When Halo: Campaign Evolved first came out in July it did not include any multiplayer modes, but the first-person shooter remake will at least get Firefight as a free update this winter.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced the returning mode in a social media post Thursday, along with a graphic showing a team of Spartans shooting a mix of Covenant and Flood enemies with various guns.
While Firefight isn’t the arena competitive multiplayer that most fans had hoped from the Halo remake at launch, wave-based PvE has been a mainstay in the series since Halo 3: ODST in 2009. Essentially, you and your friends load into a map and fight increasingly difficult waves of enemies until you get overwhelmed. There’s no reason to believe that this iteration is going to be any different.
Regardless of whether or not Team Deathmatch comes to Halo: Campaign Evolved, this will be the first multiplayer mode to hit the remake, which was pitched primarily as a straight-up revival of the iconic Combat Evolved campaign. Multiplayer was the major piece missing from Campaign Evolved, and this could be a sign that more multiplayer modes will be added in the future.
IGN’s Halo: Combat Evolved remake gave it a 7. We said: “Halo: Campaign Evolved speaks to the series’ timelessness and adds a decent set of new missions, but it’s a mostly a lean retread that’s more of a test run for its future with Unreal Engine.”
This Firefight announcement comes as Xbox celebrates its 25th anniversary. Earlier today, Sharma looked ahead, predicting “a single person will soon be able to wield capabilities that once required entire nations.”
As for Halo, following the summer’s drastic cuts at Microsoft’s gaming business, Xbox announced a significant reshuffle that saw the next mainline Halo game handed to Call of Duty developer Activision, which is spinning up a new team to work on the franchise. Mass layoffs hit Halo Studios at the same time.
