Halo: Campaign Evolved Hits Game Pass Day One July 28

Twenty-Five Years Later, and It Brought Friends

Microsoft published its second July Game Pass wave on July 21, 2026, and the headliner is a big one: *Halo: Campaign Evolved* arrives day one on July 28 at 8am PDT for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. This is the original *Halo: Combat Evolved* campaign rebuilt — HD visuals, refined controls, up to four-player online co-op, and three entirely new missions. Yes, four-player. The 2001 campaign that two people huddled through on a couch now takes a full fireteam.

• Day one on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, July 28, 2026 at 8am PDT
• Rebuilt campaign with HD visuals, refined controls and up to four-player online co-op
• Three new missions form a prequel arc, Operation: METEORITE, bringing back space combat for the first time since *Halo: Reach*
• Cross-play and cross-progression across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and PlayStation 5

What Is Operation: METEORITE?

It is the genuinely new content, and it is a prequel arc rather than a bonus level pack. Three missions set before the events of the original campaign, and — the detail that made longtime players sit up — it brings back space combat, absent from the series since *Halo: Reach* in 2010. Adding a new chapter to a story people have replayed for a quarter century is a nervy move. Doing it as a prequel, ahead of the fiction everyone already knows, is the smart way to do it.

Cross-Play, Cross-Progression, and PlayStation

Perhaps the most quietly remarkable line in the announcement: cross-play and cross-progression span Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and PlayStation 5. A Halo campaign shipping on PlayStation with shared progression would have read as a typo not long ago. For players, it means your co-op group no longer needs to agree on hardware — which for a four-player campaign is exactly the friction you want removed.

Premium and Collector's Edition buyers get early access starting July 23, five days ahead of the Game Pass drop.

What Else Is in the Wave?

Quite a lot, actually:

• *The Planet Crafter* — available now (July 21)
• *Shift at Midnight* — July 22
• *Hell is Us* — July 23
• *Mistfall Hunter* — July 30
• *Corsair Cove* — July 31
• *Beast of Reincarnation* from Game Freak — day one, August 4
• *Heretic* + *Hexen* — joining Game Pass Premium, August 4

Game Freak shipping an original action RPG day one is the sleeper pick there, and id Software's *Heretic* and *Hexen* landing on the Premium tier is a nice bit of preservation. Eight titles rotate off the service on July 31, including *Celeste* and *Crusader Kings 3* — worth finishing those saves this week.

A Good Month for Old Games

Between this and the Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters, the industry is having a strong run of treating its back catalogue as something worth rebuilding rather than re-listing. Xbox has been busy on the platform side too, with July's console update adding a batch of quality-of-life features. Full gaming coverage here.

Sources: Xbox Wire — July 21, 2026; Video Games Chronicle — July 21, 2026; Windows Central — July 21, 2026.