- Primary Subject: Halo: Reach & Halo: Campaign Evolved (Pre-Remake Preparation)
- Key Update: Playing Halo: Reach prior to Halo: Campaign Evolved provides vital prequel narrative context regarding the Covenant threat while serving as high-stakes combat training for veterans and newcomers alike.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: January 20, 2026
- Quick Answer: Yes, playing Halo: Reach first establishes the ruthless scale of the Covenant invasion and sharpens your combat reflexes before diving into Halo: Campaign Evolved.
Halo: Campaign Evolved will take you back to where it all started, and to say that many are excited to get their hands on it would be an understatement. For newcomers, the game will be their experience of the original journey, and for longtime veterans, it will be their way to relive the glories of the past, but with new features and improvements they could have never imagined back then.
The remake is definitely something to look forward to, and while I'm glad people are itching to play it, I would say that there's something else they need to do first. I think it's essential that before they play Halo: Campaign Evolved, they must first go through another game: Halo: Reach.
It is a game that was released nearly nine years after the original first entry in the series, and was created as a prequel to show events that happened before the campaign of Master Chief. You may wonder why people should bother playing it, especially when Halo: Campaign Evolved is obviously a step up from the experience it can provide.
To start, it will give an idea of how truly threatening the Covenant is. Longtime Halo players are already familiar with the atrocities of the alien military alliance. Still, even they would have to agree that what it did in the prequel game has to be one of the worst things it has ever committed.
In Halo: Reach, you get to face the full force of a Covenant invasion and witness how they would treat a species and its planet that does not submit to them. They will spare no expense in ensuring that the world players have to defend, aptly named Reach, succumbs to their full might, and that means endless waves of Elites, Grunts, Jackals, and whatever they have at their disposal to make it happen.
Newcomers to the series must be able to feel the wrath of the Covenant, as it will give them an idea of the forces they face in the remake. They'll get to see what kind of tactics the fanatic alien group will employ, and aside from gawking at how far it's willing to go to make humanity suffer, it can also provide them with valuable combat training.
Another thing is that experiencing the Covenant threat in Reach puts more weight into everything that happens in Halo: Campaign Evolved. By knowing the lengths that the alien group's members are willing to go to destroy their enemies, every cutscene that involves wanting to use the Halo Ring is more impactful, as you'll better empathize with the humans and how desperate they are to find a weapon that can guarantee the preservation of their kind.
The next reason why both newbies and veterans should play Halo: Reach before heading towards the remake is that it will offer valuable training. For those who haven't played any of the Halo games for a long time, jumping straight into the missions in Halo: Campaign Evolved might be difficult.
Aside from the rust that needs to be shaken off after such long inactivity, given that the enemy AI will be similar to that of the original game, the obstacles and challenges may be too much to handle. This is especially true if the returning veteran plans on jumping straight into the Legendary difficulty, where everything hits harder and takes much more to kill.
So, it only makes sense to go back to Halo: Reach and use it as a form of retraining, as the enemies there, even on Normal and Heroic difficulty, are nothing to scoff at. The game can get quite hard, but it will be greatly beneficial in helping veterans get back on their feet.
For newcomers, it will be a special experience. Those who are just getting into the series should definitely use Halo: Reach as a way to help improve their skills. Because again, the enemies in the remake will prove to be very challenging opponents, and it's always good to understand what they're capable of.
The tactics and aggressiveness deployed by the Covenant in Halo: Campaign Evolved will somewhat mirror what they did in Reach, so by knowing what they'll do, you can better prepare how to deal with them. While newcomers could always just play the game on Easy mode and learn from there, I would say that doing so neuters the experience. The Covenant is supposed to be a devastating threat, so making it less so could remove the thrill and enjoyment that's supposed to come with the remake's campaign.
So, before playing Halo: Campaign Evolved, consider playing Halo: Reach. You would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't, as not only will it help you prepare for the remake, but it will also provide a story and gameplay experience that no other entry in the series can, making it worth the time and effort to go through.