Halo 2 and Halo 3 Remakes May No Longer Be Happening After Activision Takeover
A new report has suggested that the widely anticipated remakes of Halo 2 and Halo 3 may no longer be happening. Upon its launch just a few months ago, Halo: Campaign Evolved made it clear in the game’s final scenes that developer Halo Studios would next look to recreate Halo 2. While such a move was never outright confirmed by Xbox, the decision made a lot of sense, especially given that the next mainline Halo game seemed to still be further down the road. Now, in the wake of Xbox announcing that Halo is being handed off to Activision, it sounds as though the potential of Halo 2 and Halo 3 being remade might be dead.
According to THR, Activision’s first new project in the Halo series will be a “full-feature, mainline installment”. This verifies that Activision isn’t stepping in to continue the previous plans that Halo Studios had for the series, as it will now be pushing Halo forward in its own direction. While Halo Studios (or those within Activision) could look to still create a remake of Halo 2, the fact that the developer has been greatly scaled down following new layoffs at Xbox as a whole makes these plans now seem much more unlikely. Instead, Halo Studios sounds as though it will become a support studio rather than one that is making its own games.
Although it would be disappointing not to get a full remake of both Halo 2 and Halo 3 in the future, the decision to deviate from this trajectory would be somewhat logical for Xbox. Halo: Campaign Evolved didn’t necessarily set the world on fire upon its release back in July, as many fans criticized the remake for not including multiplayer, in addition to a number of smaller changes that Halo Studios made when compared to the original. Not only was the critical response to Campaign Evolved somewhat divisive, but the game didn’t seem to do nearly as well as Xbox had expected from a commercial standpoint, especially since it was the first entry in franchise history to come to PlayStation hardware.
With all of this in mind, Xbox leadership seems to now be getting very aggressive with its flagship series and isn’t settling for just continuing with past plans. This is almost certainly why Halo has now been passed off to Activision, with a new team being assembled to create what’s next for the franchise. While there’s no guarantee that this new Halo project at Activision will be what fans have longed to see from the series for years, Xbox bosses may be convinced that this is a better route forward for Master Chief than simply continuing onward by remaking the original trilogy.