Joseph Handlin

As of November 15th, Halo: Combat Evolved is 20 years old. This is huge for the sci-fi franchise, which many hold to the same, if not higher, level of quality as Star Wars. For 20 years, computer labs have been full of students frantically blasting each other in intense local multiplayer matches.

The first Halo‘s launch was revolutionary, launching on the original sixth-generation Xbox console in 2001. Of the 1 million Xbox consoles sold in the five months after release, Halo: CE was among 50% of those purchases. By July 2006, 4.2 million copies had been sold. Enough hype over the original game had been generated to warrant a sequel, and Halo 2 blew its predecessor’s sales numbers out of the water. In just 24 hours following release, 2.2 million copies had been purchased.

Today we at the Abington Sun have reached out to many players of the game series to get some of our student population’s best moments.

What’s your favorite Halo, and your favorite experience in Halo?

Phil Belotserkovsky : Halo: Reach. It’s every Thanksgiving that I have a match with my cousins, it brings us all together in a big game of Slayer.

Ramisha Karim: “Halo: Combat Evolved. My favorite level is The Library, however Halo: Reach’s Speed Halo game mode was chaotic, but a fun experience. My best experience was playing with others.”

Devmika Molligoda: “Halo: Reach. Playing Infection in my basement with my family and friends has always been a blast.”

Jon Lachman: “Halo 2. I’ve played hundreds of hours in Reach Infection on splitscreen finding different hiding places.”

Ibrahim Kamara: “Halo 3. I Love the campaign for Halo 3, the controls and features were amazing. The multiplayer is amazing if you have someone to play with.”

Hannah Golden: Halo: Combat Evolved. The entire atmosphere with it, I enjoyed being immersed and just being sucked into a video game. I don’t remember the last time I’d done that. Made me feel like I was a little kid again. I was never really good at video games so I never played them much, I preferred watching people play them instead. I enjoyed my boyfriend walking me through it and having fun with me, so I could properly play the game and enjoy the backstory from it. Halo was always something I wanted to play when I was a kid but never got to.

Robert Dolgos: Halo Reach. The mission Lone Wolf, it’s so good. It feels different to me because you die at the end of the game, it’s a surprise, but it feels like I’ve finished a good story. I’m super hyped for Infinite’s release.

AJ Stutzman: Halo: Reach, the Forge mode was amazing, I loved playing it over at my friend’s house.

Jackson Pierson: Halo 4. I used to play it a bunch at my friend’s house.

It certainly is impressive that so many students on our campus have had some kind of experience with the Halo games, some are more deeply invested in the games while others are more casual players. With some, it is a family experience. Here’s to 20 more years of this relatively young sci-fi franchise!