October 2025

Xbox has finally announced the next game in the Halo series, the next Halo game is Halo Campaign Evolved. This is a remake of the original Halo Combat Evolved. The game is said to include more levels and weapons than the original had. There are some other changes with  this version of the game too. For the first time, Halo is going to be in Unreal Engine 5. Their previous engine was a custom one that’s been modified and upgraded ever since the first Halo game. Halo also has one other change, for the first time ever, you will be able to play it on Playstation.

Since the beginning, the Halo IP has been owned by Microsoft. While Halo Combat Evolved did appear on Mac, it hasn’t been on any other console until now. Xbox Game Studios head, Matt Booty said “our biggest competition isn’t another console” “We are competing more and more with everything from TikTok to movies”. This mimics what Netflix said years ago “We compete with Fortnite more than HBO”.

The biggest question now that Xbox has come out and said that this other media is a competition, will the likes of HBO and Netflix keep their apps on the Xbox? Probably. For years Netflix has considered video games to be a competitor, just because Xbox has called them a competitor publicly, doesn’t mean that they were going to treat them any different. They have probably considered them a competitor privately for years. To take away their users’ access to these apps on their devices would potentially disrupt how users use these services.  Personally my Xbox Series S is used more for apps than it is playing games.

With Halo coming to Playstation, this opens up a whole new player base. There are people who have never touched an Xbox who are going to be able to play it. My first experience with Halo was with the first game very briefly. Halo 2 was where I sunk in and got hooked though. Online multiplayer was great, when they added that to the Halo Anniversary Edition, I got my first real experience with Halo 1 multiplayer then. Unfortunately, Campaign Evolved is just that, the campaign. There won’t be any PVP multiplayer in the game. It makes sense though. With Halo Infinite and Halo Master Chief Collection, they probably don’t want a third PVP experience at the same time. Even still, I am excited to see the changes to the game.

Are you excited for the next Halo game? What do you think about it going to Playstation?

There have been a lot of good games over the years, but there are some that are so good that  you want to play again. In this new series, I will highlight some older games that deserve some modern day graphics and game play. Even if not a full on remake, even just a remaster would be nice too.

The Adventures of Willy Beamish

The Adventures of Willy Beamish is the story of a nine year old boy on his last day of school for the summer. Throughout the game, you are walking a thin line to avoid being sent to military school while at the same time preparing for a frog race competition. The game was originally developed by Dynamix and released in 1991 by Sierra-Online. In recent years, the game was re-released on GOG by Activision.

StarTropics

StarTropics is one of the only NES games that wasn’t released in Japan. It was a 1991 action adventure game  developed and published by Nintendo. In the game you play as a 15 year old boy who’s weapon is a yoyo and he takes aliens. The game was re-released by Nintendo for the Wii Virtual Console as well as the Nintendo Classics library for the Nintendo Switch Online Service.

The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants

The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants  is a 1991 platform game that is based on the Simpsons. The game was developed by Imagineering and published in 1991 by Acclaim. In the game, you play as Bart Simpson as he collects or destroys items that aliens need to build their ultimate weapon. The game was released for the NES initially, but was then brought to PCs, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, and Game Gear.

There are many other games that deserve some modern day love too, this is just the tip of the ice berg. Have you played any of these games? What do you think, are they worthy of a remake? Let me know in the comments

Update: Microsoft has issued the following statement to Windows Central in regards to this rumor:

“We are actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox. For more details, the community can revisit our agreement announcement with AMD.”

In the last few years it is clear that Microsoft is doing some new things that haven’t been done in the gaming space, like bringing their first party games to their competition. Even though Sarah Bond announced that Xbox would have a new console set to be announced in 2026 and they just announced changes to their Game Pass service, a new rumor suggests that they will be instead going full third party. This rumor comes from insider SneakersSO:

Without going into too much detail, not long after the last round of layoffs (next one should be coming in Q1 26 btw – and its going to be just as massive as the last one), some rumblings out of Xbox starting coming out that were a little hard to believe.

The ramifications of the CoD GP gambit not working out were just starting to get properly measured, but the thing that really stuck out to me was that suddenly, really concrete plans for actual MS Xbox HW went from being definitive, to up in the air, which was really startling given that this thing was meant to be out relatively soon. It was one of those situations where, despite folks being told ‘hey, we wanna pull the trigger on this in 2026’, the steps you would need to take in the lead up to delivering a new console gen weren’t being met. Lots of things that were ‘sure things’ started getting pushed. The Costco retailer pulling Xbox, and apparently they are one of many that we’ll learn about soon, told me all I needed to know.

To sum it up: the future of Xbox is software publishing, with a significantly honed-in focus on profitable IPs (CoD, WoW, Minecraft, Candy Crush, Forza Horizon), Cloud gaming being the home of the ‘Xbox platform’, transititioning GamePass into basically becoming the point of entry subscription for xCloud access (which will continue to drive its price tag higher btw, they aren’t done there just yet either), and releasing their software on any device that has a marketplace and users willing to buy their titles.

Maybe some OEM thing will take up the Xbox name, but given what is clearly a collapse in favorable mindshare and faith in said brand, i’m not even sure a 3rd party OEM is gonna want to have an Xbox console by the time MS is done with their reorienting of the division.

If this is true then gaming’s next generation will look a lot different, with Sony and Nintendo being the only two to choose from. Even though they are both consoles, they aren’t exactly in direct competition with each other. Playstation usually goes for power while Nintendo goes for innovation and fun, with the Switch 2 being a console and handheld. It’s possible that Sony will pivot and start to be in more direct competition with Nintendo, but up until now they have mainly focused on Xbox. Even their Playstation Plus service had an overhaul to more closely resemble Game Pass in recent years. This lack of competition could also cause them to not be as consumer friendly. New games are already up to $70 with some rumors saying that the next Grand Theft Auto could be closer to $100.

The future of gaming could be a lot different if one of the three big console makers leave the market. Do you think Microsoft would be willing to leave the console market after already announcing next generation hardware? Let us know.