palette of greens and purples were used for the Covenant, while the Forerunner came to be defined by their angular constructions; the interiors originally drew on Aztec patterns and the work of Louis Sullivan, before becoming more refined just five months from the game's completion.

Audio

Composer Martin O'Donnell and his company TotalAudio were tasked with creating the music for Halo's MacWorld debut. Staten told O'Donnell that the music should give a feeling of ancient mystery. O'Donnell decided Gregorian chant would be appropriate, and performed the vocals alongside his composing partner Michael Salvatori and additional singers. Because he did not know how long the presentation would be, O'Donnell created "smushy" opening and closing sections that could be expanded or cut as the time required to back up a rhythmic middle section. The music was recorded in Chicago and sent to New York for the show the same night the piece was finished.

Shortly before Bungie was bought by Microsoft, O'Donnell joined Bungie as a staff member, while Salvatori remained at TotalAudio. O'Donnell designed the music so that it "could be dissembled and remixed in such a way that would give [him] multiple, interchangeable loops that could be randomly recombined in order to keep the piece interesting as well as a variable-length". Development involved the creation of "alternative middle sections that could be transitioned to if the game called for such a change (i.e. less or more intense)."

O'Donnell sat with the level designers to walk through the levels, constructing music that would adapt to the gameplay rather than be static; "The level designer would tell me what he hoped a player would feel at certain points or after accomplishing certain tasks." Based on this information, O'Donnell would develop cues the designer could script into the level, and then he and the designer would play through the mission to see if the audio worked. He made sparse use of music because he believes that "[music] is best used in a game to quicken the emotional state of the player and it works best when used least," and that "[if] music is constantly playing it tends to become sonic wallpaper and loses its impact when it is needed to truly enhance some dramatic component of gameplay." The cutscenes came so late that O'Donnell had to score them in only three days.

Features

Summary

Halo's gameplay was characterized by several features which set it apart from less acclaimed first-person shooter games of its time.

• Storyline Execution:'Halos gameplay and storyline are tightly interwoven, delivering in a convincing manner being consistent with the flow of the game.
• Vehicular Incorporation: Halo includes the option for players to control multiple land and air based vehicles in third-person view. This Third-Person vantage brings a welcomed sense of immersion and enhances the specific points of gameplay, again setting Halo apart from contemporary first person shooters.
• Weapons System: Halos new weapons system is unique in two major respects. The first is allowing players to carry only two weapons at a time, thus forcing the player to make trade-offs as they progress throughout the game. The second change is a separate button for throwing Grenades.
• Artificial Intelligence: Halos AI is quite sophisticated for its era. With a brand new advanced AI system, actions performed by the AI such as panicking after the death of a superior, diving out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, or taking cover from explosives and suppressive fire, helped Halo stand out from the rest of the first-person shooters being released at the time.

Movement in Halo is similar to other first-person shooters, allowing the player to move forwards, backwards, and strafe left and right independently of their aim. On the Xbox, moving and aiming are normally separated between the two analogue sticks; and on the PC, between the mouse and the keyboard. Halo also allows the player to crouch and jump, although jumping from a high ledge will often result in death, or at least major fall damage. Damage from falling can be reduced or negated entirely with a well-timed crouch right as one lands. Additionally, if the player crouches at the peak of his jump he will be able to land on something slightly taller than if he were to jump without crouching. Also, if the player is jumping from a cliff he can make sure he is touching the wall periodically while he is falling. This will count as if he is touching floor, and every time the player touches the wall, the damage counter goes to zero. However, there is no visible damage counter during gameplay.

Levels of Difficulty

There are short summaries that describe the difficulties in Halo: Combat Evolved.

Difficulties	Symbol	Description
Easy		"Your foes cower and fall before your unstoppable onslaught, yet final victory will leave you wanting more."
Normal		"Hordes of aliens vie to destroy you, but nerves of steel and a quick trigger finger give you a solid chance to prevail."
Heroic		"Your enemies are as numerous as they are ferocious; their attacks are devastating. Survival is not guaranteed."
Legendary		"You face opponents who have never known defeat, who laugh in alien tongues at your efforts to survive. This is suicide."

Weapons

All usable weapons in Halo: Combat Evolved belong to either the Covenant or the UNSC. The player can carry two weapons and up to 8 grenades (Four Fragmentation Grenades and Four Plasma Grenades).

Covenant weapons are better suited for reducing shields and typically fire slower than human weapons. With the exception of the Needler, they do not require ammunition or reloading. Instead, each weapon comes with its own battery. Once the battery is depleted the weapon must be discarded. Covenant weapons can also overheat (except the Needler) if fired for too long, after which they must be given time to cool down before they can be used again. There are a total of five Covenant weapons in the Campaign, three of which are usable by the player: the Plasma Pistol, Plasma Rifle, and the Needler. The two weapons the player can't use are the Energy Sword, which destabilizes after you kill the Sangheili using it, and the Fuel Rod Gun, which explodes after you kill the enemy using it. There are two additional weapons in the multiplayer mode of the PC version only, the Fuel Rod Gun and Flamethrower. A plasma based weapon of the same type but with greater charge than the player's current one will appear as a swappable weapon. If the weapon has lesser charge, it is not swappable until the player's current charge falls low enough. Needlers automatically collect any ammunition from other needlers the player moves over. Needlers can also use some very rare individual packs of projectiles.

Human weapons, on the other hand, require ammunition and constant reloading. They are better suited for reducing health and do not overheat. However, on the Easy and Normal difficulty settings the difference is often negligible. There are five human weapons (not counting Fragmentation Grenades) usable in the Campaign and six in the Multiplayer of the Halo PC.

United Nations Space Command	Covenant
MA5B Assault Rifle M6D Pistol M90 Shotgun SRS99C-S2 AM Sniper Rifle M9 Fragmentation Grenade M41 Rocket Launcher M7057 Flamethrower* *PC only	Plasma Rifle Plasma Pistol Needler Plasma Grenade Fuel Rod Gun* *PC only

Vehicles

The vehicles available to the player in this game are listed below:

United Nations Space Command	Covenant
M12 Chaingun Warthog M808B Scorpion Tank M12A1 Rocket Warthog* *PC only	Ghost Banshee

Several vehicles are not controllable by the player, like the UNSC Pelican Dropship, the Covenant Spirit dropship, and the Covenant Wraith Mortar Tank. The Wraith requires ballistic aiming, firing large Plasma Bombs in arcs towards its enemies, similar to artillery. These bombs, if they score a direct hit, will often destroy vehicles or kill a Spartan if he/she is not equipped with an Overshield. Wraiths can be destroyed with explosive weapons such as the Scorpion's Main Cannon and the rocket launcher.

Also, it is very easy to splatter enemies in Halo: Combat Evolved because the game's physics engine cannot discern between a fast and slow-moving vehicle, thus making it so that a slight touch, even by accident, will kill it. This is especially frustrating on the level "The Silent Cartographer"'s LZ, as Marines tend to dive underneath the level's many Warthogs, and in multiplayer, since the player can easily be killed by unoccupied vehicles.

Environments

Halo features a wide variety of environments including human and Covenant star ships, ancient buildings on Halo itself, and expansive outdoor climates. The first level, Pillar of Autumn, is fought entirely on the human star ship of the same name. The next level, Halo, takes place in a temperate highland climate with open-air Forerunner structures scattered about. This level also contains the famous "Blue Beam Towers." Truth and Reconciliation begins in a rocky desert, but the setting changes to the titular Covenant cruiser about one-third of the way through. The Silent Cartographer occurs on a tropical island, with substantial combat both outdoors and inside futuristic Forerunner installations. Assault on the Control Room takes place in a snowy, icy area of towering cliffs and underground tunnels as well as high-tech suspension bridges and oft-repeated Forerunner structures built into and through cliff walls.

343 Guilty Spark is a significant departure from these majestic environments, with combat in gloomy, exotic swamps and equally gloomy underground complexes that host the player's introduction to the Flood. The player is then teleported to the second of three entirely indoor levels, The Library, encountering repetitive, foreboding hallways and massive elevators. Master Chief returns to the snowy climate of Assault on the Control Room for Two Betrayals, visiting almost no new areas but, interestingly, traveling in the opposite direction. Keyes occurs in the same rocky deserts and the same Covenant ship from Truth and Reconciliation, albeit now heavily damaged, but this time the Flood are present in huge numbers. Finally, The Maw is set on the Pillar of Autumn with three major differences: the presence of the Flood, the heavy structural damage, and access to the Engineering section and service corridors of the ship, which were previously off-limits. In total, six of the ten levels feature a substantial amount of combat outdoors.

Multiplayer

Up to four players can play together using the same-console split screen mode. It is also possible for up to 16 players to play together in one Halo game over a local area network, using Xbox and/or Xbox 360 consoles that have been connected through an Ethernet hub, or via Xbox Connect, which is a way of tunneling a connection via a PC. The game's seamless support for this type of play, and a few large maps that can accommodate up to 16 combatants, is a first for console games.

Since the game was released before the launch of Xbox Live, mainstream online play was not available for this title. The PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved officially added online play, also new vehicles (Banshee and Rocket Warthog), weapons (Fuel Rod Gun and Flamethrower) and maps (see list below) for multiplayer. The PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved does not support split screen multiplayer.

Multiplayer Maps

Arena		Big Team Battle
Image	Map	Image	Map
Default		Default
	Battle Creek		Blood Gulch
	Damnation		Sidewinder
	Rat Race		Boarding Action
	Prisoner	PC/Mac Maps
	Hang 'Em High		Death Island
	Chill Out		Danger Canyon
	Derelict		Infinity
	Longest		Timberland
	Chiron TL-34		Ice Fields
	Wizard		Gephyrophobia

Damage System

• Health: The player in Halo has limited, non-regenerating health, which can be fully restored by picking up health-packs. This aspect of the game was changed in Halo 2, but returned in Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. Running completely out of health will result in death, but having lower health does not impede player actions. A player's health can be reduced only if his shields have been depleted. If the player's health is at minimal levels they will faintly hear Master Chief's heartbeat. When the non-regenerative health idea was abandoned in Halo 2 the medic packs disappeared completely.
• Shields: Master Chief's Mjolnir Mk. V armor has a built-in shield, which protects all parts of his body from damage. The shield will decrease in strength every time it is hit by a weapon and will fail after taking too many hits. The amount of shield drain depends on the attacker's weapon but will quickly regenerate if it is not hit for a brief period of time. The shield represents a marked departure from most first-person shooters, in which one's health bar is basically augmented by picking up "armor." It is possible, in the single-player campaign at least, to have insufficient health points to survive the next section of game-play. Halo players, on the other hand, have a more-or-less permanent buffer of health at their disposal (assuming they manage to find time to regenerate the shield), making it less of a disaster to take hits in combat.

Power Ups

There are three power ups available in Halo:

• Health Kit: (White octagon with red cross) Fully restores the player's health.
• Active Camouflage: Drastically reduces the player's visibility for approximately 45 seconds, making all but a faint outline of him transparent. This effect is reduced or void if the player is holding a flag or skull (in multiplayer), hit by weapons fire, fires their weapon, or when time runs out.
• Overshield: An enhanced, non-regenerating shield which is two times, (three times on enemies) the strength of the normal one. The overshield functions on top of the regular shield; when it is active, the normal shield does not take damage. In the single player game, the overshield is reduced only when the player is hit, while in the multiplayer game, it weakens gradually over time. One fully charged Plasma Pistol shot can take out the overshield and regular shield entirely. Additionally, while the over shield is charging, the player is completely invincible against almost every type of damage. The player can still be killed by assassination, however.

Marketing Promotions and Release

Halo Combat Evolved • E3 2000 Trailer • Xbox

E3 200 Halo trailer

Demonstration

In 2000 at E3, Bungie showed off a trailer of the upcoming game to the public. This trailer featured Marines along with the Master Chief scouting out a Forerunner structure and the Covenant fighting them. During this trailer there was still no active AI so all the Covenant was actually controlled by Bungie. This trailer was before the conversion to the Xbox as an FPS.

Viral Campaign

Before Halo: Combat Evolved was released, a series of cryptic emails were sent to marathon.bungie.org. The emails were supposedly written by Cortana, but the contents written were greatly out of her character. Her hacking skills, however, were shown, having some of the messages from other email accounts and even from the 1.3 version of the Bungie game Myth: The Fallen Lords CD. These messages provided a small glimpse of the Halo Trilogy plot and were called the Cortana Letters.

Package

The game shipped with a game disc, and a manual detailing how to play the game and why everything is happening so far in the story.

Reception

Aggregate Score
Metacritic	Xbox 97/100 PC 83/100
Review Scores
AllGame	4/5
Edge	10/10
Eurogamer	8/10
Famitsu	33/40
Game Informer	9.5/10
GameSpot	9.7/10
GameSpy	80/100
IGN	9.7/10
Next Generation	5/5
Official Xbox Magazine (US)	9.5/10

Halo was the main launch title for Xbox and is said to be the game that made the Xbox what it is today. It was widely renowned for saving the fledgling Xbox platform, as the Xbox lacked any titles to compete with Sony's PlayStation 2 or Nintendo's GameCube. Halo became an overnight success and managed to drive the platform from the brink of an early death. It went on to sell 6.43 million copies; in other words, 26% of all Xbox owners also owned Halo.

It was also critically acclaimed. IGN gave the game a 9.7 out of 10 and stated it to be the best Xbox game of all time. X-Play gave it a perfect 5 out of 5. The game got a perfect ten from EGM, and was 2002 Game of the Year for IGN, EGM, OXM, and AIAS. It got a 9.5 out of 10 from Game Informer, and an average meta-score of 97 out of 100, making it the most highly rated Xbox game of all time. It also got a score of 9.0 for the PC version and 9.7 for the Xbox version from Gamespot. It was also called the game that reinvented a genre. OXM rated Halo: CE Number 1 in a list of the 100 best games of recent memory, saying "The Xbox did not create Halo, Halo made the Xbox".

Rereleases

• 2003 - Rereleased for PC and Mac platforms as Halo: Combat Evolved for PC.
• 2004 - Rereleased with a special version of the Xbox in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. This version was translucent green and came with a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved and a matching translucent green Controller S. The console case featured the Halo logo and the words "Special Edition"; the controller had a jewel that had the Halo logo in place of the normal Xbox logo. The version of Halo that came with this bundle was identical to other versions of Halo, with the exception of a "NOT FOR RESALE" notice placed on the front of the game case. -
• 2004 - Rereleased as part of Action Double Pack which included Brute Force and Halo: Combat Evolved.
• 2005 - Rereleased as part of the Halo Triple Pack which contained Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack.
• 2007 - Rereleased as part of the Japan exclusive Halo History Pack, which contained Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and a sneak peek of Halo 3, and as part of Xbox LIVE's Xbox Originals.
• 2011 - Remade as Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary to tie in with Halo's tenth anniversary.
• 2014 - Rerelease of Anniversary as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Xbox One, with the original Halo multiplayer compatible for the first time ever with console matchmaking.
• 2020 - Rerelease of Anniversary as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Windows 10 and Steam.

Awards

The Xbox version of Halo received more than 40 awards, including numerous Game of the Year awards, including from AIAS, EGM, Edge, and IGN. GameSpot named Halo the third-best console game of 2001, and it won the publication's annual "Best Xbox Game" and, among console games, "Best Shooting Game" awards. It was a runner-up in the "Best Sound" category. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded Halo "Best Console Game" and Rolling Stone presented it with their "Best Original Soundtrack" award. Halo also won The Electric Playground's 2001 "Best Console Shooter" award, the "11th Annual GamePro Readers' Choice Awards" for "Best Combat Game of The Year", and Golden Joystick Awards for "Xbox Game of the Year" in 2002. as well as Spike Video Game Awards for "Best PC Game" in 2003.

Halo: Combat Evolved won four awards at the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards): "Game of the Year", "Console Game of the Year", "Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year", and "Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering"; it also received nominations for "Outstanding Innovation in Console Gaming", "Outstanding Achievement in Game Design", "Outstanding Achievement in Game Play Engineering", and "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction"

Next Generation reviewed the Xbox version of the game, rating it five stars out of five, and stated that "If you didn't think there was a reason to buy an Xbox, Halo will change your mind."

Halo has been praised as one of the greatest video games of all time, and was ranked by IGN as the fourth-best first-person shooter made. In 2017, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Halo to its World Video Game Hall of Fame.

Retail Editions

Comparison

Features	Standard	Classics	Platinum Hits
Image of contents
Game disc	Yes	Yes	Yes
Instruction manual	Yes	Yes	Yes
Commemorative box art	No	Yes	Yes

Standard Edition

The standard edition of the game includes the disk and manual, and has remained unchanged since the game's release. This edition has ceased production, along with the original Xbox itself.

Classics Edition

Due to its huge retail success, Halo: CE received a Xbox Classics edition. This version is essentially identical to the standard edition, except with a commemorative box art. It was available for a reduced price, but has now stopped production.

Platinum Hits Edition

Again, due to its record-breaking sale numbers, a Platinum Hits edition of Halo: CE was produced. This version, like the Classics Version, contains the same content as the standard edition, but with a different box art. This version is no longer in production.

Standard Edition 2003

There was a rerelease of the standard version in 2003 which added previews of Halo 2.

Halo: Original Soundtrack

Cover art

The Halo: Original Soundtrack, composed and produced by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori for the video game Halo: Combat Evolved, is one CD comprising 26 tracks. Some editions include a bonus DVD with game trailers for Halo 2. Most of the music from Halo: Combat Evolved is present on the CD, although some songs are remixed and some tracks are intermixed with others in medley form. It was released on June 11, 2002. The soundtrack received a large amount of praise from many critics. Martin O'Donnell has stated that his goal was to provide "a feeling of importance, weight, and sense of the 'ancient'." He designed the music so that it "could be dissembled and remixed in such a way that would give [him] multiple, interchangeable loops that could be randomly recombined in order to keep the piece interesting as well as a variable length". Development involved the creation of "alternative middle sections that could be transitioned to if the game called for such a change (i.e. less or more intense)."

Martin O'Donnell has remarked that he "sat with the level designers and 'spotted' the level as though it was a movie, with the knowledge that the music would have to be malleable rather than static... [T]he level designer would tell me what he hoped a player would feel at certain points or after accomplishing certain tasks". Based on this information, O'Donnell would "go back and develop appropriate music cues, then have the designer script the cues into the level, and then we'd play through it to see if it worked as desired." He explained that the use of music in Halo is sparse because he believes that "[music] is best used in a game to quicken the emotional state of the player and it works best when used least", and that "[if] music is constantly playing it tends to become sonic wallpaper and loses its impact when it is needed to truly enhance some dramatic component of game play."

Trivia

• As a literary side note, the ring, "Halo," borrows heavily from the Ringworld of Larry Niven and the Culture Orbitals of Iain M. Banks.
• The game has multiple references to Bungie's game, Marathon.
• Halo was originally being developed for the Mac and PC as a real time strategy game (similar to Halo Wars), before Microsoft took interest in its development and purchased Bungie Studios, thereby owning a promising video game to use exclusively with the Xbox.
• There are 8,087 lines of dialogue in the game, most of them randomly triggered during combat.
• The Halo: Combat Evolved box art shows the Banshees in the background in their pilotless stance, yet they are still flying. Similarly, they are shown firing thin laser beams, rather than the plasma orbs that they actually fire in-game.
• Bungie mentioned that none of the characters in the E3 video for Halo: Combat Evolved had AI. In fact, all of the movement was actually scripted. This, however, was proven to be partly false. The AI will move to what are called "firing positions," which are not only places that the AI fire from, but places which the AI will not stop moving unless already in one, save for scripted command lists, although the AI will usually attempt to move to a firing position.
• Halo: Combat Evolved was originally going to have most of the weapons that were introduced in Halo 2 and Halo 3, but due to time constraints, most of the weapons were cut from the final version.
• In the Halo: Combat Evolved handbook, the Plasma Rifle's "blueprint" is an overlap of a Needler underneath and the rifle on top.
• Halo: Combat Evolved was originally planned to have a changing weather system, which was mentioned in the August 2000 issue of PC Gamer magazine.
• Halo: Combat Evolved was not the original title made by Bungie; the original title of the game had always been intended to be simply "Halo." The subtitle "Combat Evolved" was added by Microsoft Game Studios during Halo's development phase, believing "Halo" by itself was not a descriptive enough title (much to Bungie's irritation). This can be proved that in the main menu the title is labeled simply as "Halo." The title is also labeled simply as Halo on the side of the box. Also, the game's official soundtrack lists the game as simply Halo.
• Halo: Combat Evolved was a launch title for the Xbox, as well as the only Halo title to be a launch title for any Xbox system so far.
• This is the only game in the series with only a single named antagonist: 343 Guilty Spark.
• Though there are no special editions of the game, there is a rare version of it. Most copies of the game feature the words "Game of the Year" on a golden star with reviews on the back. An original copy of the game features none of these on it. Copies of this version are extremely rare but are usually cheap. The Game of the Year edition features a slight change to the cover's artwork. The original doesn't show Master Chiefs index finger on the Assault rifle while the Game of the Year edition does. Also the Banshee closest to the left has been moved closer to the right so the Game of the Year star doesn't cover it up.
• It has been stated by Bungie that Halo: Reach was inspired from Halo: Combat Evolved.
• Originally, the game's campaign was to have a lot more action and many Marines surviving. In some of the trailers, there are scenes where the Covenant and the Marines face to face against each other in more numbers and there are 3 Pelicans assaulting Covenant positions in Assault on the Control Room as seen on the TV Spot of Halo: Combat Evolved.
• In celebration of Halo's 10th anniversary, 343 Industries remade Halo: Combat Evolved. It's appropriately named Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. This game hit store shelves November 15, 2011, which is exactly 10 years after the first Halo's release, and the release of the original Xbox.
• Halo: Combat Evolved is available to buy in the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points.
• Halo: Combat Evolved is the only Halo game to feature Overshield and Active Camo pickups during the campaign. Overshields are represented as translucent clear cubes containing maroon spheres, while Active Camo is represented as a clear pyramid containing a light blue sphere. Overshields in this game do not deteriorate over time and can only be taken down by taking damage. Active Camo also has the same effectiveness if you are moving or not.
• Halo: Combat Evolved was originally going to feature the Hummer instead of the Warthog.
• Original description of the game: Pursued by alien warships to a massive and ancient ring construct deep in the void, you must single-handedly improvise a guerilla war over land, sea and air. The epic single-player game is complemented by a role-based, cooperative multiplayer team game. Three players might take the roles of driver, shotgun and rear gunner of a light, fast all-terrain vehicle, roaring and bouncing over uneven ground, ducking under a hail of fire from alien aircraft screaming overhead.

Links

• Wikipedia article
• Halopedia article
• Halo Alpha article
• Halo: Combat Evolved Credits