Xbox Considered Making Massive Halo 2 and Halo 3 Remakes - First Details Revealed

This summer, Halo: Campaign Evolved came out, a remake of the first game in the legendary franchise. Players and Xbox executives hoped it would be the starting point for more remakes of the series, but for several reasons, that didn’t work out. Meanwhile, Halo Studios was working on concepts for remakes of the second and third games, and it planned to make them quite ambitious.

The details come from a new Windows Central blog post. The remakes of Halo 2 and Halo 3 had the codename Project Manihi and were being developed directly by Halo Studios before the studio went through massive layoffs and the franchise was restructured. Unlike Campaign Evolved, these remakes were meant to be more than visual upgrades. They were planned as full flagship releases and even reimaginings of the games.

Windows Central shared more details. Specifically, the remake of Halo 2 was supposed to include dual-wielding, a more complete multiplayer experience, and classic gameplay elements. As for the remake of the third entry, it included the full multiplayer, new side missions, a built-in map editor (Forge), a replay mode (Theater), and Firefight, a co-op PvE mode where a team of up to four players fends off waves of enemies.

Last month, as part of the ongoing Xbox restructuring, Activision announced that Halo would move under its management and that one of the publisher’s internal studios would develop a new game. As a result, plans for other remakes and new projects were scaled back or canceled, and Halo Studios went through another round of layoffs. The franchise’s new owners reveal they want to make “the greatest Halo game ever,” which will also reboot the franchise. No other details about the game are known yet.

As for Halo: Campaign Evolved, the remake reportedly had some disappointing sales, and it’s now available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.