One of the biggest additions in Halo: Campaign Evolved is the inclusion of three new bonus missions set two years before the events of the original Halo campaign. This mini-adventure involving Master Chief and Avery Johnson is separate to the main story, however, meaning you can either play it before or after, or even during the main story if you’re an absolute savage.
The remake also adds new terminals and 32 additional skulls—collectible modifiers you can find in each mission, including the bonus missions, and use to tweak your playthrough.
Should you play the bonus mission first in Halo: Campaign Evolved?
After having completed both, I recommend that you don’t play the bonus missions first, but instead try them after Halo: Campaign Evolved’s main story. You might be wondering why, considering the bonus missions are supposed to be a prequel to the original Halo, but they don’t actually relate to the original game that much, acting more as a standalone story.
The bigger reason is that the bonus missions are very sandboxy in terms of weapons, giving you pretty much every gun available in quite a short window, where the campaign (as in the original Halo) trickles them to you a bit more, letting you enjoy each remade gun or new addition by turns, instead of having them all thrown to you at once.
Considering the weapons you find are a big part of the original game, I really wish I’d played the campaign first instead. However, the bonus missions do contain the Grunt Birthday Party skull, so if you’re determined to play through the game with that active, you might want to do the bonus missions first instead to grab it.
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