Every Game in the Halo Series And How Long They Take to Beat

A franchise that has now spanned more than two decades, Halo has seen plenty of first-person shooter campaigns, along with a couple of real-time strategies and twin-stick shooters. The length of first-person shooter campaigns has been relatively consistent since the release of the first Halo title but there is still some variation in length. Regardless, the story in these titles is pretty great, in no small part because of the game's strong characters, excellent worldbuilding, and some truly excellent writing at times.

Every Halo game is included here except for the remaster of Halo: Combat Evolved because it's the same length as the original and Halo: The Master Chief Collection because putting six campaigns into a single game makes it unsurprisingly long. Those releases aside though, here's every Halo game's campaign length, ranked from shortest to longest. Each game has a varying length when it comes to the campaign, and players who love the lore and storytelling in the series should definitely check out each game's main campaign if they want to enjoy a great time.

Where available, campaign completion times are based on averages from HowLongtoBeat.com.

Updated on March 29, 2024 by Ritwik Mitra: Halo is one of the most legendary sci-fi franchises of all time. Ever since the first game came out, Halo's incredible lore, worldbuilding, and story wowed fans and continued to keep fans invested across its many games. While some people may argue that Halo's allure has dwindled over the course of the series' many games, there's no denying that the series' rich history means that players who get into this series for the first time will be more than amazed by the sheer wealth of quality titles this series has to offer. From RTS spinoffs to mainline entries that move the needle in new and interesting ways, the campaigns of the Halo games are a blast to get through that fans will remember long after experiencing the story of the Master Chief and the other defenders of Earth.

14 Halo Recruit

5 Minutes

• Available on PC

Halo Recruit is more of a tech demo than it is a game, but that's not to say that it isn't still incredibly enjoyable. Those who ever found themselves wondering what the future of the Halo series might someday look like need now only strap on their headsets to find out.

Although limited in scope, the game does a great job of utilizing the technology and packs quite a few characters into its five-minute runtime. The combat test, which serves as the bulk of the experience, is pretty basic, but it works surprisingly well. The inclusion of a target count, together with its rapid pacing, makes it pretty replayable too.

13 Halo: Fireteam Raven

45 Minutes

• Available at arcades

Halo: Fireteam Raven is a co-op arcade game that was released exclusively in Dave & Buster's in mid-2018. Developed by both 343 Industries and Play Mechanix, the game uses light guns for its combat and supports up to four players.

Although for the most part, the gameplay is not too dissimilar to other light gun arcade games, the title does feature one or two unique elements. The most enjoyable of these is perhaps switching between boots-on-the-ground combat to manning a vehicle's turret, which happens multiple times throughout the campaign's six stages.

12 Halo: Spartan Assault

4 Hours

The twin-stick shooter designed for Windows Phones is an excellent short journey into Halo lore giving some backstory to Commander Sarah Palmer from Halo 4. The game eventually came to Xbox 360, Xbox One, and even iOS.

Related

Halo: Ranking The 22 Strongest Spartans (That Aren't Master Chief)

From members of Blue Team to Noble 6, there are plenty of Spartan-IIIs and IVs that can compare to Master Chief.

Posts

The game features score challenges, skulls, and difficulties for all levels, giving plenty of replayability after the four hours it takes to get through the first go around. Sometimes dismissed for not being a "true" Halo game, this cheap little adventure is still worth playing.

11 Halo: Spartan Strike

5.5 Hours

The mobile-exclusive follow-up to Halo: Spartan Assault, Halo: Spartan Strike takes the foundation laid and improves upon it, making for an excellent twin-stick shooter. The game clocks in at five and a half hours, slightly longer than the first one but still shorter than the majority of other Halo games.

The biggest downfall of this game is that it never received a console release, limiting the number of people who could experience the game, since many people don't want to play games on mobile devices. Thankfully, the release of this game on PC mitigated these complaints to an extent.

10 Halo 3: ODST

7 Hours

The only Halo game to feature a main character that wasn't a Spartan, Halo 3: ODST is a strange noir-style story, following the rookie as he explores the city to discover what happened to the rest of the squad and uncover the ONI secrets contained in the city.

Despite having "open-world" sections in between levels, the game still clocks in at only seven hours long, just slightly shorter than the other Halo games, but not by much. While playing as an ODST didn't feel too different from a Spartan, it was still a different and interesting experience for the series. The game is perfect for fans of Halo's worldbuilding, exploring the series' rich lore in ways that make it clear why Halo was such a beloved IP back in the day.

9 Halo Wars 2

8 Hours

The second real-time strategy game in the Halo series, Halo Wars 2 features a campaign of comparable length to the main games in the series. It may not appeal to fans of the mainline Halo games due to its vastly different style, but those interested in the series' rich lore will find a lot to like here. Both Halo Wars games feature more extensive looks into the universe and give deeper dives into the lore. It works well as a strategy game for console players and new players to the genre but lacks the depth that fans of the genre would expect from a modern release.

Related

Halo Wars: The 10 Best Units In The Game, Ranked

Halo Wars 2 players have access to new units unique to their leaders of choice. Which units are the best of the best?

Posts

That being said, there's no denying that fans found the idea of playing through a Halo RTS game to be a riveting prospect. The unique nature of the game's world and its fleshed-out details meant that it was ripe for the picking when it came to this genre, with both Halo Wars 2 and its prequel doing a great job of letting players enjoy a masterful strategy game where players really had to think about their tactics if they wanted to succeed.

8 Halo 5: Guardians

8 Hours

The only main series entry during the Xbox One generation besides the Halo: The Master Chief Collection is Halo 5: Guardians. The game was by no means bad but continued the series down a path started by Halo 4 that ultimately was considered not true to the franchise, a concept that is difficult as video games as a whole evolve. Unlike some of the other mainline Halo titles, the game features two main characters — Master Chief and Locke. The majority of the game is spent playing as Locke, though, as he and his squad attempt to track down the AWOL Master Chief and company.

This made for a tantalizing prospect, especially with Cortana's heel turn making for a scintillating affair in every way. However, the fact that Halo 5: Guardians wasn't the ace in the hole that this series needed can be witnessed in the fact that most people didn't really care about the fact that Halo: Infinite would be retconning most of the events in this game. It's both a good and bad thing, especially since it allowed the Halo franchise to undo some of its mistakes and focus on the more important aspects of the series. Still, there are some fans who feel like this game marked a downward trend for the series that would make it hard for 343 Industries to get back in the good graces of fans.

7 Halo 4

8 Hours

Halo 4 is the first original Halo game produced by 343 Studios after Bungie left Microsoft to work on other projects and is by far the most different of the games. Replacing the flood as the alternative enemy with the Prometheans made for fairly different gameplay sections, with Promethean enemies feeling very bland.

The game also starts the Cortana going insane story as A.I. Only lasts so long, which certainly made for a rather unique hook that could keep long-time fans engaged. However, given how challenging it already was to get into Halo and its amazing narrative, it's easy to see why Microsoft decided to drop this plotline in Halo Infinite to focus on a simpler story that could reel new fans in instead.

6 Halo: Reach

8.5 Hours

The final Bungie-developed Halo game, Halo: Reach tells the story of the planet Reach falling before the events of the original game. Despite it being about the destruction of an entire planet, the campaign tells a smaller-scale story about the actions of the Noble team through the eyes of the newest member Noble Six.

The game follows their smaller operations with the backdrop of planet-sized war. The game gives some lore to the origins of characters and technology that impact the rest of the series while telling a tragic tale about loss. Many people consider this game to feature one of the best campaigns in any FPS game to date, which is high praise for a series known for its immersive storytelling. It's hard for players to not shed a tear and the end of an emotional journey where players will cherish the bonds they formed with the Noble Six.

5 Halo Wars

9 Hours

Halo Wars

Display card tags widget

Real-Time Strategy

Tactical

Display card system widget

Display card community and brand rating widget Display card open critics widget Display card main info widget Display card main info widget end Display card media widget start Display card media widget end

Checkbox: control the expandable behavior of the extra info

Display card community and brand rating widget

Released

March 3, 2009

Developer(s)

Ensemble Studios, Robot Entertainment

Platform(s)

PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One

Genre(s)

Real-Time Strategy, Tactical

6 Images

Close

Powered by

Expand Collapse

More pre-Halo: Combat Evolved stories, Halo Wars follows the Spirit of Fire as it attempts to stop an ancient fleet of ships from falling into Covenant hands. Like its successor, the game is a real-time-strategy game on the lighter side , meant more for fans of the shooter than fans of the RTS genre.

The game is relatively short but does give additional universe lore while doing its best to portray full-scale armies fighting. Series fans may be better off skipping this one for the sequel as the latter is superior in just about every way, although both should be pretty enjoyable for RTS enthusiasts. It may not be the game that real-time strategy enthusiasts will love, but the sheer amount of love and effort put into the story of this game more than makes it worth the price of admission for Halo fans who want to check out the worldbuilding and lore of this series in a genre that makes its storytelling feel as epic as possible.