History VideoGame / HaloCombatEvolved

* BleakLevel: ''343 Guilty Spark'', which features few enemies and lots of wrecked equipment to drive home the creepiness factor. Most of the mission is designed to confuse the hell out of players, playing initially more like a {{Horror}} game with guns than an FPS.

This FirstPersonShooter developed by Creator/{{Bungie}} was the big title used to launch the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} console. Its superior graphics, interesting story and engaging gameplay made it a hit with critics and gamers alike, and it was hugely influential in bringing the concept of LAN parties, which was later expanded upon with ''VideoGame/Halo2'' being the KillerApp for online gaming for the Xbox. The seamless integration of vehicles, the very expansive missions and the constant rotation of weapon types gave it a unique experience.

* ''Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary'' was released by Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries on November 15, 2011. The graphics were revamped to high definition but it sought to replicate the gameplay and story ''exactly'': the campaign mode uses the Gearbox PC port as a basis for the UsefulNotes/GameEngine with a feature to toggle between the new graphics and the old. In addition, {{Easter Egg}}s that became common in later games were included, including Terminals and Skulls. Multiplayer was run through the concurrent ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' system with new maps and game types designed to emulate the feel of CE.

''Halo: Combat Evolved''[[note]]The ''Combat Evolved'' under the title was intended as a TagLine or PublisherChosenTitle, but later became an official {{retronym}} in rereleases so that the first game in the ''Halo'' series would have a distinct title. Within the original release's menu, it referred to itself as just ''Halo''.[[/note]] (released on November 15, 2001[[note]]The rest of the world - that is, anywhere outside of North America - didn't get it until the spring of 2002.[[/note]]) introduced the ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'' series from relatively HumbleBeginnings.

* ModularDifficulty: Skulls are modifiers you can apply before entering a level. They vary wildly in use, some are completely useless vanities, some are cheats that make you super powerful at the cost of not being able to record your score and best time when active, and some make the game harder in exchange for a score multiplier.

** The insane marine that shoots at Chief while vaguely rambling about the Flood mentions that the only reason he survived was because he played dead, and that the Flood "took the live ones". As later games would demonstrate, the Flood ''do'' take over corpses just as readily as living creatures, so playing dead shouldn't have saved him.

-->--'''Staff Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson, addressing marines prior to the Battle of Installation 04'''

The player controls the Master Chief, [[LastOfHisKind one of the last]] of a group of specially raised and trained cyborg SuperSoldiers: the Spartan-[=IIs=]. He is taken out of stasis during the attack on the ship, with his mission being to protect the survivors, and find out what Halo is and what the Covenant want with it. Master Chief is the [[TheStoic quiet]] type, but the AI program "Cortana" linked into his [[PoweredArmor battle suit]] does most of the talking and [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection provides plenty of tech support]]. Together they eventually uncover an [[SealedEvilInACan ancient threat aboard the Halo]] which [[FromBadToWorse makes the Covenant look like a church picnic]], and ''then'' they learn the Halo itself has a much more malevolent purpose...

A port to Windows and Mac OS was released two years later courtesy of Creator/GearboxSoftware, which added native online multiplayer without tunnelling utilities, the Fuel Rod Gun (strangely treated as an energy weapon) and Flamethrower weapons for multiplayer, as well as the Banshee and a new Warthog with a rocket turret as multiplayer vehicles, along with the usual computer gaming features (enhanced graphics, {{game mod}}s, and so forth). The original release was not particularly designed for modification, however, and so they released a separate ''Halo: Custom Edition'' with some engine optimizations, exclusively used for multiplayer. It has its own separate download and installer but requires a CD key from the retail version as well as a CD check. A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQSGzR95xU fan-made mod for the Custom Edition]] named ''VideoGame/{{SPV3}}'' overhauls graphics and level layout, and adds in the weapons and enemies of the more modern ''Halo'' games.

* AlternateRealityGame: The "Cortana Letters", while not a true ARG, served as a foreshadowing of things to come in the promotion of subsequent instalments. These were a series of e-mails sent from Bungie-controlled addresses (and a couple of hidden messages on the discs of other Bungie games) to notable ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' fandom people, authored by an AI entity named Cortana, intent on warning humanity about an impending alien invasion. Over the course of the letters, she shared details about "the humorless war machine" she has to share processing space with and the religious zealots "whose main form of worship takes place at the altar of orbital bombardment", as well as the "unbroken ring" whose creators have simply vanished. While many of the details revealed in this way back in 1998-1999 have since changed significantly (particularly in terms of Cortana's own characterization), the Letters nonetheless gave away quite a good chunk of the game's plot.

* BarrierWarrior: Master Chief, the Elites, and the Sentinels are protected by forcefields.

** In a more general example, the last three missions of the game consist of locations from the first half, but are revisited in the opposite order of when you first came through them.

* CarFu: "Roadkill!" In fact, this is almost to {{Exaggerated|Trope}} levels, given that even the slightest nudge from a vehicle is instant death. This was a result of the limited physics engine at the time, which had difficulty translating collision momentum into damage, so all hits were lethal.

* CopyAndPasteEnvironments: The game is based on a pseudo-[[WideOpenSandbox sandbox]]-style level design, with you having to traverse many locations that are basically identical in appearance. While other ''Halo'' games are guilty of this, it is most noticeable here since this game takes place entirely on Halo; you not only travel through several identical areas, but some levels are literally prior levels done backwards.

* DiscOneFinalDungeon: The Control Room. Getting to it is a major part of the UNSC's goal of stopping the Covenant, and it takes a lot of work to get there. Once you do, the WhamEpisode starts, and it becomes clear how trivial the Control Room really is.

** Hunters are only slightly taller than Spartans[=/=]Elites (though noticeably bulkier), and aren't actually ImmuneToBullets; they just have high health and take reduced damage from most weapons when not shot in their exposed flesh. They can still be killed just by shooting their armor enough, though it does take well over several dozen rounds of automatic weapons fire to do the job.

** Cortana is inexplicably written as if she had a British accent, most notably when she tells 343 Guilty Spark to "sod off" at the beginning of "Two Betrayals". This quirk was understandably dropped, though the idea of your main AI companion having a British accent was revisited for Serina in ''VideoGame/HaloWars''. Speaking of Cortana, she has a very different look in this game, being purple in color and possessing much shorter hair. ''Anniversary'' updates her to the look she had in ''VideoGame/Halo3''.
** After linking with Halo, on a few occasions, Cortana behaves unusually abrasively towards Chief, seemingly being annoyed by his limited intelligence compared to her and otherwise throwing up a handful of red flags for players who are familiar with Bungie's previous ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' series and know that A.I.s are prone to having [[FaceHeelTurn Face Heel Turns]]. Bungie has revealed that Cortana was originally supposed to be corrupted by the Forerunner's knowledge and power and turn evil about halfway through the game, but that plot thread was dropped fairly early in development. These elements of her character were removed from subsequent games until her FaceHeelTurn was actually realized in ''Halo 5''.

** According to Cortana, the Covenant already knows that Halo is a superweapon, though the ringworld is still significant to their religion in an unspecified way. Keyes notes that they even have a saying, "Whoever controls Halo, controls the fate of the universe." From the second game onwards, it would become a major plot point that the Covenant at large ''doesn't'' know Halo's true purpose, and instead believes the Halo rings are a way to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. Additionally, this saying implies that the Covenant refers to the ring by its true name Halo, while in every work after this, the Covenant almost exclusively refers to the Halos as the Sacred Rings.
** It is also a major plot point throughout the series that the Covenant cannot easily interact with Forerunner technology as they lack the Mantle of Responsibility that was granted to humans. As such, they need to either slowly research the tech they are interacting with or capture and use a human as a "Reclaimer" in order to make any progress. This idea is completely absent from ''Combat Evolved''; notably a significant chunk of "The Silent Cartographer" revolves around the Covenant having no issues with turning a Forerunner security system against the Chief and locking him out of the Silent Cartographer's facility, necessitating him going off to deactivate it.

** The aptly-named Elites — the backbone of the Covenant military.

** Covenant Plasma weaponry ''vastly'' outperform the [=UNSC=]'s ballistic firearms at melting energy shielding, balanced out by the latter being much more capable at shredding health than the former. In addition, Covenant weapons are generally far easier to find since you can loot them from the hands of your dead foes, instead of relying on predetermined spawns for UNSC weapons.
** Played straight when comparing the [=MA5B=] Assault Rifle (Chief's starting weapon for most missions) to its Covenant counterpart, the Plasma Rifle; the former is strictly limited to use at close range due to its egregious bullet spread, while the latter is viable at close-, medium-, or even medium-long range as, in spite of their increased travel time, the projectiles will always be fired with pinpoint accuracy.

* ExactTimeToFailure: The last Warthog run through the ''Pillar of Autumn'' takes place whilst a number of nuclear reactors are in the process of undergoing a massive meltdown, followed by a huge explosion. Cortana helpfully places a very exact timer onto your HUD to show when the meltdown will occur. Interestingly, the time can actually halt and change throughout the section as the situation changes. This tends to suggest that the time displayed is actually Cortana's prediction of how much longer they have to be able to OutrunTheFireball in time, rather than when the final detonation will actually occur.

* FanRemake: ''Halo: Custom Edition'' for PC allows a number of mods to be made to the single-player campaign. One of the more prolific examples of these modded campaigns is ''VideoGame/{{SPV3}}'', which incorporates content from the entire franchise including new/reworked weapons, vehicles, enemies, and mechanics alongside modern-quality graphics. Until the release of the ''Master Chief Collection'' on PC in 2020, ''[=SPV3=]'' was the only way for PC players to experience gameplay in the style of the later ''Halo'' games.

* GameMod: The whole purpose of ''Halo: Custom Edition'' for PC was meant to allow players to play user created mods and custom multiplayer maps. Fans however has since then created various mods with ''Custom Edition'', from UI replacements, client modifications to expand on its multiplayer features and providing quality-of-life fixes, porting the entirety of the original Xbox version's campaign and its assets to the PC version, to the aforementioned ''[=SPV3=]'' project.

* GodzillaThreshold: Since the Flood is so dangerous, Halo is meant to [[spoiler:wipe out absolutely all life in the galaxy]] in order to starve them out.
* TheGoomba: Basic Grunts. Slow, stupid, only carry Plasma Pistols and Plasma Grenades, die in three shots from the weakest gun, and almost as likely to [[DirtyCoward run away]] at the sight of the player character as to actually attempt to fight - unless there's an [[EliteMooks Elite]] nearby, in which case you kill the Elite and ''then'' they run away.

* HangingSeparately: The UNSC and the Covenant, despite both being attacked by both the Flood and Sentinels, are unwilling to help each other. In fact, Covenant enemies will ''prioritize'' Master Chief even when being attacked at that moment by the Flood. Justified in that the Covenant are waging a holy war against humanity, and the Chief is seen as their version of the Anti-Christ; neither these new aliens nor the robot servants of the gods they worship are going to stop them from [[KillAllHumans killing some more humans]]. ''Halo 2'' also establishes that the Covenant are already familiar with the Flood and have dealt with it before, and while they do consider it an extremely serious threat to them it's not the "oh shit all bets are off" complete surprise that it is to the humans.

** You start literally in the hallway right next to the endpoint, but it's inaccessible due to locked doors. You can actually see into the room through a metal grating.

* NothingIsScarier: You fight virtually no enemies during the beginning of ''343 Guilty Spark'' beyond a few panicked Grunts and Jackals, in order to build suspense.
* ObviousRulePatch: Under normal circumstances, the massive RampJump near the end of "The Maw" would technically be actually unsurvivable, as the distance is far enough that the game will trigger death by falling. Just for this one level, the game extends how far you can fall without dying so this won't happen.

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The Flood are Parasite Zombies; if one of their small, popcorn-like Infection Forms is able to latch on to an unshielded victim, said victim turns into a Combat Form armed with CombatTentacles. These Combat Forms aren't just fast; they're also smart enough to use guns. [[spoiler:And smart enough to hijack spaceships.]]

** Hunters; while they may look intimidating and can do quite a lot of damage with their fuel rod guns and melee attacks, they can still be brought down with one shot to any of their orange body parts with a headshot-capable weapon... including the excessively common Pistol.

* PrecursorKillers: The Flood. More accurately, [[spoiler:the Forerunners were forced to kill themselves and almost all other life in the galaxy in order to stop the Flood]].

* PunchPackingPistol: The [=M6D=] Pistol may be a HandCannon, but the Plasma Pistol is no slouch either. It actually does ''more'' damage per shot than the Plasma Rifle, can strip Elite shields very quickly, and does a fairly decent job at killing Grunts and Jackals (especially when shooting their exposed hand to stagger them). It only seems weak when wielded by those two races because it receives a massive damage debuff against the player's own shields.

* RecurringExtra: This game introduces Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, Private First Class Chips Dubbo, and Gunnery Sergeant Pete Stacker, all of whom can die at any moment in gameplay and return in the next level with no consequence. Sergeant Johnson, already given more focus than the other two, would become an AscendedExtra thanks to his popularity, while Dubbo and Stacker would both continue to show up as expendable Marines in the games going forward.

* TheReveal: We have two regarding Halo's purpose. The first is that it's a containment facility designed to contain the Flood for study and research. [[spoiler:The second is that Halo's superweapon is intended to indiscriminately kill all sentient life within 25,000 light-years of itself, in order to starve out the Flood -- and it was already activated once before]].

* SnipingMission: The first part of ''The Truth and Reconciliation'', prior to boarding the ship.

* StandardFPSGuns: This game features a fairly standard lineup: Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher, grenades, energy gun,[[note]]the Covenant Plasma Pistol and Plasma Rifle shoot similar projectiles in spite of differences between their rate of fire, accuracy, damage and other unique properties.[[/note]] and Melee. The only odd one out is the Needler. Somewhat played with in that, in an example of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, the pistol plays more like a marksman rifle and the assault rifle plays more like a submachine gun.

* StopTheHeroTwist: Halfway through the game, the UNSC survivors led by Keyes think they've found a weapon to use against the Covenant, but Cortana accesses the files of Halo's Control Room and learns something which terrifies her. She immediately tells Chief that he has to stop Keyes before it's too late, but he fails and this results in the release of the Flood, the horrifying menace that Halo was created to contain and destroy in the first place, and a far greater threat than the Covenant ever was.

* TurnsRed: The Elites have a subtle one: killing enough of their subordinates, or dealing enough damage to them personally, will cause the Elite to play a short 'enraged' animation, after which the Elite will act more aggressive. This animation is ''just'' long enough for the player to finish the Elite off without retaliation if they focus on them, so it can work both ways.

* YourSizeMayVary: The UNSC ''Pillar of Autumn'' is at least three times bigger in the final set-piece than it should be, with you explicitly driving at least 3 km along its 1.17km spine to reach the Longsword space fighter. This happened due to the fact that the interior layout of the missions which take place in the ''Autumn'' was completed before the exterior had been decided on and finalized. It's quite funny because, in every other aspect of the game, Bungie went to [[http://halo.bungie.org/misc/sloftus_scalecomparison/ excruciating detail]] in creating the scale of the game accurately.

** The terminal videos have several, including towards the expanded universe. In particular, Guilty Spark references a number of things from ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' novel trilogy.

** Linda-058 can be seen on the cryo bay status monitor next to the Chief, a nod to ''LIterature/HaloTheFallOfReach'' and ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike''.

* EarlyBirdCameo: The existence of the Flood is revealed -- and its nature and the threat it represents strongly hinted at -- in Terminals Three and Four, long before its main reveal.

* ShotForShotRemake: Exaggerated, as it's not a "remake", and was advertised to be "identical" in nearly every respect to the first game, despite it using the Gearbox PC port as the basis[[note]]which included several graphical and texture (as well as enemy A.I.) oddities which were not present in 2001 original Xbox release[[/note]]. The original game engine is used with the Saber Engine overlapping it to facilitate the new high-definition graphics. That means the game plays ''almost'' exactly the same (complete with a feature to toggle between the old and new graphics on the fly), though the cutscenes are entirely re-animated for the character models. Because of that, it isn't quite up to par with then-contemporary next-generation graphics; instead, it's about on par with 2007's ''VideoGame/Halo3''

** ''Anniversary'', of course. The Campaign actually ran on the PC port of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', but with updated graphics using some assets taken from ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' alongside updated sound effects (excluding dialogue), redone cutscenes, and a remixed soundtrack. The Multiplayer mode, on the other hand, utilized ''Reach's'' engine, with 1:1 CE map remakes and the weapon sandbox is re-balanced to mimic the weapon sandbox of the original Combat Evolved.

*** Season 7 - Elite: While this season's pass primarily included cosmetics for ''Halo 3'' and ''4'', ''Combat Evolved'' also received 10 Warthog skins (evenly divided between the Chaingun & Rocket variants) released via the Exchange, primarily backports of other Warthog skins introduced into ''Halo 3''. This however pales to the real meat of the update, which included a slew of graphical fixes and improvements to address a number of visual/gameplay inconsistencies introduced in the Gearbox PC port, bringing the game up to parity with the original Xbox release.
*** Season 8 - Mythic: While once again not the focus of the update, ''Combat Evolved Anniversary'' once again saw a number of minor but bespoke improvements shared with other games, such weapon/vehicle skins could now be toggled to appear during the campaign and customisable weapon viewmodel positions. Most notable was the inclusion of the classic ''Combat Evolved'' HUD (distinct from the modified Gearbox PC port and overhauled Anniversary [=HUDs=]), remastered in 4K and able to be toggled over or alongside the Anniversary HUD.

This FirstPersonShooter developed by Creator/{{Bungie}} was the big title used to launch the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} console. Its superior graphics, interesting story and engaging gameplay made it a hit with critics and gamers alike, and it was hugely influential in bringing the concept of LAN parties, which was later expanded upon with ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' being the KillerApp for online gaming for the Xbox. The seamless integration of vehicles, the very expansive missions and the constant rotation of weapon types gave it a unique experience.

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* FanRemake: ''Halo: Custom Edition'' for PC allows a number of mods to be made to the single-player campaign. One of the more prolific examples of these modded campaigns is ''VideoGame/{{SPV3}}'', which incorporates content from the entire franchise including new/reworked weapons, vehicles, enemies, and mechanics alongside modern-quality graphics. Until the release of the ''Master Chief Collection'' on PC in 2020, ''SPV3'' was the only way for PC players to experience gameplay in the style of the later ''Halo'' games.

* GameMod: The whole purpose of ''Halo: Custom Edition'' for PC was meant to allow players to play user created mods and custom multiplayer maps. Fans however has since then created various mods with ''Custom Edition'', from UI replacements, client modifications to expand on its multiplayer features and providing quality-of-life fixes, porting the entirety of the original Xbox version's campaign and its assets to the PC version, to the aforementioned ''SPV3'' project.

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* ShotForShotRemake: Exaggerated, as it's not a "remake", and was advertised to be "identical" in nearly every respect to the first game, despite it using the Gearbox PC port as the basis [[note]] which included several graphical and texture (as well as enemy A.I.) oddities which were not present in 2001 original Xbox release[[/note]]. The original game engine is used with the Saber Engine overlapping it to facilitate the new high-definition graphics. That means the game plays ''almost'' exactly the same (complete with a feature to toggle between the old and new graphics on the fly), though the cutscenes are entirely re-animated for the character models. Because of that, it isn't quite up to par with then-contemporary next-generation graphics; instead, it's about on par with 2007's ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}''
** The only actual changes are the inclusion of terminals hidden within the original missions containing videos that tie the franchise more closely together as well as a hint towards the story of the then-upcoming ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'', and unlockable skulls that can be used to modify gameplay when replaying the missions.

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* UpdatedRerelease:
** ''Anniversary'', of course. The Campaign actually ran on the PC port of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', but with updated graphics using some assets taken from ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' alongside updated sound effects (excluding dialogue), redone cutscenes, and a remixed soundtrack. The Multiplayer mode, on the other hand, utilized ''Reach's'' engine, with 1:1 CE map remakes and the weapon sandbox is re-balanced to mimic the weapon sandbox of the original Combat Evolved.

* DoomedTacticalTeam: Fireteam Charlie, who accompanied Captain Keyes to what was believed to be a Covenant weapons cache, which was in actuality a Flood containment facility. The entire squad (save for Sergeant Johnson) is killed and/or infected, with Captain Keyes being captured and ultimately assimilated by the parasite.

** The weapon selection is more limited; you have the [=MA5B=] Assault Rifle and the [[SniperPistol [=M6D=] Pistol]] for standard automatic and precision weapons, and the specialty weapons are a Rocket Launcher, Shotgun, and Sniper Rifle. The [=MA5B=] Assault Rifle has a 60-round magazine and 600-round spare ammo reserve; subsequent (FPS) games have the [=MA5C=] instead, with a smaller magazine capacity but better accuracy. Among the Covenant, they do have the Energy Sword and Fuel Rod Cannon but in contrast to all other infantry weapons are {{unusable|EnemyEquipment}}, disappearing after the enemy is defeated (the latter only shows up in multiplayer of the PC port). Also, in single-player, Fuel Rod Cannons ''explode'' when their operator is killed. The iconic Battle Rifle didn't show up until ''Halo 2''.

** The weapon selection is more limited; you have the [=MA5B=] Assault Rifle and the [[SniperPistol [=M6D=] Pistol]] for standard automatic and precision weapons, and the specialty weapons are a Rocket Launcher, Shotgun, and Sniper Rifle. The [=MA5B=] Assault Rifle has a 60-round magazine and 600-round spare ammo reserve; subsequent (FPS) games have the [=MA5C=] instead, with a smaller magazine capacity. Among the Covenant, they do have the Energy Sword and Fuel Rod Cannon but in contrast to all other infantry weapons are {{unusable|EnemyEquipment}}, disappearing after the enemy is defeated (the latter only shows up in multiplayer of the PC port). Also, in single-player, Fuel Rod Cannons ''explode'' when their operator is killed. The iconic Battle Rifle didn't show up until ''Halo 2''.