Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved
Image of a soldier clad in futuristic green armor, pointing a black weapon towards the camera. Other soldiers and vehicles of war appear in the background. Below the green soldier is a decorative logotype with "HALO" and the subtitle "Combat Evolved", with the BUNGIE logo in the bottom right.
Artwork for U.S. and European releases
Developer(s)Bungie[a]
Publisher(s)Microsoft Game Studios[b]
Director(s)Jason Jones
Writer(s)Joseph Staten
Composer(s)
SeriesHalo
Platform(s)
Release
November 15, 2001
  • Xbox
    Windows
    Mac OS X
    Xbox 360
    • WW: December 4, 2007
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Halo: Combat Evolved is a 2001 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox. It was released as a launch game for Microsoft's Xbox video game console on November 15, 2001. The game was ported to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X in 2003. It was later released as a downloadable Xbox Original for the Xbox 360. Halo is set in the twenty-sixth century, with the player assuming the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier. The Chief is accompanied by Cortana, an artificial intelligence. Players battle aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous Halo, a ring-shaped artificial world.

Bungie began the development of what would eventually become Halo in 1997. Initially, the game was a real-time strategy game that morphed into a third-person shooter before becoming a first-person shooter. During development, Microsoft acquired Bungie and turned Halo into a launch game for its first video game console, the Xbox. Halo was a critical and commercial success and is often praised as one of the greatest video games ever made. The game's popularity led to labels such as "Halo clone" and "Halo killer", applied to games either similar to or anticipated to be better than it. Its sequel, Halo 2, was released for the original Xbox in 2004, and the game spawned a multi-billion-dollar multimedia franchise that incorporates games, books, toys, and films.

More than six million copies had been sold worldwide by November 2005. A remaster of the game, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, was released for Xbox 360 by 343 Industries on the 10th anniversary of the original game's launch. Anniversary was re-released alongside the original competitive multiplayer as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection in 2014.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference eu_aus_launch was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Ahmed, Shaheed (November 8, 2001). "Microsoft announces the Xbox launch lineup". GameSpot. Archived from the original on April 2, 2002. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  3. ^ Bramwell, Tom (October 10, 2003). "What's New?". Eurogamer. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  4. ^ "Halo". Gameplanet. Archived from the original on October 12, 2003. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  5. ^ Calvert, Justin (September 15, 2003). "PC Halo goes gold". GameSpot. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference gamespot was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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