It's becoming a daily routine of mine when scouring the web for news to be immediately shocked at what has been done in the retro gaming community, and I think this is one announcement that has shocked me the most this week, and that's the fact that Halo: Combat Evolved has been ported to the Nintendo 3DS and browser, offering two unique ways to play one of the best retro games ever made.
Halo: Combat Evolved has got a lot of attention this year, mainly due to the fact that a huge remake came to modern consoles, including the PlayStation 5 that allows old Halo fans to go through the game in a modern manner, and if I say so myself, it was an awesome game that I'm still playing today, even if it is a little short.
But that said, if you have completed it, collected all the skulls and still need that classic Halo hit then you're in luck, because the game has been decompiled and a bunch of crazy mofos are porting it to wierd hardware, the most unique being the Nintendo 3DS, developed by Generalkidd on X. He has shown mulitple images and a video clip of this on original Nintendo 3DS hardware, though he has mentioned there's still lots of work to be done before he releases the files.
In his words, "Not quite ready for release just yet", but "All the models are original but running at significantly reduced quality for the New 3DS to be able to handle it. It definitely still feels and plays like Halo, but appearance-wise it's still recognisable but very downgraded in quality," which is good to hear, and from the video clip, yes, quality is low, but that's expected, and was likely only possible on the NEW 3DS for that extra power bump to get it to 20-30fps on average. So far, it has the following features:
- Campaign Mode
- Local Multiplayer
- 3D Support
- Sound
- 2nd Screen Usage For The Map
Online multiplayer is currently in the works, but needs a lot of work and will likely be available once it's officially launched to the public. The developer mitchellhynes has even stated that there are a lot of bugs at the moment. Then the second port of Halo: Combat Evolved is your browser, and it can be played for free at halo-web.otherness-bugs.workers.dev, yes, I know, a wierd domain, but that's what they're all doing these days, likely to avoid copyright issues.
The browser is a full port which offers the campaign mode, split-screen co-op and the ability to play online with up to 128 people in a single match, no joke. It comes with controller support too, and people are even saying it works in Teslas and electric cars, should you be desperate for that nostalgic hit while waiting to pick up the kids from school.
From what I can see on socials, this also has a heck of a lot of bugs, likely because it's been AI-assisted, and we all know how that goes; they're usually riddled with bugs, but the developer seems to be fixing many of the bugs quite quickly, or rather, his AI prompts are. That said, it's crazy to see a game that was once at the forefront of console gaming now be available to play in your browser. What a time to be alive.
