Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto praises Campaign Evolved but slams its hint system and Forerunner art direction

Marcus Lehto — co-creator of Halo and the designer of Master Chief — has shared his detailed thoughts on Halo: Campaign Evolved after playing through it on Heroic difficulty, the same setting Bungie used internally to test levels for their "fun factor." His verdict is broadly positive, but he has pointed criticisms that are hard to ignore coming from the man who helped build the original.

On the plus side, Lehto praised the movement upgrades, cinematics, and visuals, singling out the lighting as "brilliant." He said the Assault Rifle "feels great" and called the Covenant weapons "much more brutal with a solid punch." He also gave Halo Studios credit for the genuine technical effort of getting the game running in Unreal Engine. His gripes, though, are specific. He called a few of the new cinematics "absolutely cringe" — the new outro for Assault on the Control Room in particular — and said he "can't un-see" it. The hint system drew sharper words: Lehto called it "too heavy-handed — pandering to a new era of players with 0% attention span." His harshest criticism, however, is aimed at the Forerunner art direction. The ancient alien architecture that defines so much of Halo's atmosphere now looks, in his words, "like shiny metal that was built a few years ago" rather than a structure that has "seen hundreds of millennia of conflict." The main menu ring got the most pointed takedown: "The most offensive thing we see every time we boot up the game. It should feel massive, dark, mysterious, sinister, but also full of wonder. This new ring looks like a shiny new toy — out of scale, no mystery, damn ugly." He posted a side-by-side comparison image to back up the point, and also noted that the background now shows the Milky Way galaxy — which, per the lore, the ring shouldn't be anywhere near.

Lehto hasn't worked on Halo since 2011, but his criticism carries weight precisely because he was enthusiastic about Campaign Evolved before launch. He concedes that Bungie's own Forerunner art direction was "all over the place back in 2000," but argues Halo Studios overcorrected. Campaign Evolved has had a turbulent launch period more broadly: it reviewed well but reportedly sold poorly on PS5 — one analyst cited the price as a factor, and Black Ops 1 and 2 ports apparently outsold it 16-to-1 on Sony's platform. Multiple contract positions at Halo Studios were also cut after the game shipped, and players have been vocal about various mechanical and artistic changes.

Lehto also pushed back on the online negativity swirling around the game, arguing that X/Twitter "fosters that hate" and that if people sat down together to play it, "I bet we would all eventually have a pretty damn good time." Whether Halo Studios addresses any of his art direction concerns in the next project remains to be seen — remakes of Halo 2 and Halo 3 are reportedly in the pipeline, alongside a separate new Halo title described as being "like Fortnite."