The Halo community continues to be passionate about their favorite franchise even in the face of bad news, like 343 Industries canceling couch co-op mode for Halo Infinite.

However, there are some working on remaking their favorite games into something that can be even better thanks to advances in technology. A prime example is Halo Reborn, a project to retell the story of the first 3 Halo games as one whole story.

Recently announced, the custom campaign is done via the Halo: Master Chief Collection using the Halo 3 engine, though the developers state they likely will move onto the Halo Reach engine in the future.

This mod not only combines the story of the first 3 Halo titles, but it will also add in cut content Bungie had initially planned but did not use in the originals, alongside new content created by themselves like an auto snapper turret equipment.

Check out the teaser trailer for this project here:

Here’s a rundown of Halo Reborn via the team behind it:

So, what is Halo Reborn?

Halo: Reborn is an upcoming custom Halo Campaign that aims to follow the full story of the Halo trilogy but re-telling it through entirely reimagined missions, environments and encounters in one unified experience. This means it’s all done in one engine, one game as a continuous story.

The Plan

There will be lots of familiar aspects to anyone who’s played Halo but there will also be new things you’ve not experienced before.

Maps

Missions will be wholly unique and original with a bigger scope compared to the originals. Environments are getting a complete makeover, using photogrammetry, 1k-4k textures, new foliage, skyboxes, and more to create beautiful vistas and environments for you to immerse yourself in. Characters, vehicles and weapons are updated with new additions and revamped visuals to achieve a higher visual fidelity.

We’re creating completely new levels and level layouts as well meaning that some things will appear in different places, order or cut like the large amount of backtracking in Halo CE, and also developing the maps in a more intelligent way that saves time. Cut content may or may not return, both story, locations and other content, you’ll just have to see what we have in mind.

Enemies

Some enemies from the later entries will be used from the very beginning, while some will be paced out later and reinvented to create new and interesting encounters that weren’t possible back when the original trilogy came out

The Arsenal

The Sandbox is being completely revamped, we’re maintaining that Halo gameplay loop you know and love while still making additions and tweaks to open up for new possibilities.

You may have noticed the new Snapper Auto Turret equipment that doubles as a wieldable light machine gun once it breaks.

The firebomb grenade is absent in the HUD, that’s been moved to equipment (as of now) to make way for a new grenade type we want to do.

The HUD

We have a new system called iHUD (immersive HUD) that fades in UI elements as you need them for a more cinematic experience. Weapon ammo is kept out of the HUD and displays on the weapons themselves instead.

What About Scope? This sounds like a lot…

This is a massive undertaking, and we can’t promise it’ll get released anytime soon. However, we have a few things going for us as well as a few tricks to speed development.

We are working entirely within the framework of the Master Chief Collection and their tools. What this means is that while yes there will be a lot of original content, it also gives us the flexibility to reuse content from the games within MCC with some touch ups and it allows us to develop a lot of the assets and environments faster, such as the Halo 2 anniversary Battle Rifle you saw in the gameplay trailer.

We’re also taking advantage of: art tools to generate new assets like trees and rocks, photogrammetry libraries and procedural generation methods for texture masks.

We hope you enjoyed our little preview of Reborn and hopefully it gives you an idea of what to expect from us in terms of quality and scope! We’ll have more updates going forward so make sure to join our discord and follow us on twitter to stay up to date with the progress and potential upcoming playable builds!

<3

The Reborn Team

If you’d like to follow the project, check out their Twitter account for updates and possible access for beta testing in the future.