Halo has a proud history of smuggling secret endings into its campaigns. In the very first 2001 game, there is a hidden (non-canon) ending featuring Sgt. Avery Johnson fighting and hugging an Elite. In Halo 2, there’s a mid-credits scene that teases the beginning of Halo 3. In Halo 3, we get a full scene of Chief drifting, alone, in the cold, indifferent vacuum of space. ODST gives us a glimpse of the Engineers’ secret. And in Reach, my personal favourite, we get that phenomenal ‘Lone Wolf’ ending that still sends shivers down my spine to think about today.
Well, it looks like Halo Studios is keeping that trend up with Campaign Evolved. The game, currently in early access before its full launch on 28th July, has tucked a hidden secret ending into the Legendary version of the campaign. Beat the game on the hardest mode (don’t worry, you don’t have to enable all 42 skulls) and you will be treated to a scene of Sgt. Johnson on the beachhead on the Halo ringworld, watching a version of the original ending. He begins to board a Pelican craft, but not before turning to the camera and saying “See you in the sequel.”
Self-aware jab, or confirmation of another game in the series? I’ll let you decide. GamersPrey has handily uploaded the video to Youtube. See below (Thanks, Kotaku).
But – as ever – that’s not all. No matter which difficulty you finish the game on, you’ll also be treated to a post-credit scene featuring horrible little Monitor and all-round condescending orb, 343 Guilty Spark. The hateful little machination flies through space towards a distant planet. This directly sets up the introduction to Halo 2.
Thanks to GriffGriffin for the video below.
Safe to say, then, we’re probably getting Halo 2 Evolved. But is that really a surprise? I mean, even from early marketing beats, it seemed inevitable: Halo Studios has spent the last few years making this game, fitting out Unreal Engine for a Halo game, and creating assets that we may in Halo 2: it’s all there, ready to be picked up and used in the first game – SMGs, the battle rifle, hijackable vehicles, and (in the bonus pre-Campaign missions) the Jiralhanae. Or, as you may know them better, the Brutes.
I’m not exactly mad about this. Assumedly, we’re going to have this in our hands quite soon, too: it will take less time for an experienced team to recreate the Halo 2 campaign than it will for them to build everything up and refit Unreal Engine from scratch. Given I had a pretty nice time with the game when I played it over the past week, I actually think Halo Studio’s philosophies will suit Halo 2 and 3 better than they did Halo 1.
As Bungie got bigger and bolder with its series, it feels like the original trilogy moved away from tightly-designed combat puzzles into more fluid and free-flowing action sandboxes – Halo 3 being a breath-taking gauntlet, particularly. With Halo Studios’ approach, I think the following games in the series are even better propositions for remakes; the bombast, the Michael Bay attitude, and the giddy joy of cramming as many bells and whistles as possible into those sandboxes feels like an irresistible prospect.
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I’d be remiss not to exercise some caution, though. Microsoft feels like it’s in a perilous place right now: only a few weeks ago, the company announced it would be trimming 3200 jobs across its gaming division, and we’ve also seen the closure of multiple studios as staff that remain at the company warn ‘nobody feels safe’. Halo is a mascot for Xbox, so its staff may be ring-fenced for now, but that is no indication that their future is secure. Especially since Microsoft has shown no reservations about cancelling already-announced games in the past (see: Everwild, Perfect Dark).
I would very much like to see what the future holds for the Halo remake series, but I’m certainly not going to hold my breath.
