There are various ways to waste time at work, but a recent decompilation of the original Halo: Combat Evolved has added an excellent new method to your list of choices. The first-person shooter, recently re-re-released, is now fully playable in a web browser.
It’s the original Xbox version (pre-360) of the iconic shooter, which saw the first appearance of Master Chief on the gaming scene. The browser version isn’t a port. You might as well be playing it on Microsoft’s original console. If you have the correct controller, you’ll struggle to tell the difference at all.
Halo there, Spartan
The game was released on the internet by developer Mitchell Hynes, who used AI as a large part of the browser-based offering. Initially, players needed their own rip of the Xbox Halo in .xiso format to play. When we checked the link today, all it required was a promise that you definitely own a legal copy of the game somewhere in your home before the first level loaded.
But if you’re going to exploit Master Chief’s first adventure at work, you’d best do it quickly. Hynes pointed out last week that “Nobody from Microsoft reached out about me hosting the 25 year old game for free.” That doesn’t mean this state of affairs will continue. Other iconic titles, resurrected on web browsers, have lasted just long enough for a DCMA takedown to turn up and disappear them from the internet.
Or perhaps Microsoft will be cool about this one. The company might see it as driving interest in the recently released Halo: Campaign Evolved for the newest generation of consoles. Or it could be that the lawyers are already drafting the takedown. Either way, you’d better hurry, Spartan.
