Bungie co-founder Jason Jones most likely had no conception of what lay ahead when he clambered onto the stage at Macworld 1999 to put a name and a look to the company’s next endeavour. This was Halo (opens in new tab)’s public debut, eliciting zero groans of space marine fatigue as the sub-genre was still relatively virgin territory. Besides, a brand with Bungie’s hard-built name recognition behind it was never one to underestimate.

The game already had two years of work in the bag and some fundamental changes both behind and ahead of it, riding out an evolutionary arc from RTS origins through third-person action to FPS. Of course the biggest upset would be the Microsoft buyout in 2000, leading to the wholesale move of Bungie from Chicago to Redmond, and Combat Evolved’s sideways strafe from PC and Mac exclusive, to Xbox launch title…

At this point Xbox Live was still in development, so online multiplayer was never going to happen for Halo. Instead, system-link play took the baton and sprinted with it, while split-screen co-op in the solo campaign offered social play for those who didn’t want to heft the rather weighty original Xbox to a friend’s home.

And the scale of that solo campaign was impressive at the time. It follows the last SPARTAN-II super-soldier taking flak on the titular ringworld and a succession of ships and stop-offs, each one a firefighting hotspot bubbling over with Hunters, Grunts, Jackals, Elite and the Flood. A smart balance of offence and defence in the streamlined two-weapon system and regenerating shields makes for fast, uncluttered gameplay spearheaded by an iconic man-tank of an action hero. The well-judged difficulty settings also scale the challenge beautifully for co-op.

Microsoft stated from the start that Bungie would play ‘a key role’ in the future of Xbox – which turned out to be a rather impressive understatement. And behind Halo’s stellar budget and scope Combat Evolved is recognisably Bungie, from the quirky chapter titles to the UNSC battlefield banter and under-fire panic attacks of the nervous Covenant Grunts.

Sometimes the modern influence of our legends of gaming, regardless of their impact crater back in the day, is tough to quantify. But despite Halo now being almost old enough to legally play itself, you’d have to be living under a rock in a witness protection scheme with the full compliance of all neighbouring rocks to have missed the series’ stratospheric trajectory.

Marathon’s cult following was minuscule compared to this. Imitated but never bettered, each new sun-sized Halo hit shattered the standing sales record of the last. Now it’s up there with the likes of GTA, Mario and Assassin’s Creed. But you can’t fish in the same stream forever, and after five games Bungie stepped away from a brand that regularly hit the high 90s in reviews and topped 50 million copies – using the money from this rampant success to buy back its independence.

Click here (opens in new tab) for more excellent GamesMaster articles. Or maybe you want to take advantage of some great offers on magazine subscriptions? You can find them here (opens in new tab).If you’re still looking for all the Halo: CE collectibles, take a look at our Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Skull and Terminal Guide.

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Revisiting the grainy VHS footage of its unveiling, it’s surprising just how many of the Haloverse’s iconic sights were established this early on in the life cycle. The trailer opens with a glimpse of the Master Chief’s big orange mug. UNSC soldiers cram themselves into a Warthog’s every last nook and cranny like clowns in a comedy car. As the trailer sweeps the other side of battlefield, we catch our first sighting of Elite soldiers brandishing Energy Swords. Classic, familiar scenes that are burned into our memories forever, and play out to the tune of something even more recognisable: Halo’s booming orchestral score, practically unchanged note for note from the version we still hum today.

But for all the cosmetic similarities, under the skin the Halo of ‘99 was a quite different beast to what it would ultimately become. In this stage of its life it was a third-person action game with real-time strategy elements, and one that was intended to see release not on a console, but Windows PC and the Apple Mac computer. (Which at this point in history, remember, was about as fashionable as a Christmas sweater, and not nearly as ironic).

I won’t dwell too long on what happened next as it’s all ancient history now. But to summarise, Microsoft swept in to purchase the Bungie studio from under Apple’s nose (much to the ire of Steve Jobs), and under MS’s orders the project was whisked away from Mac/PC in order to be re-tooled into something capable of making an impact at the Xbox’s launch. Somewhere during that process, presumably to make it punchier for the console crowd, the decision was made to transform Halo into a first-person shooter.

That was a ballsy move, because the popular school of thought at the time was that the first-person shooter genre was a poor fit for consoles, whose bulky controllers couldn’t hope to match the immediacy of mouse and keyboard interfaces. Oh, they existed on consoles in the years BC (Before Chief), all right, and a great many of them are considered classics, such as GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and TimeSplitters. But returning to these games today requires some serious mental rewiring before you are able to successfully look past their awkward, oblique control systems and often baffling level design.

But there’s something ageless about Halo: Combat Evolved, like Jennifer Aniston, or that McDonalds Happy Meal that’s been sitting in someone’s cupboard for the last six years. Even today, nearly 15 years after its initial release, you can fire it up and it feels thoroughly slick and polished, with all the modern conventions and conveniences we’ve come to expect from today’s first-person shooter titles.

You’d never guess that this was a title from 2001, and that goes doubly so if you’re playing the 2011 Anniversary remaster, with its fancy HD visuals feeling more in sync with the flow of the action than the prehistoric original graphics. In a neat trick, you can swap between the two skins instantly by tapping the back button. Aside from some repetitive room design late in the game and some dodgy signposting (which is crudely but effectively fixed in the remaster by plastering arrows all over the floor), this function is your only true hint at the game’s age.

Halo was less an evolutionary step in FPS design as it was an evolutionary elevator to the penthouse suite. How games generally tend to evolve is that a new title comes along with a new idea (for example, BioShock’s audio logs, Call of Duty’s perks, Assassin’s Creed’s mantling system), the entire world takes note, and before you know it, every other title that comes along afterwards pinches the idea and incorporates it into their own design. That is to say, gamemakers and fans alike tend to have preconceptions about how the various genres should work, and they persist until a better idea muscles them out. But don’t feel bad, guys – pretty much everything else, from science to engineering, works along the same lines, too.

But in all my years I’ve never seen anything shake a genre up until it fizzes quite like Halo: Combat Evolved. Almost every modern first-person shooter feature first laid down roots here, and that’s something I think can be attributed to its unusual development path. Since it didn’t become a first-person game until quite late on in its development, Bungie didn’t begin the project with any preconceptions about what an FPS could or could not be on a console. They built the world and the enemies and the weapons first, and then were forced to reverse-engineer it to work on Xbox. This led to some fresh approaches and some creative problem-solving, and the results continue to echo around the Xbox scene today.

I’m not sure how much credit Bungie can take for the control system – hindsight is 20/20 and all that – but it seems pretty intuitive to me to use a dual-analogue stick set-up for separate movement and aiming, and I’m sure it would have become standard soon enough anyway. (Although I’ll forever be a fan of the way it seamlessly introduces the control system within the game’s fiction: it’s dressed up as a calibration test for your suit’s systems, and even finds the time to ask if you want to invert the controls). Other concessions to the game’s new console home, however, are genius, and changed the course of our hobby forever.

Perhaps the most influential is its strict weapon limit. Before Halo, it was fairly standard to have your entire fleet of guns at your disposal. Yet Halo limits you to just two guns at any one time, and if you want to change it up you have to source a replacement from the battleground. Likely, this was a solution to the fact that the Xbox controller doesn’t have a row of function keys to hand; in practice it wedges in a whole new layer of strategy into the proceedings. Now, every selection is an agonising choice; do you carry two complementary weapons – maybe a sniper rifle and a shotgun – or do you double-down on short-range firepower? Should you keep a powerful cannon with two shells remaining, or ditch it for something much more modest, but with bundles of ammunition?

Your decisions are compounded by the wonderful balance between the available arsenal and the foes you face – even the bluntest of tools can prove capable of cutting through some tough obstacles. For example, the plasma pistol, seemingly the weediest weapon in the game, can effortlessly disable shields that deflect shotgun pellets like rain off an umbrella. There was no room for passengers here; every weapon had to justify its existence.

The two-weapon shtick proved such an elegant fix that it’s now widely adopted across the genre, from blockbusters such as Call of Duty on downwards. Another Call of Duty feature that first saw the light of day in Combat Evolved was regenerating health. Was this a response to the loss of the PC’s ‘quicksave’ feature? Halo apes this function by saving your progress at regular intervals, but without health regen, it would have run the risk of snookering the player by saving their process with but a slither of health remaining.

Like the gun limit, the energy shield is a small, functional change which has huge ramifications for the flow of the action. It implores you to scout around you in the middle of firefights, looking for small pockets of cover which you can retreat to and regroup if things get hairy. On higher difficulty settings, it becomes a game of chicken, as you poke your head above the parapet and test your shields’ limits to breaking point before diving back behind cover. It led to the rise of a smarter, more aggressive breed of gunplay and it’s little surprise that few games have seen fit to return to the health pack scavenger hunts of old.

Halo’s roots as a third-person strategy game also inadvertently dragged the FPS genre kicking and screaming into the outside world. In the years BC, when series such as Doom and Quake were the standard-bearers, the trend was to set levels in tight, claustrophobic corridors. Halo: Combat Evolved blew the walls wide open, with huge expansion levels such as The Silent Cartographer, offering the kind of freeform, tactical warfare that fans could only have dreamed about at the time. I would argue that Bungie never bettered the first half of the very first Halo; tellingly, the quality takes a nosedive in the second half when the action shifts from the outdoors to cramped alien ship interiors, and the guile of the Covenant forces gives way to the brutish numbers game of the Flood. As Combat Evolved thunders on, it seems to channel Doom and Quake more and more and is all the weaker for it.

All of which is to speak nothing of the part the Halo series played in popularising online multiplayer on console. In its original incarnation, of course, Halo: Combat Evolved couldn’t be played online at all – it pre-dated the Xbox Live service, which didn’t come along until a year later, in November 2002. Yet Combat Evolved played a vital part in whetting appetites for the service by opening up its multiplayer to local area networks – you could glue up to 16 Xboxes together with cable wire for a thrilling taste of things to come.

Halo: Combat Evolved was responsible for pioneering almost everything we know and cherish about first-person shooters today. From the clever integration of vehicles and turrets to the use of save points, to recharging shields and the finely tuned weapon set, it all began life here. And the only reason it even came about in the first place was because Bungie were forced to swap genres halfway through and scramble to make things that were thought unworkable work. It makes me wonder if it’s possible to repeat the trick to breathe new life into other stagnant genres. Hey, Activision, if you’re reading this, is it too late to turn Destiny 2 into an arcade racer? That’s a genre that feels like it could use a fresh pair of eyes…

This article originally appeared in Xbox: The Official Magazine. For more great Xbox coverage, you can subscribe here (opens in new tab).

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GamesRadar+ got the chance to visit the museum earlier this month, and today we’d like to take you on a tour. So join me, as we walk the path of Spartans.

Halo: Combat Evolved

The Halo museum is organized semi-chronologically, with the original Halo and all of its assorted memorabilia collected into one, neat case. An inauspicious start to the tour, especially compared to the zaniness you’ll see later.

Halo: Anniversary

The first project from 343 Industries was a remake of the original Combat Evolved, and was widely hailed as the proper way to handle a reworking of classic gameplay. This version still runs on the old engine (meaning the physics and bugs are just as you remember ’em), and even lets you swap between the new and old graphical styles on the fly. It’s a celebration of the Halo franchise’s beginnings, and something 343 is clearly proud of.

Halo 2

Halo 2 paved the way not just for Master Chief and co., but Xbox Live as well. Here, you can start to see the beginnings of Halo as a serious multiplayer game. 

Halo 3

While the first two games in the trilogy certainly have their fans, it was Halo 3 that broke records and took the brand from video games to a multimedia empire. And yes, that is a Mountain Dew. Hey, cross-promotional sugar water is part of history too. 

Halo 3: ODST

A side-story that unfolds during the events of Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST focused on the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODST) that fought off the Covenant left on Earth when Chief jumped into hyperspace with a Prophet’s fleet. The Brute costume you see was used in this fabulous, surprisingly heartfelt commercia (opens in new tab)l.

Halo: Reach

The final game from Bungie but the first chronologically, Halo: Reach is one hell of a bang to end on. Rather than tell another tale of the invincible Master Chief, this prequel cast you as a member of Noble Team, a squad of Spartans that were picked off one-by-one until even you fell to the Covenant horde. And while you won’t see it close up, the Elite costume you see here was employed in the emotional “Deliver Hope” commercial (opens in new tab).

Halo: Forward Unto Dawn

While the dreams of a Hollywood feature film set in the Halo universe may be forever dashed, at least fans got some semblance of live-action Master Chief with the Halo 4 prequel/tie-in, Forward Unto Dawn. Cool trivia about the suit: it was worn by actor Daniel Cudmore, who measures in at an intimidating 6’6″. Cudmore is also known for playing Colossus in the X-Men films (that’s the movies with “X-Men” in the title, not Deadpool). 

Halo 4

343’s first original contribution to Halo was met with split opinions. Some were hesitant to see veteran studio Bungie leave the series, while others embraced a more Call of Duty-inspired design philosophy. The new Master Chief suit is still sometimes worn for charity events and special occasions.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

While part of 343 Industries worked to get Halo 5 into pre-production, other portions of the studio were diligently remastering Halo 2 in the same vein as Halo: Anniversary, and then packaging it together with the three other games in which Master Chief starred. The result was The Master Chief Collection, which was rock-solid… as long as you didn’t try the multiplayer, which was broken for weeks after release.

Halo: Nightfall

Another live-action film project, this one produced by legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott. Nightfall introduced us to Agent Locke, who would go on to be a major part of Halo 5: Guardians. More grounded and gritty than the smooth sci-fi look of previous Halo projects, Nightfall also starred Mike Coulter, who went on to be Luke Cage in the Marvel Netflix series… uh, Luke Cage. 

Halo 5: Guardians

The first proper Halo game on Xbox One (no, we’re not counting The Master Chief Collection), Halo 5 had a lot to live up to. Whether it succeeded is still debated, but you can’t deny the ridiculous amount of marketing that led up to it. 

Halo: Spartan Assault and Halo: Spartan Strike

Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike took the Halo universe mobile, transforming the FPS into an isometric, tactical run-and-gun game. Assault would eventually come to PC and Xbox One, while Strike remains on mobile and PC, no console release.

Halo toys, books, and collectibles

As I said, Halo is far more than a game series now. Action figures and collectibles run the gamut from small and kid-friendly to big, expensive statuettes. 

Halo Legends

Much like The Animatrix, Halo Legends is an anthology collection of animated films set in the Halo universe. Some are better than others, but the art is undeniably beautiful. 

Halo weaponry

Whether these were used as props in commercials or part of costumes, these guns are the real deal. That DMR is heavy. 

Halo endorsements

Did you know Master Chief has had his face (well, his helmet) plastered onto the underside of skateboards, snowboards, and NASCAR cars? Neither did I. But we know now. 

Saying goodbye

As we leave the lobby of 343 Industries, a life-size statue of Master Chief lets us know that he’ll be here to watch over everything, and keep us safe. Godspeed, Chief. 

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Look – a scientific diagram:

Here’s a list consisting of seven enemies that scuttle and jump at your face. (But deliberately not including Facehuggers because they were made in movie land. Not game land).

7. Pregnators | Duke Nukem Forever

For all of Duke Nukem Forever’s multiple faults, for all of its titular character’s lumpen-headed galootishness, there’s only one area in the game that’s really downright unpleasant. Crudeness, you see, cannot possibly be truly offensive if it’s executed with knowing intent. Things with an ‘offensive’ tone only really become a problem if they’re done callously or without self-awareness. Most of Duke Nukem Forever is a case of the former. During ‘The Hive’ however, it sadly becomes very much the latter. And that’s mostly down to these little f*ckers.

Where Alien’s Facehuggers, much like a lot of H.R. Giger designs, are creepy because of the subtly sexual connotations of their form and functionality, DNF’s Pregnators miss the point completely and go full-on genital-o-rama without a shadow of a hint of a soupcon of subtlety. Basically, they’re a cock-and-balls on legs. They even spit white goo at you as a missile attack. You know, just generic white goo. Could be anything.

Could be, but it’s probably spunk.

Above: Yeah, it’s an achievement of sorts, though one normally celebrated in the porn industry

Their narrative function? Filling Earth women with alien baby. Where Facehuggers hint at unpleasant sexual practices via allusion, Pregnators just get on with them. The actual impregnating process is never shown in the game, mercifully, but this concept art (opens in new tab) (which we’re not going to post on the site) makes it very clear what these fellas are all about.

Makes the tentacle-cock face-thrashing they sometimes give Duke seem rather tame in comparison, doesn’t it?

6. Leapers | Resistance

Man alive these things are ugly. We mean, generally speaking, collectively, as a species, the Chimera aren’t going to win any beauty contests. At least not in our Solar System. And Leapers are possibly the most butt-ugly of all the multi-eyed Chimerians. We doubt that even Disney with all its mastery in the arts of sugary cutefication could make a Leaper look lovable. Here’s what a Leaper might look like before and after being Disneyfied:

Above: It’s even singing a song. Regardless, it’s still less appealing than a Styrofoam cup full of day old tramp mucus

In addition to being scuttly and possessing a tendency to jump at your face, Leapers also have the dubious honour of being one of the few video game ‘characters’ that have officially offended God. When the big man in the clouds found out that Manchester Cathedral was used as a shooting gallery in the first Resistance, lo he was pissed and sent a memo to his underlings, who subsequently cast fire and brimstone and claims of copyright infringement in the direction of Sony. The following video shows Leapers desecrating Manchester Cathedral. Ugly and sacrilegious.

And there’s even more ungodliness. If a Leaper has a nibble on someone that hasn’t had the necessary vaccination, there’s a good chance they’ll turn into a Chimera. Just like vampires. Not soppy good-looking vampires for little girls to cry about. But proper evil vampires that want to eat your entire face off. Apparently, if you feel hot and have a craving for raw meat, you’re infected and will be imminently turning into a Chimera. Either that or you’re Jeffrey Dahmer burning in Hell.

Next page: Even more enemies that scuttle and jump at your face!

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