One original Halo designer blasts the new remake, wonders if the point was just ‘Occupying an enormous art team while you figure out what to do’

Halo: Combat Evolved is getting a second remake and there are plenty of reasons it’s sort of an odd duck. On top of taking a hatchet to Halo’s perennial Xbox and PC exclusivity, it’s got all sorts of ground-up changes: new weapons, 4-player co-op, sprinting, and uh, “enhanced level design.”

That last point fielded some criticism from Jaime Griesemer, game designer on the original CE and design lead on Halo 2 and 3. In a post on X, Griesemer reposted gameplay footage saying, “You aren’t supposed to be able to take the Warthog up to steamroll the Hunters. I intentionally placed rocks in the way so you had to fight them on foot.” Tagging Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto, he added, “What have they done to beloved B30?!”

Commenters gathered in the replies to compare the new footage with their experiences of the Xbox original. Washington Post games critic Gene Park concurred with Griesemer’s note about the Warthog: “That’s why I felt like my runs were so short. Because they were just drivable. Those rocks were part of the rhythms of the adventure, forcing us to walk and explore and be intimidated by the slow-moving, hulking hunters.” Griesemer replied: “It’s like the dance remix of a classic song that skips the intro and the bridge and just thumps the chorus over and over.”

When other posters pointed out it was possible to get the Warthog past the rocks in the original with some finagling, Griesemer said it just wasn’t the same: “That’s why it’s fun You got one over on the Mission Designer! The remake wants to show you how clever the MD is. It steals the fun.”

It’s easy to see his point. Marketing a new spin on a game as celebrated as Combat Evolved with “enhanced level design” comes off a bit like hawking Starry Night with “improved brushstrokes.” It might be possible, but the risk of undermining its original appeal seems perilous.

It’s a risk run by any remake of a classic game, and Grisemer had plenty to say about remakes in general, as well. In one post on his earlier thread, he sympathized with the developers involved: “Remakes and remasters are soul-destroying and I feel for any dev working on one. They can’t win and even if they do they won’t get credit. Bad situation unless you are getting paid $$$.”

And when it comes to Halo specifically, he said he doesn’t quite see the appeal. When one commenter asked if Griesemer thought Halo: CE would succeed in today’s market, he replied, “Probably not. But I’m not sure what the point is of a ‘remake’ anyway. Nostalgia? A new generation of fans? Occupying an enormous art team while you figure out what to do?”