Halo Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved is a 2001  first-person shooter game  developed by  Bungie  and published by  Microsoft Game Studios . It was released as a  launch game  for  Microsoft 's  Xbox  video game console on November 15, 2001. The game was ported to  Microsoft Windows  and  Mac OS X  in 2003. It was later released as a downloadable  Xbox Original  for the  Xbox 360 .  Halo  is set in the  twenty-sixth century , with the player assuming the role of the  Master Chief , a  cybernetically  enhanced  supersoldier . The Chief is accompanied by  Cortana , an  artificial intelligence . Players battle aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous  Halo , a ring-shaped  artificial world . Bungie began the development of what would eventually become  Halo   CE  in 1997. Initially, the game was a  real-time strategy  game that morphed into a  third-person shooter  before becoming a  first-person shooter . During development,  Microsoft  acquired  Bungie  and turned  Halo  into a launch game for its first  video game console , the Xbox.  Halo  was a critical and commercial success and is often praised as one of the  greatest video games ever made . The game's popularity led to labels such as " Halo  clone" and " Halo  killer", applied to games either similar to or anticipated to be better than it. Its sequel,  Halo 2 , was released for the original Xbox in 2004, and the game spawned a multi-billion-dollar  multimedia franchise  that incorporates games, books, toys, and films. The game inspired and was used in the fan-created  Red vs. Blue  video series, which is credited as one of the first major successes of  machinima  (the technique of using real-time  3D engines , often from video games, to create  animated films ). More than six million copies had been sold worldwide by November 2005. A  remake  of the game's campaign,  Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary , was released for Xbox 360 by 343 Industries on the 10th anniversary of the original game's launch.  Anniversary  was re-released alongside the original competitive multiplayer as part of  Halo: The Master Chief Collection  in 2014.