Halo: Combat Evolved

Halo: Combat Evolved was an Xbox launch title and essentially the sole reason many players bought Microsoft's new console at all, even though the company was entering the games market as an inexperienced newcomer with no track record. Developer Bungie redefined what a first-person shooter controlled with a gamepad instead of keyboard and mouse could look like, a genre until then considered the exclusive domain of PCs. The key to its success was an intuitive twin-stick control scheme, which became the standard for the entire genre on consoles and is still used practically unchanged today.

The game also introduced a regenerating energy shield combined with classic health, a limit of only two weapons carried at once, and smart enemy AI that took cover, retreated, called for reinforcements and cooperated with one another, creating dynamic, unpredictable firefights in open, sprawling arenas rather than narrow corridors. Vehicles contributed to that same sense of freedom, especially the off-road Warthog with a passenger manning a mounted gun, which turned parts of the campaign into open battles over terrain. The story follows the augmented soldier Master Chief and his AI companion Cortana as they face the alien Covenant alliance and a terrifying parasitic threat called the Flood on a mysterious ringworld called Halo, a revelation partway through the campaign that shifts the game's tone from adventurous sci-fi to horror.

The campaign offered an elaborate, atmospheric setting and cinematic pacing underscored by a striking musical theme with monastic chanting, but Halo built its true legend primarily through split-screen multiplayer and massively popular LAN parties, where players battled four to a screen or linked multiple consoles together with cables. Without Halo, the history of the Xbox console would likely have been written very differently, and Microsoft might well have left the games market after just one generation.