After OG dev blasted the Halo remake, the ‘father of Master Chief’ says he thinks it looks just swell, actually: ‘Gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it’

It is 2025 and we are, as a society, making Halo again. This has caused no small amount of discourse. Is there any point remaking Halo? Is Unreal Engine 5 the right vessel for a remake? Will God strike us down for putting a Halo game on a Sony console?

All these questions and more arose, along with a bit of controversy. For instance, original Halo designer Jaime Griesemer was vocally disappointed with the new remake, calling it out for mucking with the level design in a way he reckoned was deleterious for the game as a whole.

Well, buckle up, because yet another Halo OG has entered the ring and this one’s a lot more positive. Marcus Lehto, art director on Halo 1, 2 and 3 and “father of Master Chief,” took to X to declare that he’s a fair bit keener on the remake than his former compatriots. “It warms my heart to see Halo CE like this,” says the man himself.

“My honest impression of seeing the new Halo Campaign Evolved is this,” wrote Lehto, “I absolutely love where this is going. The game looks and feels genuine. It’s gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001.”

Which is quite the stamp of approval from the original game’s art director, I suppose, and has gotta be pretty heartening to hear if you’re one of the devs working on the remake. Still, I think it’s worth noting that Lehto is pretty much just talking about the remake’s aesthetics and vibes in his post, where Griesemer was commenting more directly on a specific aspect of the game’s level design.

That’s not to say I think Lehto secretly vibrates with disgust at the remake, just, you know, the two guys are kind of talking about two different things. Specifically, things related directly to the jobs they did on the original Halo.