Halo Combat Evolved: Refined Restores PC’s imperfect port

The Halo series has always been made with Microsoft’s Xbox platform in mind, even during the early days, back when PC received ports of main series titles.  

While the Gearbox port of Bungie’s Halo: Combat Evolved on PC is serviceable,  it lacks several features that were included on the Xbox original and introduced several new bugs into the mix. The game is undoubtedly Halo: Combat Evolved, but the PC version remains far from ideal for Halo purists. 

Over the past few years, Halo: Combat Evolved has received a lot of attention on PC, with Halo SPV3, a reimagining of the classic Halo experience, complete with new enemy types like Brutes, enhanced graphics and support for high resolutions and high refresh rates. 

Those who desire a more “classic” Halo experience now have a better option than the standard game, all thanks to the modders behind “Halo Combat Evolved Refined“,  adding features with the original PC version lacked while offering a look and feel that is more akin to the game’s Xbox version. 

The team behind this mod has also added “high-fidelity” textures to the game as well as a high-resolution HUD, both of which will be useful changes for users of high resolutions screens. While this mod won’t make Halo Combat Evolved look better than the Master Chief Collection, it offers enough of a boost to make the game’s Xbox-grade graphics no longer feel out of place. 

In conjunction with Chimera, a mod which can be used to enable animation interpolation (to make the game appear smoother at framerates over 30FPS) and anisotropic filtering within Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo Combat Evolved: Refined now offers PC gamers the best incarnation of the original Halo to date. The people behind this mode have successfully restored the traits of the original Xbox version of Halo onto the PC port, while also offering support for higher framerates though the use of Chimera, delivering an improved gameplay experience that fans of the series will no doubt appreciate.