Halo Campaign Evolved Premium Edition sparked a controversy because there’s really no reason to buy something other than the Standard Edition for 50 dollars. The PC gaming community is enraged that this is even happening in the first place, and they think dropped an extra 20 dollars for a digital manual that might be probably made up with “AI” is just ludicrous. Back in the day however, manuals were a piece of art that elevated the gaming experience even further by bringing more lore, unique character art, and in Japan they even had manga inside of them, another thing they enjoyed that we didn’t.
Halo Campaign Evolved Premium Edition is weird
It also includes a skin pack, which is crazy for a game that is meant to be only the campaign instead of the only components that the original version had back in the 2000s. To me its still crazy that there was a decision to just cut the online off and make this a single player remake of the first game. The lobby was one of the most fun parts of the game, and to this day fans still keep it alive because they don’t want those memories to fade into nothing. The online maps are also unique, so maybe that’s why they didn’t work on them.
The Halo Campaign Evolved Premium Edition also comes with a digital comic that will include more lore about the Halo universe, so hopefully the 20 dollars are worth it provided they put some effort with it. I myself don’t think there should have been a big controversy behind this, but to each their own, considering Microsoft has been trying to push “AI” everywhere, I have 0 trust that this remake of a legendary game will remain unscathed and I’m not the target audience anymore anyways.