If I understood the conference correctly, all four games' maps will be playable on their own engines. When you go into a lobby and, say, a
Halo 2 map/gametype is chosen you will play complete
Halo 2 multiplayer. They are also, however, remaking six or so
Halo 2 maps in (I think)
Halo 4 style, kind of like how
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary shipped with some classic maps remade for
Reach.
And hmm, when I posted that quote I actually missed the bit where all of
Halo 2's cutscenes were going to be CGI. I was mostly just excited about the new prologue and epilogue that'll help to set up
Halo 5: Guardians. I'm going to assume that, like
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, if you're playing in the original graphics you will get the original cutscenes rather than the new CGI rendered ones. I really wish that the updated CEA and H2A cutscenes didn't screw with the cinematography, but at the end of the day I really just look at the Anniversary editions as interesting experiments on the classic games I love rather than the definitive editions of them. Even once I have H2A in my hands I'm sure I'm going to use the original graphics and cutscenes during my playthroughs just as much as I use the new ones.
I just hope that this is it, as far as remakes go.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was an excellent gift celebrating 10 years of Halo and the XBox, and it made for a nice little bundle to release before 343i's first trure foray into the Halo universe. Like I said above, I would have been opposed to just a
Halo 2: Anniversary on the ground that, as good as it was, it was at the end of the day just another entry in the series; if they start remaking every game, where do the stop? With the announcement of
The Master Chief Collection containing all four games and an updated
Halo 2 while paving the path for
Halo 5: Guardians, however, 343i did definitely win me over on the remake front. It will be very nice to have all four games starring the Chief on the XBox One, with new content, before
Halo 5: Guardians hits next year. From now on I hope that their "bridge" products are smaller games a la
Halo 3: O.D.S.T. rather than remakes of past games, though.
At the very least, at least I'll be able to play
Halo 2 without that ugly giant shadow glare thing that pops up most of the time while playing on the 360.
