More than two decades after its original Xbox debut, Halo: Combat Evolved can now be played directly through a web browser. Developer Mitchell Hynes has managed to get the original Xbox version of the game running in a browser, sharing the project online, and it goes far beyond simply letting players experience the campaign. However, the site has now been taken down multiple times.

However, users online have managed to find a couple of workarounds online. You may be able to access the game via a direct link to Mitchell Hyne’s website. Alternatively, there’s another version designed for mobiles that’s playable online, and it also works with mouse and keyboard controls.

The project supports both mouse and keyboard and controllers, while split-screen co-op is available for players who want to go through the campaign together. There’s also online multiplayer with support for up to 128 players, although Hynes has warned that matches at that scale haven’t been fully tested yet. Performance is surprisingly good considering everything is running through a browser. According to the developers, the average performance recorded so far is around 94 FPS.

There have been ~20,000 games played, but it’s suffering outages

The original Xbox release of Halo: Combat Evolved didn’t have traditional online multiplayer. Instead, players could compete using split-screen or connect multiple Xbox consoles through System Link. The browser project gets around this limitation by effectively recreating that connected-console setup online.

There isn’t a normal matchmaking system where you can simply search for other players. Instead, creating a multiplayer game generates a room link that can be shared with other people. They can then use that link to join the lobby, with multiplayer connections operating peer-to-peer.

Plenty of people have already given it a try. Within around five hours of becoming available, the browser version had reportedly recorded almost 20,000 games across 115 countries. Traffic was strong enough that the website was briefly taken offline after being automatically flagged for suspected phishing. While it went back to normal after some time, it is again showing the suspected phishing error at the time of writing. As we highlighted above, there are still a couple of playable links available.

The project itself was made possible by work to decompile and reverse-engineer the original Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved. That work has resulted in native support for Windows, Linux, and Android, which Hynes then used as the foundation for the browser version.

Interestingly, the project uses the 2001 Xbox release rather than the 2003 PC port developed by Gearbox Software. The latter has long faced criticism for differences from the original version, including changes to lighting, transparency effects, character models, physics, and other visual elements.

About the Author

Abdul Haddi

Abdul is a tech writer and Editor for PC Guide, specializing in all things tech, gaming, and hardware.