The skepticism surrounding Halo: Campaign Evolved for its ditching of the Slipspace Engine in favor of the Unreal Engine 5 for its return to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S seems to have been well-founded, as an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, the best consumer GPU available, doesn't hit the high framerates one would expect at 1440p resolution.
In a new video preview shared on YouTube, content creator Jackfrags showed a preview build running on a system powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 3D CPU and the aforementioned RTX 5090 at 1440p resolution and Ultra settings with NVIDIA DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing), so no upscaling was involved. Generally, the game runs in the 90 to 100 FPS range, hitting 120 FPS only in closed interiors, which is far lower than one might have expected from the best GPU on the market, though things could improve in time for the game's July 28 launch.
The information provided by Jackfrags puts the Halo: Campaign Evolved system requirements into perspective. Although the official requirements list an NVIDIA RTX 4080 GPU and 32 GB RAM for 4K at 60 FPS on Ultra settings, upscaling technologies like DLSS, AMD FSR, or Intel XeSS will likely be required to hit this resolution and frame rate target. As such, those playing on lower-end hardware will likely have to drop down settings considerably, use more aggressive upscaling and frame generation to enjoy the game at high frame rates.
Potentially disappointing performance isn't the only thing that could have a major impact on Halo: Campaign Evolved. Former Bungie veteran Niles Sankey highlighted how the visuals the Epic engine usually produces can gut tactical readability, one of the core elements of the original.
As games like Halo: Campaign Evolved are shipping on older versions of Unreal Engine 5, they cannot take advantage of new developments, such as the new Lumen mode introduced in Unreal Engine 5.8 targeting 60 FPS even on low-spec hardware such as handhelds like the Nintendo Switch 2. Hopefully, this and any future engine development will address the one issue that made the engine synonymous with bad performance and stuttering.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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