Halo's original art director says the new game's rings look too new and shiny

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Marcus Lehto is known to some as the "father of Master Chief," and for good reason: He was the art director on Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001, and its two direct sequels. The look of Halo is kind of his thing, in other words, and he has some issues with how the new Halo: Campaign Evolved looks—specifically, its halos.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is a remake of Combat Evolved, all done up pretty in Unreal Engine 5. It looks pretty faithful, to the extent that I watch the trailer and I say to myself, "Yup, that's Halo."

Lehto, however, sees something else—something less. "While Forerunner tech was metal (not stone) it was also ancient, vast, alive, and a tomb to the horrors that lurked within," he wrote on X , alongside images comparing Halo rings then and now. "It had seen hundreds of millennia of conflict. Yet the [new] game shows it as shiny metal that looks like it was built a few years ago.

"The main menu ring is the most offensive thing we see every time we boot up the game. It should feel massive, dark, mysterious, sinister, but also full of wonder. This new ring looks like a shiny new toy—out of scale, no mystery, damn ugly."

(Image credit: Marcus Lehto (Twitter)) In response to a now-deleted post, Lehto also brought up the toll that "war, Flood outbreaks, repairs, [and] collisions" would take on the structure. "Also, the biggest issue is just with [the] pure scale of the design. It lacks all the micro detail that should give it the epic scale it deserves. Lastly, it needs to feel like an ancient tomb."

That might seem to fly in the face of comments Lehto made in 2025, when he said "the game looks and feels genuine ," and described it as "gorgeous in a way I wish we could have built it originally back in 2001." For the most part, though, Lehto seems to be having a good time, and he likes how it looks.

"Overall, I really love the upgrades—movement, cinematics, visuals—damn the lighting is brilliant," he wrote on August 4. "Do I have gripes? A few, but they are taking a back seat to the fun."

Those halos, though? Not great.

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