As its original devs post conflicting takes on the controversial remake, I have to ask: who is Halo: Campaign Evolved for?

I love Halo. When I was a teenager, I used to work in a kitchen, under a Michelin-starred chef and his ex-con sous. Hard work, poor money. One night, after a late and messy shift, the sous took me back to his place for a beer and some decompression time, and booted up his Xbox 360 and Halo 3. I had never played an FPS before, somehow, and I’d never seen anything like this. My pupils dilated, my mouth opened, and something inside me broke. We stayed up until dawn the next morning before heading back to the pub for the morning shift. I couldn’t get Halo out of my mind.

The next day, I went to my local game store and traded in my PS2 and upwards of 100 games just to be able to make the 360 and Halo 3 more affordable. It’s a decision I’d come to regret: a lot of those PS2 games were rare and expensive. But who cares, I had Halo 3! And I had a way to dig into the rest of the series, too. My love for obscure Japanese RPGs was replaced, briefly, with the skyboxes and gunplay of Seattle’s finest.

As much as I loved Halo 3, it wasn’t until I went back to Halo: Combat Evolved that everything clicked for me. Here, the formula was in its purest essence, without the bombast and cinematic wonder of the sequels obscuring the pure, original vision. To me, Halo is a puzzle game masquerading as a first-person shooter. Every single encounter forces you to think on your feet, asses your surroundings, and respond according. Go in too hard, too fast with your grenades and you will find yourself pressured in a corner with no means of reply to the Elites flanking you. Neglect to comb the battlefield for discarded weaponry, and you will soon be facing down a pair of hunters with naught but a pistol.

It’s compelling, and nearly genius in its simplicity. Every single encounter has this enforced scarcity that makes the tension and achievement work. Bungie may say “OK, here’s a warthog, but you only get one and you need to be careful with it”, and if it gets busted, too bad! You get given a rocket launcher, but maybe only with six shells – where do you use them, and how? Is it best to take out the big guys, or use that delicious splash damage to thin out the herd so you can go toe-to-toe with the juggernauts? It’s tactical thinking paired with on-the-fly decision-making, and I don’t think any other shooter has even come close to getting this fine balance so since.