


The Complete Edition of the game, which we used for this second look at Halo Wars 2 features all of this content. The number of hero units have been doubled, and this has considerably changed the landscape of the battlefield as each one features unique abilities that players must use wisely. At this stage of the game, there’s a lot of content here. For something that’s been deemed as DOA in terms of having a player base there’s still a bustling community of Halo Wars 2 players on Xbox One in the competitive modes that are out there playing in the competitive seasons that the game features. Most of my time with the original was spent in competitive multiplayer and that’s where I started with this second look at Halo Wars 2. Heading in to Halo Wars 2 at this point I did not have high expectations for the game, but was pleasantly surprised to see that there’s a thriving community on Xbox One, a lot of new content in terms of leaders, well balanced gameplay in competitive multiplayer, and a number of fun new modes for the game. I even passed on our original review of the game due to a bias that I might have towards it as I had sunk so many hours into the original. Though even as one of the most devout Halo Wars fans, I wasn’t that impressed with Halo Wars 2 at launch. It featured both an incredible campaign and online multiplayer that was good enough to keep you coming back for more. The now defunct Ensemble Studios did an amazing job with that first game. A brand new expansion to the game has arrived in Awakening the Nightmare and with us being nearly eight months out since launch it’s time to go back and check the pulse on one of Microsoft’s most highly touted exclusives of the year. It is currently rated as generally positive on the review aggregator, Metacritic. It did not seem like a recipe for success and I’m not sure that it was one for them in terms of sales. The game didn’t get bad reviews.

Microsoft Studios teamed with one of the best developers in the genre, Creative Assembly, for a Real Time Strategy title at a time when most developers were working on a new hero shooter or MOBA. The investment to resurrect this IP was a risky one.
#Xbox one halo wars definitive edition review windows 10
Halo Wars 2 arrived earlier this year as an Xbox One and Windows 10 Exclusive.
