The biggest change comes in the form of being able to play on PC, thanks to the Xbox Play Anywhere program. In-game, even during moments of high-intensity action with countless on-screen explosions, the frame-rate remains fluid. Certain pre-rendered sequences from the original release had a tendency to be a little jumpy and it is pleasing to see that they have been smoothed out.

However, the frame-rate is certainly more stable than its Xbox 360 counterpart.

The Xbox 360 version was always quite good looking and it has aged well over the past eight years, although any graphical improvements are negligible and certain units, especially infantry, do look a little dated. Halo Wars: Definitive Edition has been updated to take advantage of the more powerful Xbox One console, bringing the resolution up from 720p to 1080p. However, by cutting down the genre's usual clutter, simplifying resource management, and using a control system that gave players quick access to the things that matter, Halo Wars succeeded in being an RTS that focused more on action and felt completely at home on a console. The original game faced a lot of criticism over its lack of structures and units and many felt that it was a stripped-down RTS that lacked a lot of the depth for which the genre was normally known. It does, however, come packaged with all of the DLC that was available for the original, but that only adds a few handfuls of extra gameplay modes and maps for multiplayer and skirmishes. It still contains the same 15 missions from the original with no additional bonus missions, there are no new units or structures, and the difficulty hasn't been adjusted for better or for worse, Mission 4 on Legendary difficulty is still a daunting task. The Definitive Edition remains largely unchanged. New players don't require much knowledge of the universe as a whole and much of the important information is provided through the numerous cutscenes as well as a timeline that can be viewed from the main menu. It falls prior to the events of the upcoming sequel and stars a cast of previously unknown characters that allow the game to appeal to newcomers and fans alike. Set 20 years prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, early in the war between the human-led UNSC and the alien Covenant, the plot of Halo Wars has no real bearing on the rest of the established universe.

Halo wars definitive edition review