Coliseum

We aren’t talking about Mixtape the right way. That is an admittedly brash start to what I’m getting at here because there is no right way to talk about a game, a book, a movie, an anything. But I’ve read so much good criticism about Mixtape, the nostalgic music-soaked adventure game from The Artful Escape developer Beethoven and Dinosaur, since its launch last month. I’ve read a lot I agree with, and just as much I disagree with. A recurring sentiment, however, is the intense focus on the “when” of Mixtape – when it takes place, what year it must be set in, how this period of time does or doesn’t connect to specific types of people, and entire arguments for and against it hanging on the idea that Mixtape has an answer to that question. After finally playing through it myself, it’s so clear there is no answer. 

Mixtape takes place never; it takes place always. 

On its surface, Mixtape is about three teenagers – the counter-culture Stacey Rockford, the classic goodhearted stoner Van Slater, and the silver platter girl who rebelliously rejects it, Cassandra Morino – and their final night in the Pacific Northwest-inspired fictional town of Blue Moon Lagoon. Stacey, suffering from Main Character Energy (though she actually is the main character of Mixtape), will leave in the morning for New York City and impress a music executive with her mixtape-creating abilities to land her dream job as a music supervisor; there is no other option because Stacey knows she doesn’t need one – the job is hers. As such, she’s bailing on a road trip the trio had planned across the West Coast en route to Cassandra’s college of choice. 

Cassandra is quietly (then not-so-quietly) devastated by this, disappointed in Stacey’s decision to prioritize herself over the trio. Slater is also disappointed but unwilling to rock a boat he’s happy to float along in. Stacey doesn’t understand why Cassandra doesn’t understand. 

All of this is the on-page text of Mixtape, and it’s backed by Stacey’s custom, fourth wall-breaking playlist that defines this final night in Blue Moon Lagoon. A close read of this text does make Mixtape a messier game than Beethoven and Dinosaur likely intended. Its mishmash of modern-day terms and sayings like “sauce” and “Jesus Take The Wheel” obscures an otherwise clear 1990s story, as does the inclusion of songs from 1995, when in-game references nod to a 1992 setting. From there, you can extrapolate, as many have, the ways in which Mixtape fails as a nostalgic trip to the 1990s of American suburbia, washed clean of the turmoil unfolding across the country during the same period. 

But again, Mixtape doesn’t take place in the 1990s, not really.

Instead, what I believe Beethoven and Dinosaur is attempting to do is speak to the mandatory reckless, cringe, teenage romanticism demanded of the path to adulthood. Gen X romanticized their teenage years; Millennials, perhaps more than any other, did the same, and I’m already seeing Gen Z do it too, grasping for an emotionally transcendent life the COVID-19 pandemic robbed them of. This is nothing new, either – The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Looking For Alaska, Whiplash, Dead Poets Society, Life is Strange, Night in the Woods, to name a few that immediately come to mind (and there are countless more). Mixtape isn’t particularly revelatory in its messaging, nor are any of the above examples.

There is an entire genre of entertainment that transcends any one medium, that aims to romanticize life, and make you feel good about a life you once had or maybe never had through what it presents to you. 

Of course, there is strife and heartbreak and loss and desperation and angst and cringe… so much cringe… and first-love-that-you-swear-is-forever-but-will-probably-end-sooner-than-you-think-because-it-is-fleeting. Life sucks in a lot of ways, and games like Mixtape, books like I’ll Give You The Sun (fantastic, by the way), movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (directly referenced with a running-through-backyards-scene in the game), are created to make the mundane larger than life. They are about characters who must be the main characters. They’re nothing without that pedestal. The overt text of these examples is wildly different, but the subtext is all the same: whatever it is you’re doing, there is something fantastical to be found in it, and it is incredibly important that you, specifically, do it. Nobody else could.

Mixtape understands, and arguably weaponizes, this feeling and deploys it to uplift the mundanity of teenage arrogance, selfishness, and small-town escapism, turning it into something larger than life. The cars adorning the streets of Blue Moon Lagoon absolutely explode when you flick them the bird while cruising down the asphalt (as someone who actually did blow up a car in high school, this was the part I related to most); the fireworks most definitely light up the skies when you tell them to; you bet running through a field of flowers with your friends lifts you off the ground – you’re flying in euphoria. It’s stupid and fake, but also real, and it’s everything. 

Do we not all have a Pop-Punk playlist meticulously created for these sweltering Summer months? You probably don’t, but you have something like it, something to take the everyday usual and give it some needed whimsy. Of course I listen to Persona 5 tracks when I’m in Japan. Of course you transcend into bliss when the drinks have flowed just enough that you’re positive the DJ is playing your song because they know it’s your song. Yes, everyone is thinking about how cool and mysterious you are while you lay your head on the train’s window, raindrops coloring your enigma. That is what life is about! We are not original (and neither is Mixtape narratively, though I’d argue some of its mechanical interactions are genuine); we are all our own main characters and to act like Mixtape is anything but a look at the way we all romanticize even our smallest actions is to ignore the idea that to be cringe is to be free, to quote the Associated Press Stylebook Of Millennials lexicon.

Stacey’s over-ears headset is just one small part of that, as is her perfectly curated playlist for every moment, as are Van’s well-timed stoner one-liners, as is Cassandra’s public defiance of her cop father. I’m not arguing Mixtape excels at speaking to these feelings, and your mileage likely varies given how much other media you’ve consumed (I’m telling you, these stories are everywhere). But I struggle to see Mixtape as anything other than an exploration of this teenage romanticism. 

We play through Mixtape in real time, but from Stacey’s immediate fourth-wall break at the start of the game to its final moments, we are envoys to her story. So much of it didn’t happen, but to her, it all did. Stacey didn’t fly over Blue Moon Lagoon, but she felt like she did, and that’s what’s important here. You know this teenager is fibbing, adorning this story with things that totally and definitely did happen, and you need to accept it; she doesn’t know the realities of life that will soon (attempt to) crush her spirit.

Call it lying, embellishment, romanticizing, whatever you want, but when we tell our stories, like any self-serious self-aggrandizing storyteller, we aim to make the listener feel something, anything, and Mixtape is Beethoven and Dinosaur’s expression (and implicit understanding) of that. It was true in the 90s, it’s true today, it’s true always. That feeling is timeless, even if Mixtape’s setting or songs or vocabulary isn’t. Hold onto it. 

In 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved hit store shelves and completely revolutionized the console first-person shooting market. In the latest issue of Game Informer, I traced the origins of the Halo franchise with early members of Bungie, the original studio behind the Halo franchise. As part of that conversation, Master Chief voice actor Steve Downes repeated a claim he made on his personal YouTube channel: Bungie and Microsoft originally planned to recast Master Chief and Cortana with Hollywood talent to broaden the mainstream appeal. While that didn’t end up coming to pass – Downes and Jen Taylor still depict Chief and Cortana, respectively, to this day – I couldn’t help but dig more into that with those who were involved in the conversation.

During my discussion with Downes and Taylor, we got on the topic of people finding out they were the voices of these characters. For Downes, he was visiting a friend’s brother’s house, and they had a group of kids playing Xbox. “It never even crossed my mind that we would do this again,” Downes recalls. “I walked through the living room one day, and [the kids] were playing Combat Evolved, and I jogged my memory, because, believe me, I forgot about it; it wasn’t anything that I remembered doing, but I saw the game, and I was like, ‘Wait a second… ‘ and I think I almost said it to myself out loud, ‘I think I voiced a character in that game.’ And the kids stopped, and they said, ‘Well who?’ And I said, ‘I can’t remember the name, but I think he was the main guy in the game,’ and they said, ‘Master Chief?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, Master Chief.’ So within, I don’t know, 20 or 30 minutes, every kid in the neighborhood is over at the house with a copy of the game on Xbox, wanting to get it signed. That was my ‘A-ha!’ moment that, ‘What do we have here?’ and it was a life-changing moment that continues.’

Halo: Combat Evolved

Taylor speculates that maybe the fact that nobody knew who voiced the characters was by design. “I felt in the beginning, Bungie didn’t really want people to know who we were, because they really wanted you to have the characters in your mind when you were listening to our voices and not, ‘Oh, that blonde lady,'” she says. “They weren’t selling us, they were selling the characters.”

When Downes hears this, he chimes in with his assertion that a recast was on the table. “There was no reach out from [Bungie],” he says. “In fact, as we found out later, they had every intention of replacing us with famous people.”

Taylor, seemingly having heard this before, pushes back a little, suggesting they need corroboration from Halo: Combat Evolved audio director and composer Marty O’Donnell. “Well, you say that,” she says with a smile. “Does Marty back us up? We’ve gotta ask Marty!”

Halo 2

After claiming that O’Donnell does, in fact, back up the claim that a recasting was on the table for Halo 2, Downes shares some of the names that were on the table, but with a caveat. “I don’t know if this part’s true, but it makes for a fun story that Tom Cruise was considered as the guy who would voice Master Chief,” he says. “They were going to replace both of us – well, they were certainly going to replace me, I don’t know about Jen – and Marty said the conversation was, ‘Why are we fixing something that isn’t broken? The game did great as it was. Why are we gonna mess with it now? What’s the point?’ And thank God cooler heads – thank God for me [laughs] – cooler heads prevailed, and they did not make any changes.”

With Downes’ claim now aired, and a corroborating source explicitly stated, I reached out to O’Donnell to discuss, among other things, the casting Downes and Taylor. Though Taylor expressed doubt that Cruise would have taken on the role in the early ’00s, given how big he was at the time, it turns out there was some truth to it. According to O’Donnell, the conversations were short, and only started once Halo: Combat Evolved became a big enough success to get him into rooms in which he’d never had been.

Halo 2

“That was for Halo 2; we were never going to recast them in the first one, because Halo had no cachet, really, until three years later, after it became a million-seller, and then a 2 million-seller,” O’Donnell says. “Microsoft had sort of shipped me out to Hollywood shindigs and parties, and they saw that there was a lot of anticipation for Halo 2. I’d be in Hollywood, and I had already been interested in, like, ‘Well, maybe I can start casting some actors who are…’ I wanted actors who liked games and were already fans of this new game called Halo. I didn’t want to get actors who were just looking for a big payday, because there was no big payday.”

In the midst of these Hollywood-centric events, O’Donnell was approached by someone from one of the biggest talent agencies, Creative Artists Agency. “One of the guys came up to me at one of these parties and puts his arm around me,” O’Donnell recalls. “‘Marty, you know, it’s time! This is a big deal. You’re in the big times now. You’ve gotta step everything up. We represent Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise.’ Now, Tom Cruise was already a Bungie fan, believe it or not; he had played Myth, so this wasn’t the first time we’d heard about Tom Cruise. It was this guy basically saying, ‘We should make this deal to get Tom Cruise to be Master Chief, and Julia Roberts to be Cortana in Halo 2.'”

Halo 2

According to O’Donnell’s recounting of the story, he was less than impressed. “I was like, ‘Wow that’s really cool! Yeah, thanks a lot,’ and I was just like, ‘What a slimeball,'” he recalls. “I’m just like, ‘Okay, I’ve got to be really careful in Hollywood, take advantage of who I can, get the people I think are cool,’ but I knew that would have ruined everything. The fans would never had accepted – because I know game fans are not necessarily blown away by big stars, they’re blown away by solid gameplay and emotionally compelling stories, and they were blown away by what we had done. But they wanted us to stay true to that relationship between us and the fans, and if we just threw Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts, who I would have had a blast working with them – if I could have done that to begin with, maybe that could have been cool – but there was no way that I could replace Jen Taylor and Steve Downes, because the fans already had a relationship with those voices, because they were Master Chief and Cortana. I just could not think of replacing that, so that was never really in the cards to be considered, but I like to dangle it over Jen and Steve every so often, like, ‘You know, I could have gotten Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise,’ [laughs] It’s just a fun story. It never went any further than that one conversation.”

Even though the conversation about Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts ended there, it is fun to imagine a world where those celebrities voiced those characters. However, it certainly would not be the same, and likely would have alienated large portions of the fan base. Additionally, they would have almost certainly abandoned those roles by now, as gaming’s tumultuous history with one-off celebrity voice actors has shown. Meanwhile, in this timeline, Downes and Taylor still provide the voices for Master Chief and Cortana to this day, even returning to the booth to re-record their lines for Halo: Campaign Evolved, which gave them a chance to deliver their now-iconic performances with more perspective on the characters and franchise as a whole.

Halo: Campaign Evolved

Though both actors have certainly grown in the roles, returning to re-record their original performances in Halo: Combat Evolved for this year’s Halo: Campaign Evolved, was a bit daunting for Taylor. “I was intimidated,” Taylor admits. “I felt like, you know, did we capture lightning in a bottle? Am I in the right headspace for this? Am I going to be so intimidated by who this character is now, which I didn’t have that information back in the day. I was creating her from the very beginning, and now I was intimidated by it. In the end, it was really fun. I did a lot more ADR for this than I’ve ever done – I guess I did ADR for the fourth game, and for this one, because they shot it in Budapest, interestingly enough. So, all the motion capture, because we were on strike at the time, as I recall, so they did all the motion capture in Budapest, so I was matching to another actress, who did it physically, did the motion capture, so that’s always an interesting challenge, and one I’m not sure I’m very good at, honestly. So, we’ll see, but it was, in the end, it was fun, because it was a great group of people who were working on it with us, and that always makes it. It was a group of people who were really excited about it, which makes you excited. You can’t help but feel that.”

Downes even chimes in with high praise for the process of re-recording his lines for Halo Studios’ new remake. “I don’t think I’ve had more fun voicing for Halo than I had for Campaign Evolved,” he says. “It was such a unique experience to, as Jen said, you get to revisit where it all began, but there were challenges, because you don’t want to mimic what you did. You want to honor the origin part of it. Especially on some of the big lines; I didn’t want to just parrot it. But I didn’t want to stray too far away from what people remember, and as Jen said, the people we worked with while recording were passionate Halo people, and people who had been with this game for a very long time, and were deeply involved in the story and the lore and all of it. That’s like being surrounded by friends, not just a director.” 

Halo: Campaign Evolved

Based on what I played of Halo: Campaign Evolved, the performances have evolved alongside the campaign, but not in a way that flies in the face of the original recordings. Instead, the lines feel more confident, which could only be achieved through having the same actors in the same roles for a quarter century. Halo: Campaign Evolved arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on July 28. For more, if you’re a Game Informer subscriber, be sure to check out our latest cover story.

The big developing news this week is Xbox’s reported plans to cut several studios from its game division, with Compulsion Games (South of Midnight), Double Fine (Psychonauts), and Ninja Theory (Hellblade) specifically cited as being at risk of closure. Ninja Theory was especially surprising given it had revealed a third Hellblade title called Senua during the Xbox Games Showcase less than two weeks ago. However, a new report alleges that this had always been the plan.

Game File, a newsletter written by veteran reporter Stephen Totilo, reports that Xbox had already planned to either sunset or split with Ninja Theory before the announcement of Senua, per an anonymous source said to be familiar with Microsoft’s plans. This was done with the idea that announcing a new game would attract investors to fund the studio following an Xbox divorce or studio closure. Game File also reports that it is unknown if Ninja Theory’s leadership was involved in this plan.

Neither Xbox nor Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, or Double Fine has publicly confirmed any of the reports regarding their status over the last couple of days. However, The Verge reported earlier this week that Ninja Theory has already been closed and is currently seeking a buyer. The reported studio closures follow Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and chief content officer Matt Booty’s plans for a “reset’ of the Xbox division, which would involve significant layoffs. 

Senua was announced as the third Hellblade game, but is billed as a full-on action-adventure title with an increased emphasis on combat. It is scheduled to launch in 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. 

As the entire gaming world waits with bated breath for the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, Rockstar Games has announced a surprise treat for those still playing the last-gen versions of the previous entry, Grand Theft Auto V. 

Starting tomorrow, June 18, owners of Grand Theft Auto V on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will be able to upgrade to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions for free. The news was announced via a Rockstar Newswire blog, and it coincides with an upcoming update for GTA Online called The Kortz Center Heist, a big new mission launching in July.

The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of GTA V were first released on March 15, 2022, and originally had no free upgrade path. Instead, the current-gen versions were priced at $39.99 (and included GTA Online). These upgraded versions boast improved resolutions (up to 4K), HDR, ray tracing, improved textures and draw distances, and up to 60 frames per second gameplay. The PS5 version also features 3D audio and DualSense haptic feedback. Story progress from the PS4/Xbox One versions can also be transferred to the current editions.

PC players can experience the same improvements by upgrading from the Legacy to the Enhanced edition for free. GTA+ members can also play GTA V’s story mode as part of the GTA+ Games Library. 

As we march towards the November 19 release of Grand Theft Auto VI, it seems Rockstar wants players to revisit GTA V or play it for the first time in the best way possible. This may not be a new update on GTA VI, but you can remind yourself of what’s in store for that game by watching its latest trailer from May 2025. 

Reviewed on:
Switch 2

Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Publisher:
Square Enix

Developer:
Team Asano

Release:
June 18, 2026

Rating:
Teen

Despite starring a hero clad in red, it’s clear that The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales is a game trying to fill the proverbial green tunic worn by Nintendo’s star swordsman, Link. Between its talking fairy, time-traveling narrative, and arsenal of weapons/puzzle solving tools that includes bombs, a bow, and a boomerang, the comparison is impossible to deny. While it arguably improves on some elements, like its enjoyable combat system, I spent most of my time with Elliot entertained, but never satisfied. Link did it better, but my 25 hours in the land of Philabieldia was pleasant nonetheless.

Elliot earns his subtitle of “the Millennium Tales” thanks to its story, which spans four ages of its continent’s history. By passing through Doorways of Time, Elliot embarks on a quest to save the kingdom of Huther in his home time period. The story, while simple, is the classic sort of adventure publisher Square Enix is known for, with magical secrets, sages, and a long-lost sacred sword. But while time travel is an interesting hook, I was left frustrated at how little each age varied from the last. The main town and its people shift drastically, but enemies don’t vary much from era to era, and the overworld doesn’t change enough to feel new. I often would be ushered back into a new time period, meet the people of a new town, and then go through the same fields, caves, and dungeons I had already explored further down the timeline. 

For most of the game, Elliot also doesn’t seem to impact the timeline, which is slightly disappointing. He participates in major conflicts, but the flow of history isn’t altered – his appearances are canon events, so nothing drastically changes when you return home. The time travel functions more as a tool to explore the land’s history at each of its most pivotal moments. You’re far more likely to travel to the past to learn about a problem’s context than you are to solve it before it occurs. The only exception is the game’s true ending – it’s the first time the causal relationship between eras is really felt in the story, rather than just worldbuilding. This great sequence, which added eight hours onto my playthrough, is absolutely mandatory if players want to understand Elliot and his world, as it’s the narrative’s proper conclusion. It’s just a shame the story’s most unique element takes so long to truly pay off, and I hope most players don’t put the game down before then.

The Adventures of Elliot’s greatest strength lies in its protagonist’s wide arsenal of tools, all unlocked fairly early in the game. There are seven main weapons to equip and customize with Magicite, Philabieldia’s enchanted gems. These crystals alter your attacks in various ways, making them hit harder, cause elemental status effects, or add other weapon-specific traits. I made my boomerang extra large and lengthened its time in the air, allowing me to shred enemies with a buzzsaw-like attack. Meanwhile, my massive hammer knocked foes far away and caused defeated enemies to explode. It’s a great system, and I regularly experimented with my weapons and builds.

I wish there were a greater variety of enemies, as you battle most of them in the first 10 hours. Luckily, The Adventures of Elliot has a bonus drops feature, which increases enemy rewards as you defeat foes without getting hit. Despite combat growing stale towards the end, I enjoyed feeling like I had mastered the existing enemy types, blazing through familiar monsters to max out my gains to make extra cash.

Your fairy companion, Faie, also gains abilities throughout the adventure, and while they’re mostly used for puzzle-solving, they also add fun wrinkles to fights. You can also play challenges focused on these abilities in the menu, shooting for high scores and unlocking music tracks to listen to in-game. Faie herself, however, is the game’s most grating feature. Her high, bouncy voice would not be out of place in an episode of Dora the Explorer, and she talks nonstop, usually over-explaining basic concepts or simple observations. Faie manages to put Navi’s cycle of “Hey, listen!” to shame, even when dialing down the “chattiness” setting in the game’s menu. She’s also the only companion to follow Elliot between eras, so you’re stuck with her, whether you like it or not.

Despite the successes of The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, I can’t help but feel it doesn’t make full use of its time-travel potential, both in its overworld and in its story. Still, while it’s not particularly exceptional or exciting, it is both adequate and effective. I doubt The Adventures of Elliot will replace Zelda in anyone’s list of favorites, but across my roughly 25 hours, I was always glad to pick my Switch 2 back up and play some more.

Score:
7.25

About Game Informer’s review system

Ever since we learned the name of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, fan speculation began running rampant about what the third and final entry of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy would be called. While, thematically, many considered “Reunion” to be a fitting choice, that was disqualified as it was the name of the Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII remaster, which arrived in 2022. In early June, we finally learned that the name was Final Fantasy VII Revelation.

Oddly enough, while on stage at Summer Game Fest 2026’s live show, director Naoki Hamaguchi focused more on another word that begins with “re.” “As I spoke about in my stage presentation, the central theme of this title is going to be ‘Resolve,'” he tells Game Informer. “That could mean a lot of things, but one of them is the resolve of our party player-characters heading into the final battles. What kind of resolve do they have in them? What are they feeling? What are they thinking about? Things like that. We’re going to really dive deep into that specific aspect of their emotions and what they’re thinking. It’s going to shape a little bit differently between the choices that the players take, so the overall game experience might change a little bit depending on those choices that the players might take, but the goal is for the characters to feel closer than ever for the players.”

When I ask Hamaguchi directly if, given that response, “Resolve” was ever in consideration for the name of the third part, he is direct in his response. “The central theme being ‘Resolve,’ and it being a word that starts with R-E, that’s just a coincidence,” he says. “It wasn’t really a candidate for our title. We landed with ‘Revelation,’ because that was the word that was the best match for what we wanted to depict in the third installment of our series. One thing I can share about the title ‘Revelation,’ though, is that we kept this under the veils for the longest time, and we wanted to be very careful about it. We have a very huge development team, but among those development team members, only five or six people knew about the title. Most of them found out about the title at the SGF stage presentation!”

I asked Hamaguchi about the name of the third entry during our 2023 Rapid-Fire interview with the director of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, he responded, “That is kept inside [creative director Tetsuya] Nomura-san’s head,” before he rejected various joke pitches I gave him, so the secrecy of the announcement checks out.  

Given the themes of the third act of Final Fantasy VII, I’m curious if there is any inspiration for the final entry of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy from the final book of the Bible, The Book of Revelation. “Some people might make that connection with Christian [mythology], but from our point of view, it was more about revealing all these unanswered questions that the fans may have with Remake and Rebirth. I think a lot of fans and players were just really wondering, how this is going to go down, and how the trilogy is going to conclude. As a response to that, this is our message, to say that this is the end of everything, this is where everything gets revealed, and this is where you will find out all the answers.”

Final Fantasy VII Revelation is set to arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC in the first half of 2027, marking the first time the Remake trilogy is going multiplatform on day one. To learn how Hamaguchi feels about bringing Final Fantasy back to Nintendo, read his thoughts here. To learn more about the changes coming to Queen’s Blood in Revelation, head here.

Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Publisher:
Xbox Game Studios

Developer:
Halo Studios

Release:
July 28, 2026

As part of our trip to Halo Studios back in May for our recently announced Halo: Campaign Evolved cover story, I had the chance to sit down and play through all three of the new missions included in the remake package. These missions take place prior to the famous narrative of Halo: Combat Evolved, giving us more insight into Master Chief pre-Cortana, as well as his relationship to Sgt. Johnson. These hands-on impressions are just a part of our in-depth cover story that chronicles the creation of the original Halo: Combat Evolved, as well as the upcoming 25th-anniversary remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved. 

To read the full story, which spans 22 pages in our print edition, subscribe to Game Informer by heading here.

The story of Master Chief and Cortana in Halo: Combat Evolved is widely known by this point. And though Halo: Reach gave us glimpses into the days leading up to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, the games have stopped short of giving us many interactions with Chief ahead of his debut title. Halo: Campaign Evolved not only delivers a remake of the full original story of Combat Evolved, playable with up to four players, but also a trio of bonus missions set in 2551, around a year before Combat Evolved’s story begins.

While Halo Studios could have easily rested on its laurels by simply delivering a remake of the original content, the team wanted to see how it could further flesh out the universe in the events leading up to that story. This decision includes bringing in weapons, enemy types, and other elements that wouldn’t debut until subsequent Halo games.

These inclusions make the universe feel more alive, as though these elements were always present, rather than conveniently popping up in the in-universe timeline just as the developers added them to gameplay. The three missions star two of the most popular characters in Halo: Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson. The latter has appeared in several games, but the Halo: Campaign Evolved bonus missions look to further explore and establish his relationship with Chief.

“It’s a big universe with a lot of great characters, a lot of great stories to tell, and things that happen in this time period,” creative director Max Szlagor says. “These missions are before the events of the main campaign, but specifically, Chief and Johnson, they’ve had a relationship for some time, and so it’s really interesting to dig into what that’s like, or the relationship between the ODSTs and the Spartans. […] When you first see Johnson in the original campaign, you’re like, ‘Okay, who is this character?’ So, just having that context, I think, really enhances the overall feel of the experience.”

Despite these missions taking place chronologically before the events of the original game, Halo Studios recommends that players who are either new to Halo or whose skills may be a little rusty start with the original campaign, as the bonus missions jump pretty quickly to the difficult end of the spectrum. Despite this, the story plays out like a fun prequel, giving us more insight into Master Chief before he partners with Cortana. Immediately, I see a slightly chattier Chief than I’m used to, with him even making small jokes that you would typically hear between friends with Johnson.

Senior franchise story lead Jeff Easterling oversaw the creation of the narrative, while longtime Halo novelist Troy Denning worked closely with the team of writers as a contributor. “A couple of Troy’s most popular [novels] were dealing with the early dynamics of the relationship of Sgt. Johnson and The Chief,” Easterling says. “We always felt like, Sgt. Johnson, we want to spend more time with him, and in the original [Combat Evolved], I think people forget that Sgt. Johnson actually doesn’t play a huge role. It really is only in Halo 2 and 3 where he becomes the Johnson that we know in our minds, and we try to ‘retro’ that into CE, but we’ve done some interesting things with Campaign Evolved and these three missions being paramount to elevating Johnson into the Johnson that we remember. Troy was an easy pick to be involved with that.”

“We knew that we wanted them to get some mapping coordinates trying to find a map for the Covenant homeworld, and after that, we sat down and started talking about the three parts of the story, how we would structure it, and just tossing out ideas,” Denning says. “I obviously had a blast writing Johnson and The Chief together [in Halo: Silent Storm], so it was fun to be able to do that again.”

The trio of missions begins with Boarding Action. Chief and Johnson smuggle themselves aboard The Triumph of Tolerance to retrieve nav data that would allow them to strike back at the Covenant following the glassing of a planet. The first room is full of Grunts and Jackals, as well as one Elite, but it’s nothing I can’t handle while in control of the powerful Spartan. After the coast is clear, Chief opens a hatch in the ship they came in on to let Johnson out.

As Johnson works to open the first door, Chief asks, “Any way to speed this up?” Johnson replies, “Until we can find a way to cram an AI into that suit of yours, this is the best we’ve got.” References to events still to come give nods, both subtle and overt, to the broader universe.

“It’s fun because the writers and the creators on the game can deep-seed some lore that a newer player may not know anything about, or they may be discovering some of these things for the first time,” executive producer Damon Conn says. “We made sure to put in a lot of nods to lore around The Chief and Johnson and what they have gone through, and things that have happened in books and other media to make sure that we’re anchoring some things in there that, if you’re a real Halo lover, you’re gonna have something to look forward to in these, because you’re gonna discover some nice little notes as we tell as new story.”

I played through the entire three-mission arc, but I don’t want to spoil too much of what unfolds. However, as I work my way through these missions, I love seeing these various elements from games outside of Combat Evolved crop up. I’m excited that one of my favorite weapons from later in the franchise, the battle rifle, is a mainstay in these missions, and I could find powerful arms like the fuel rod cannon and energy sword regularly, but I continually gravitated towards the needle rifle as my go-to. And, since this is built on Halo: Combat Evolved, you know I put the notoriously powerful pistol to good use.

One of my favorite sequences came in the first mission when Chief stumbles upon a sparring room, which serves as a sandbox arena for one of the best encounters. Since it’s a training room for the Covenant, dozens of different weapons are scattered throughout the area, giving you access to a large arsenal. The thrill of swapping between favorite weapons as more and more enemies poured in was nearly unrivaled during my hands-on time. And when I finished that room, I exited to a fully stocked armory, making me feel like a kid in a candy shop.

You’ll need to use the wide range of weapons to make it through. Facing off against Elites, Grunts, Jackals, and Hunters is expected, but shortly after that training room encounter, the story takes a turn. As Chief and Johnson enter a room, a cutscene shows their fight interrupted by an unlikely voice: a Prophet. And not only that, but the Prophet Harmony introduces a new enemy type into the mix, The Brute. These ape-like creatures, who originally debuted in Halo 2, are now a mainstay for the rest of the bonus missions, and their aggression fundamentally changes the flow of how the combat encounters play out.

The second of the three missions sees Chief and Johnson exiting the claustrophobic hallways and tailor-made battle arenas in favor of an outdoor biome. The third mission brings the conflict to a head with the most challenging stretch of combat, including a moving platform sequence where you must survive the ride as enemies fire on your position from all angles.

The three missions culminate in yet another surprise: a space battle. I won’t talk about what’s happening in the story at this point, but you must accomplish your mission while piloting a Covenant Seraph. After hours of boots-on-the-ground combat, putting an exclamation point on this bonus content with a distinct gameplay style inspired by Halo: Reach was a fun way to shake things up.

I’ll be the first to admit I approached these new missions with a sense of apprehension; after all, how do you expand upon the story of a game like Halo: Combat Evolved without feeling like apocryphal fan fiction? But by being smart with the chosen time period, how it tells the story, and how it incorporates elements from the wider Halo universe, Halo Studios delivers an incredibly fun, bite-sized prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved that stands capably alongside the original content.

Halo: Campaign Evolved arrives on July 28 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. To read the full cover story, be sure to subscribe to Game Informer. If you already subscribe, you can read the 25th anniversary retrospective of Halo: Combat Evolved here, and the in-depth look ahead at Halo: Campaign Evolved here.

Cosmic horror shooter Luna Abyss launched on May 21 to a generally positive reception, but the team behind it has been laid off. The news comes from developer Kwalee Labs’ CEO.

In a LinkedIn post, CEO Hollie Emery announced that, as of Monday, June 16, the entire team was made redundant. Emery does not give an exact reason as to why, but states the decision was “completely outside of our control.” The small team of nine employees is now looking for work.

“We’re enamoured by the love and support it received both by our industry and critically by journalists and media. Whilst we faced many challenges along the way, it has been the highlight of our careers – and we are incredibly proud that [Luna Abyss] has finally seen the light of day (thank you to everyone who believed in us!),” writes Emery.

Luna Abyss is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC and sees players controlling a prisoner forced to explore a derelict megastructure beneath the surface of a moon called Luna. As you uncover the moon’s mysteries, you’ll gun down cosmic horrors in first-person shooter combat with bullet hell flourishes and an emphasis on traversal and mobility. 

The game currently has an 81 critics’ score on Metacritic. Game Informer editor-in-chief Matt Miller endorsed the game in a recent impressions piece, writing, “While it shares much in common with the recently released Saros, including cosmic horror elements and bullet hell dodging of multi-hued attacks, Luna Abyss has a lot to recommend a playthrough all on its own.”

One of the major headlines coming off the reveal of Halo: Campaign Evolved was that, for the first time ever, Master Chief and the Halo franchise are coming to PlayStation. While that was enough to garner attention for the 25th-anniversary project, when I was at Halo Studios in May for our current issue’s cover story, we got on the topic of what PlayStation fans can expect when Halo: Campaign Evolved finally arrives on Sony’s platform in July.

“Halo has traditionally been a one-console franchise all the way back to its origins,” game director Greg Hermann told us in October. “We’ve seen in the past few years with Master Chief Collection or Infinite that we’ve expanded onto PC, and then really started to understand what it meant for us to do cross-platform development, and then what crossplay meant in some of these circumstances. Moving onto PlayStation was just a natural evolution of that. We were building on a lot of foundation work that Unreal Engine provides for us, but it really wasn’t too foreign to us to add another platform and make sure we budgeted across development timelines, ensuring that everybody gets a premium experience for their device.”

With that mentality, loyal PlayStation players will finally have the chance to experience the foundational shooter through this remake, complete with crossplay and cross-progression, in case they want to play the remake’s four-player co-op with some of their friends over on the Xbox side of the fence. However, it may feel like sacrilege to suggest that a PlayStation console might be the best place to play a Halo game, but after going over the PS5 Pro enhancements, it sure sounds like PS5 Pro will be the best place to play Halo: Campaign Evolved. The PS5 Pro edition of Halo: Campaign Evolved uses PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, SSD optimization, faster loading, 3D audio, and DualSense-exclusive features, leading me to believe that even Microsoft’s Xbox Series X will have a hard time keeping up with the experience on PS5 Pro.

When I ask Halo Studios, they decline to directly say that PlayStation 5 Pro is the best place to play Halo: Campaign Evolved, but it seems relatively clear. However, with the most recent Xbox Showcase, the platform holder is poised to roll back its recent stance on bringing some of its franchises to other platforms, beginning with Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution. As Xbox’s flagship franchise since its inception, it would be unsurprising to see future Halo games join those titles, but that remains to be seen. For now, Halo: Campaign Evolved is set to arrive on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on July 28. 

To learn more about Halo: Campaign Evolved, subscribers can check out our cover story. To learn more about Microsoft’s current strategy, read our conversation with Xbox chief creative officer and former head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty here. 

Today we revealed our latest Game Informer cover story, an exclusive deep-dive look ahead at the upcoming release of Halo: Campaign Evolved, alongside a look back at the profound impact of Halo: Combat Evolved, featuring interviews with the original creators who helped shape that milestone project 25 years ago.

As a thank you to fans of the magazine and Halo more broadly, we’re making our new cover art available for download (in multiple sizes and formats) for free, without logo, wording, or other embellishment. 

We also had the chance to speak with lead concept artist Sam Wood, who created this beautiful piece to grace our cover, and learn about his inspirations, process, and some secret insights into the colors and positioning of everything you see on the cover. 

We hope you enjoy!

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GI: What were your goals/vision behind this art piece?

Wood: To properly introduce Halo: Campaign Evolved, we wanted to create a cover image as bold and colorful as the game itself. We knew we wanted a piece that celebrated the 25-year history of the iconic franchise, while also introduce the franchise to new audiences. So the piece needed something of the legendary about it as well.

Was there a specific style you were shooting for?
Our Studio Art Director, Chris Matthews, proposed a classic sci-fi movie poster composition; a “hero pyramid” with the Master Chief dominating the center and a large ensemble of heroes and enemies around him.

With that brief, I couldn’t avoid walking in the footsteps of the late Drew Struzan, who used masterful compositions, accurate portrait drawing, and translucent airbrushed colors to create truly iconic movie poster art. Also inspired by Struzan, I used deliberate color grouping to organize the image into warmer and cooler zones, which makes the complex composition easier to take in.

Any particular inspiration behind this approach?

Unlike a lot of concept art and illustration, this is an image that doesn’t show one specific character, scene, or moment, but is rather a collage of faces and figures, with supporting details and thematic elements surrounding them. Thus, it feels timeless and a bit nostalgic. The characters hang in an undefined space, lending them a larger-than-life presence. The fact that the visual relationships are symbolic rather than literal invites us to ponder how we feel about them and how they relate to one another across the entire Halo saga.

What is your general process start to finish for a piece of art like this?

Following my usual approach, I started out with several rounds of black-and-white thumbnails and sketches to get the composition locked in. These were accompanied by color and value studies. The next step was to go into Unreal Engine to light and pose each character individually. While not a technique I always use, digital renders are invaluable for achieving accurate character likenesses on a tight timeline. I composited these renders into a single Photoshop document and then got to work painting, lighting, and adding visual effects to bring the final image together.

Any insights or context to share about what is depicted in the image?

This image revolves around the Master Chief, flanked by the two companions – Cortana and 343 Guilty Spark – who accompanied him through most of his adventure on the first Halo Ring. Clustered around these three are a selection of friends and foes, most of whom will be familiar to longtime players – though one or two might be new faces. Each half of the image is dominated by a color symbolizing one of the threats faced in the game: the browns, yellows, and oranges of the encroaching Flood and the alien purples, blues, and teals of the Covenant. Only Master Chief’s iconic green armor defiantly breaks free from this scheme.

Anything else you’d like to share about this image?

It was a real privilege to get to work on this piece. Sometimes I felt like the mantle of responsibility was resting heavily on my shoulders, but mostly I was just having a blast trying to figure out how to make it all work. If it conveys even just a fraction of how colorful, ambitious, fun, and legendary of how Halo: Campaign Evolved, then I’ll call it a success. 

If you’d like to read our complete coverage of Halo’s 25th anniversary, learn exclusive details on Campaign Evolved, and receive this art and issue to lay out on your coffee table, visit our subscription page