Halo Campaign Evolved came out for the Xbox Series X|S, PC as well as on the Playstation 5 on 28 July as the first ever Halo game running on the Sony platform, however, it was also off to a “notably slow start” in terms of overall sales, according to Rhys Elliot from Alinea Analytics. The newest Halo title has managed to sold around 452,000 copies so far, amounting to nearly $28 million in terms of total revenue, whereas Campaign Evolved has moved 212,000 units on Steam and about 900,000 copies on the Xbox systems.
And although the game has received mostly favorable reviews upon release, Campaign Evolved’s $50 price point did not sit well with most players, as it’s essentially a significantly older title with graphical updates. “Fifty dollars for what’s essentially a graphical touch-up of a 2001 game was always going to be a hard sell, and players clearly weren’t having it,” Elliot said.
However, besides the obvious technological advancements, Halo Campaign Evolved came with three new prequel missions with the Operation Meteorite story arc. But as the multiplayer aspect has always been the biggest draw of the Halo franchise and Campaign Evolved doesn’t have that, it seems that’s one of the main causes for player disappointments, and the sales reflect that.
According to Elliot, if Halo had kept going in the same direction as of both Halo 3 and Reach, things might have been drastically different today, regarding the sales numbers and overall smaller footprint of the series which speaks volumes on the fact that Halo is far from being the premier franchise for Xbox in the current-gen era.
“One can’t help wondering what could have been if Halo had kept the trajectory it had around Halo 3 and Reach. A remake of the game that started it all landing this softly on a new platform makes me pretty sad, as a Halo fan,” he wrote.
Developer Halo Studios had previously stated that future titles in the franchise will also make their way to the PS5 but it was before Asha Sharma became Xbox CEO and decided to go back to making some of their games exclusive to the platform. So it’s currently up in the air whether the next mainline entry in the Halo series will be released on the PS5 or not.
