Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved is Bungie's science-fiction shooter and the game that became Microsoft's Xbox standard-bearer. In January 2000, though, the source still describes Halo as a third-person sci-fi action epic set on a ring-shaped artificial world, with open terrain, vehicles, single-player, and multiplayer.

That early description is the reason Halo is worth tracking in the Vault from this news item. Before it became the Xbox launch shooter everyone remembers, it was part of Bungie's Macworld presentation and still visibly in motion. The final game would change perspective, platform priority, and the fate of the Xbox itself. Even in this early form, the big ideas were already there: the ring, the vehicles, the alien war, and the feeling that combat could breathe in larger spaces.