The Boundless Brilliance of Halo’s Forge Mode
Reminiscing on the mode’s past and looking to its future
The Halo series has always been revered for its frenetic, precision-based arena multiplayer, but there’s another mode it established that deserves even more praise. That mode, of course, is its map editor. The community warmly refers to it as Forge.
Forge came to light for the first time in Halo 3 and was an instant success. It singlehandedly pioneered a new way to interact with the game that was incredibly novel for console players at the time. Players could now tap into a boundless playground of resources that fostered creativity and community. If players were growing jaded or weary with the hyper competitive nature of multiplayer, they always had the Forge mode to fall back on. The custom games that were dreamed up with Forge began to fuel a wholly distinctive subset of the game’s population, and it wasn’t long before the mode bolstered Halo 3’s online presence into one of the most eminent spots at the time.
Even to this day, fourteen years later, my head is still swirling with memories of the Halo 3 custom games community.
I remember the giddy joy of sprinting home every day after my middle school classes to hop on the Xbox 360 and frolic around in Forge. I would click on my television — with that neon green Xbox logo swirling onto the screen — and suddenly be inundated in a digital space replete with opportunity.
This was the golden age of gaming for me. Not only did I have a surplus of free time in general for getting immersed in my games, but I also had a steadfast crew of friends who were online every single night alongside me. The structured nature of middle school at the time allowed us all to be in sync with each other. And there was truly something congruous and magical about knowing I could simply flick on my Xbox, collapse into a languid heap on my couch, and know that I’d be sharing a collective experience with my buddies. We would dawdle in our digital spaces all night long, seven days a week, like there wasn’t a single blemish in the world to care about. Life was blissful.
Halo 3 also launched in 2007, in the halcyon days of gaming before certain methods of player engagement were popularized like battle passes and ever-growing experience grinds. You can label these as artificial grinds or incentives to log in every day. Halo 3 opted for a simpler route that simply asked the question, “are you having fun?” And if your answer to that question was a resounding “yes,” then you just kept playing.
This means that it didn’t feel like we were being punished for spending ample time inside of a “supplementary” mode. We were free to luxuriate in the experience, soaking in all the timeless feel-good vibes, losing ourselves in the worlds we created. Those moments felt truly carefree. If I sank a whole night of gaming into building a house in Forge, it never felt like a waste of time at all. I wasn’t missing out on battle pass progression or gaining another level of prestige. Tactics like limited-time rewards weren’t being ostentatiously thrown in my face every couple of seconds by the game’s interface.
It also helped that the idea of being able to play with other veritable human beings over online spaces was still very novel back in 2007. Players were a lot more conversational in the chat lobbies than they are now. And people generally were just more enthused with the idea of branching out and forming connections with strangers. This led to an ecosystem that was rife with camaraderie and collaboration. It’s night-and-day when you juxtapose that with modern-day gaming where we’re all huddled up in our own little bubbles, with nary a peep from our mouths while we play.
All of these factors created the perfect storm for Halo and its Forge mode.
I can honestly reminisce about all my idyllic memories of growing up with Halo 3 and Halo Reach for hours. The map editor was brand-new to the series at the time, and the creative ideas were flooding out in a deluge of sheer brilliance. It seemed like a new mini game idea was emanating out of the community’s collective mind every single week. All of the new maps and game modes were being disseminated at the speed of light with the “file share” and “theater mode” systems.
My friends and I poured our hearts into brainstorming new ideas and turning them into a reality. Our fingers danced across the worn-out plastic of our controllers as we amalgamated objects and effects into new projects that teemed with ingenuity and passion.
We’d return to school every morning with exhaustion plastered onto our faces, a full night’s worth of gaming behind us. And then we’d just proceed to talk about new Forge ideas throughout the day: at lunch, surreptitiously during classes, on our way back home along the stone pathways exiting the school. These ideas would suffuse us with unfathomable energy once again, and like clockwork we’d fall right back into our usual pattern of map editing and losing sleep.
You have no idea how great it felt to share the same hobby with all my friends at the time. We never had a dearth of arresting new topics to discuss. Halo had truly morphed into an inherent part of our lives. The series pioneered new tools and systems that allowed console gamers to truly set their imaginations free for the first time ever.
I’ll always be thankful for that.
Halo 3
This is where it all began. It was the nexus from which all further innovation would stem, a catalyst for creativity that would allow the players to alter the game’s world to their partialities and desires.
Forge had a very humble beginning in Halo 3. It initially launched with no dedicated maps to edit on, and the tools at the players’ disposal were very rudimentary and incomplete. You were able to place down spawn points, weapons, vehicles, and a few unremarkable scenery items like barrels and cones. It was also replete with launch issues such as frame drops, glitched-out animations, and files that seemed to have a penchant for deleting themselves rather sadly and unceremoniously.
And yet, despite all of that, it managed to enthrall players around the world and enkindle a community-based movement that would take the game by storm.
It started, in my opinion, with a sprawling desert map named “Sandtrap.” This large-scale map, with its eroded stone buildings and enigmatic Forerunner obelisks, quickly managed to instill itself as a fan-favorite within weeks. The prodigious size of the place allowed players’ imaginations to soar to new heights despite the lack of in-depth editor tools.
All manner of new game types proliferated on this map. A personal favorite of mine was an “Infection” mode called “Hit-And Run,” where players would hop into Warthogs to drive around and avoid the lightning-fast zombies with Gravity Hammers. This one became an over-night fan favorite. Narrowly escaping your demise while seeing enemy players careening hundreds of feet into the air at a time with their gargantuan leaps was intense. And the best part was the absurdity of the game’s physics; a single blow from a Gravity Hammer could send a Warthog spiraling into the stratosphere with a single swing!
The onslaught of new game types was near-endless: “Shotty Snipers,” “Speed Flag,” and so many more graced our custom games with their presence.
Of all the things on this map, however, nothing managed to foster excitement quite like the gargantuan vehicles known as Elephants. Players eventually learned that they could cram them with explosives like Fusion Coils to send them rocketing into the sky. The first player who accomplished that zany feat of strength must have been in for quite a surprise, because Bungie left a really jocular easter egg for the players who would try to flip the Elephant back over.
It simply stated, “Press RB to flip…wait, what? How did you do that?”
This little message, both literally and figuratively, ignited a firestorm of curiosity in the Halo 3 player base. I say literally, because players were now genuinely invested in stacking Fusion Coils all over every map to try and discover new easter eggs. And I say figuratively, because they were all now asking the question, “what else is there to do in Forge?”
The answer to that question came in the form of new maps that greatly expanded the tools of Forge and launched it into the next phase of its growth.
There was “Sandbox,” a smaller desert map with a more eclectic mix of environments that would allow players to construct maps underground, in the sandy dunes, and even in a nebulous void in the sky. Another map was “Foundry,” which was tailor-made for the creation of arena maps and competition. And last but not least, there was “Avalanche,” which was epic in scale and gave the players the space to craft their big-team-battle dreams. The player base was suddenly inundated in a wealth of choices.
I can still remember the euphoric excitement — the sort of excitement that bubbles up in your stomach and sends ripples down your spine — on the mornings I would wake up knowing there was a new DLC map pack being released for the game. My friends and I would robotically march our feet to school on those days — but, you know…. we weren’t really “at school.” Our minds were slipstream jumping through space. Physically, we’d be in class, but our thoughts would be hurtling through Forge ideas for the new maps.
The map packs — named the Heroic, Legendary, and Mythic packs — all released to stunning acclaim from the players. There was now so much potential to be extracted with all the new tools! We had actual building blocks, like walls and tiles, along with a treasure trove of zany knickknacks; these included items like gravity lifts, filters for changing the color schemes of your screen, and scenery such as lights and doors.
At first, the custom games being built with these new toys were straightforward, mainly slayer maps in symmetrical formats, along with a few notable objective modes like capture the flag and oddball.
It wasn’t long, however, before the players began to experiment with zany new contraptions and unearth glitches that would allow even more customization for their maps. One of the most transformative of these glitches was the one where players would set spawn timers on items, and then reload the map and place a new item next to the one with the timer; this allowed the map creators to inadvertently fuse the two pieces together. Doing this added smoothness to the structures being built by expunging the “blockiness” of simply stacking multiple building pieces together. Players also found new exploits that would allow them to make objects float in the air without support, opening up a whole new dimension of possibilities.
Some of the most celebrated custom games were born in this environment. A myriad of new “Infection” variants like “Fat Kid” were popularized in these maps. Along with eccentric mini games such as “Duck Hunt” and “Jenga Tower.” Both of those were personal favorites for me and my friends. In “Jenga Tower,” the majority of the players were placed on a precarious structure of wood pallets and barrels that was floating in the air. Those players had to hop around in a bid for survival while one player below launched all manner of objects their way. Entire vehicles like tanks and trucks would be flung through the air, and by the end of the timer there would sometimes only be a single barrel for the players to balance on.
I could literally babble inexorably about all the fun we had back in those days. We created and experienced such a wide swathe of things. If I listed them all, then you would likely be crushed under the weight of all my sentimental nostalgia.
The last thing to say is that Halo 3 really crafted, inadvertently and very fortuitously, a unique environment that hasn’t been fully replicated in any game since. Bungie simply gave all of the player the tools needed to build up the community. We had the File Share, which allowed us to easily display our favorite works. We had the Theater mode, which allowed us to record videos and screenshots of our most beloved moments. And there were the forums we could delve into that enriched us with new ideas and energy. Community sites began to bubble up around the strength of these collective tools; the most illustrious of them — ForgeHub — stirred the hobby of map creation into a new craze that truly allowed it to flourish. It was no longer just a hobby, but something that was almost a way of life for certain people. You’ll even find employees at 343 Industries, the current Halo developers, who jumpstarted their career with Halo 3’s Forge mode and the community websites.
It doesn’t get any more awesome and remarkable than that, right? Halo 3 organically fostered a community than ran on unadulterated passion and fun. And for some people, it truly laid the foundation for the rest of their lives.
Halo Reach
Halo Reach took everything that was sublime about Halo 3 and then augmented it with new realms of potential. At the time, Bungie had a rather quixotic idea: what if they could take all the most iconic Halo maps and amalgamate them into one single map that would act as a canvas for all of the Forge community’s ideas?
This starry-eyed vision formed into a reality with “Forge World.” This map was a massive wonderland of bucolic, verdant real estate. All of the grassy hills and pristine beaches, dotted with islands and waterfalls, could only be described as quaint. It was truly easy on the eyes. And it was truly epic in scale. You could find land masses all connecting together that were taken from iconic Halo maps such as “Blood Gulch” and “Ascension.” You’d expect this to make the map feel sort of incongruous, but they managed to stitch it all into a single space that was harmonious and enchanting in the best of ways.
The editor tools were revamped, too. Objects could now be placed in the air without using a glitch to keep them there. Players also had access to precision settings that would allow them to snap objects into place with ease. And best of all, the quantity of items you could place on the map were quadrupled, meaning that even more than ever before, the only constraints were the edges of your imagination.
As you can likely imagine, players were immediately enraptured with the seemingly boundless array of possibilities that “Forge World” offered. A daily tidal wave of innovative custom games began to deluge the playlists, and it wasn’t long before even competitive players were hopping into Forge mode to dabble with it themselves.
For my friends and I, now in high school, it was like we had once again struck gold. Our lives were now mired in the drudgery of SAT preparation and college letters, but Halo Reach was like a lightning rod that empowered us to look past the mundanities of upper-school life. It created a balance for us. We could always just immerse ourselves in the sweeping vistas of “Forge World” whenever needed, coalescing disparate building blocks into a stunning piece of sheer creativity to reconnect with our inner selves; whereas our minds were focused on all the practicalities of academia, our hearts kept taking us back to Forge.
Websites like ForgeHub had truly reached the zenith of their popularity by this time, too, and we were all making use of them. My friends and I started to craft entire museums of maps and modes to share on these websites. We pored over forum discussions and earnestly engaged with them. And, most vitally, our friend group began to blossom; now we were starting to make friends from all around the country — all around the world — who started to play with us on a nightly basis. We all bonded over Forge. We bonded over the zany antics we were getting up to every night in our custom games. These people we met were truly steadfast, and I’m very close to a lot of them even to this day, eleven years later.
The single most brilliant and ingenious thing that Halo Reach did with its Forge mode was that it connected it with the rest of the game by allowing players to gain progression experience while editing maps. Foraging for map ideas and bringing them to life no longer felt like an unproductive use of our time; instead, we were now actively climbing the rank ladder in multiplayer while doing what we loved.
This really was a boon for the community that united all the different segments into a singular experience. Bungie even started to actively engage with the Forge community themselves, giving out rewards on the game’s main website along with honoring illustrious editors in-game via broadcast messages and playlists. Those playlists would compile all of the greatest Forge maps into a single space for the multiplayer community to delve into. This generated an entire ecosystem that was seamless and self-sustaining. Forge players could build the maps like they loved to do; multiplayer gamers could have a constant stream of new maps to tinker with and adapt to; and, most essentially, all of Halo Reach’s players would be climbing the rank ladders together, with not a single person being left behind.
An astronomical number of mini games and maps flourished within this environment, as you’d likely imagine. Too many of them to list here in any reasonable amount of time. A personal favorite of my friend group at the time were all the “Duck Hunt” maps. In these modes, one player would be nestled in a tower somewhere with a sniper rifle, while all the other players — the ducks — would be running for their lives to get from one side of the course to the other. The expansiveness of “Forge World” meant that we were never lacking for new areas to cobble our crazy obstacle courses together. We would mirthfully luxuriate in the mayhem of these games late into the nights, our shrill voices screeching with laughter as we tightly gripped the controllers in our hands!
Overall, Halo Reach was a very special and inimitable time for the series’ Forge mode. Gamers were still very outgoing and sociable, and the editing tools at the players’ disposal were better than ever. The connective systems that brought everyone together were more comprehensive than ever, too. This really was the last hurrah for Bungie, as it was the last Halo game they’d ever craft, and they certainly made the most of it.
Halo 4
Halo 4 launched at a very odd time for the series, as multiplayer gaming in general was going through quite a seismic shift of changes. Progression-centric designs like Call of Duty’s prestige system were now at the forefront of the scene. And the environment as a whole was deluged with a mass of multiplayer games that were all vying for the players’ attention. Developers were now concocting more aggressive tactics for keeping gamers transfixed with their games such as daily challenges and specialization paths to unlock perks and passives, all requiring giant time-sinks.
The freeform nature of Halo 3 and Halo Reach was replaced with a very rigid system that coerced you into focusing your time in certain areas. And the game’s community initially gobbled this new approach up. The multiplayer lobbies were swarmed with people who were eagerly toiling away for the newest unlocks; the easygoing, fun-loving community of old was now more focused on the instant gratification of long grinds and frequent acquisitions. This was just the inherent nature of gaming trends at the time.
This left Halo 4’s Forge mode in a very uncertain area.
My friends and I spent the first four to five months of the game trudging through all the progression paths in the multiplayer, having fallen into that rhythm, and we never actually touched the map editor until after that. We eventually started to reminisce about all our custom game shenanigans in the past, which sort of rekindled that fire, and we decided to hop back into Forge to see what new improvements awaited us.
Much to our dismay, we were greeted with a lackluster toolset that actually seemed to have less features than past versions.
A ubiquitous pile of bugs left us feeling indignant. There were many previously ironed-out nuances to the camera that were missing. The Forge maps themselves — Erosion, Impact, and Ravine — were smaller than “Forge World,” and their surfaces were very craggy and difficult to build on. It felt like the mode had taken a sledgehammer to its core that made it disheveled, along with having a scarcity of new stuff to actually tinker with.
343 Industries had spent the vast majority of their resources on throwing new ideas at the campaign and multiplayer — many of which didn’t stick — and this undermined the Forge mode to a high degree. Another reason for the lack of innovation in Forge was the number of constraints placed on the game by the Xbox 360 hardware. The graphics had taken a massive leap from Halo Reach, but the processing power of the console necessitated that certain things be expunged like detailed animations and large maps.
Don’t get me wrong though. There were a lot of gems to unearth within the game if you were willing to look. We managed to extract so much jubilation from Halo 4’s Forge mode as we trudged our way through its inconsistencies. You could almost say that the obstacles of building on these maps, although laborious, earned the editor a badge of honor. And the limited real estate of the maps did inspire a ton of innovation; people tend to get very imaginative when they have very little to work with.
Of all the problems this game faced with its Forge, however, the biggest one was unequivocally its population. We were struggling to muster a large enough party on most nights to even fill a custom games lobby. This was a problem. It takes a lot of time and effort to cobble together a new map in Forge, and that effort had a very good chance of going unappreciated since the community was generally sinking less time into the mode. People began to create less maps for that exact reason. Stagnation began to settle. You could almost hop onto community sites like ForgeHub and see the cobwebs festooned all over the forums. As you can imagine, this was a really sad sight for my friends and I, because the abundance of genuinely wonderful maps had always been the heart and soul of Forge.
This story doesn’t end on a sad note, however. 343 Industries reflected on what happened with Forge in Halo 4, and when it returned with Halo 5 in 2015 it was better than it had ever been before; a thriving community built itself up around the revitalized map editor once again along with a new wave of excitement.
Halo 5
Halo 5’s launch-week circumstances were exceedingly auspicious for Forge and all of its prolific ingenuity to come. People had been waiting three years for the next installment in the timeless franchise to release; the zeal of the game-starved players was palpable, their jubilations spurred on by the steam engine that was the game’s marketing campaign. All of the advertisements leading up to the release exuded enigmatic curiosities and heart-thumping bouts of pure excitement. The commercials were fantastic — albeit a tad misleading. They did the trick, however, and the throngs of people logging onto the game’s servers on opening day were truly breathtaking.
343 Industries also approached the content cadence of the game with a new philosophy; all of the upcoming content releases — maps, modes, cosmetics — would be entirely free to the whole community from the start. This was ingenious! Huge segments of the Forge options would no longer be held captive behind a paywall. 343 Industries was also doggedly pursuing new forms of veritable innovation for Forge. For that reason, it didn’t launch with the game, and was instead released with the “Cartographer’s Gift” patch a few months down the road. 343 Industries managed to painstakingly spruce up every single facet of the mode, working from the bottom to the top. It came with enhanced precision controls, quadruple the amount of budget and items of past games, and entirely new concepts for the editor like custom textures, genuine scripting tools, and a breathtaking array of map canvases to build on.
This jumbo-sized update was so comprehensive and expansive that a lot of the players might have feared it would clog their Xbox Ones at the time. I still fondly recall the euphoric shivers that ran down my spine while leafing through the patch notes back then. There really was a dragon’s trove of sparkling goodness to dig through!
All of these factors — the tidal wave of fans hopping into the game at launch, the immaculate and carefully crafted Forge mode, the new cadence of patches and updates — truly allowed the mode to propel itself forward.
You can’t even begin to imagine the zany shenanigans that began to spring up alongside the proliferation of lovingly crafted maps; the community was burgeoning once again, with beautiful discoveries to be found around every corner. And the ubiquitous supply of community-crafted content continued to skyrocket as 343 Industries released the mode for fans of the series on PC; a whole new segment of the gaming population was unlocked for Halo and Forge for the first time in the series’ history!
My friends and I had a penchant for any of the oddball — the adjective, not the game type — maps we could get our hands on. A personal favorite of ours was a pirate-themed map that featured — wait for it…DRIVABLE PIRATE SHIPS! The Forge artist managed to cook up an absolutely flavorful tropical paradise, complete with rippling, deep-blue oceans, swaying palm trees, and lush sunsets with tones of red and orange swirling together like an orange creamsicle ice cream bar. The map was filled with multiple swaying ships that players could use to glide among the beaming beaches and towering rock formations. And the objectives included capture points that would spawn all around the map. All you could hear was the bombardment of cannon fire and the cling-clang of Energy Sword clashes as the “pirates” fought over the control points for victory.
Did I mention that the Forge community also includes more things than arena maps and mini games? Because it’s also filled with a rich supply of truly remarkable artists who use the spaces to create statues, paintings, and replicas of well-known objects from popular culture. If you can think of it, then there’s a good chance it was cobbled together in Forge. Halo 5 brought this to the next level with art creations that were truly mind-boggling, untethered from the constraints of tight budgets and a lack of object diversity. You could careen around the map browsers and stumble into a series of notable landmarks and pieces: the Eiffel Tower, a replica of the Statue of Liberty, or even a recreation of the Mona Lisa made out of machine guns and grenades — because, ugh, why not?
One indelible memory of Halo 5 custom games I’ll always cherish will be the nights where my friends and I would collaborate on refurbishing already-built Forge maps into something new for us to wallow around in. In particular, one of my best memories involved a full-scale replica of the Disneyworld castle. One of my good buddies stumbled upon it in the map browser, and we spent countless hours over multiple nights just toiling away at turning the castle replica into a playable capture-the-flag map. As you can imagine, with six people all editing the map together, it was utter chaos; random pieces were being placed all over the map, only to be effaced moments later by another of my friends sweeping through with their own ideas and changes. It was a sort of one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of process. In the end, though, we managed to cobble together a really great map, and we had so much fun along the way while building it. And we had even more fun playing on it. There was something so comical about the sight of Spartans belligerently attacking each other within the domain of Mickey Mouse and Cinderella.
All of this is exactly why Halo 5’s Forge mode is immaculate in my eyes. The developers took their time and poured their hearts into making it the best it could possibly be; the possibilities were nearly endless. And it showed. This was the healthiest the Forge community had been since Halo 3 released in 2007.
Looking to the future
Halo Infinite is set to release this year, and it’s the most protracted wait time we’ve ever seen between two main installments for the series. Fans are clamoring for updates on the game as the levels of excitement continue to balloon. The steam pressure on the pipes labeled “worries and frustrations” are also starting to self-combust; Halo Infinite, thus far, has had a very overt and rocky development cycle. Oodles of information on major studio departures at 343 Industries, among other tidbits of portentous news, have been disseminated to the general public in spades.
So, the imperative question to ask is this: how will they succeed underneath the crushing weight of all these expectations?
I personally think it’ll come down to how tenacious 343 Industries is about meeting the initial promises of the game. Halo Infinite will be a game-as-a-service title, meaning its development will branch out far into the nebulous reaches of space. Unlike past titles, which had clearly delineated production ends for their content releases, this game will be a living, breathing organism that’s constantly evolving.
The developers have promised an extremely open-ended, robust installment, with a vast and detailed world to explore that’ll be continually revitalized with new content. A lot of marketing words have been slung around like “epic,” “grandiose,” and “expansive.” 343 Industries has even gone as far as to say that there won’t be any new games in the franchise for the next ten years after Halo Infinite’s release.
If their hearts are in the right place, and I know they are, then all of the developers will have a profusion of time to reach their lofty goals. It’s clear from their community updates and personal insights on social media that all the fine folks at 343 Industries are infused with a delightfully reassuring supply of passion for Halo. The game is going to launch in a healthy state, and it’ll just get better and better as long as Microsoft believes in the project and continues to commit to it.
This live-game model could be heaven-sent for Forge and all its bazillions of opportunities for growth and innovation. They’ll have the next ten years to refine and expand the mode. And in a live-game format, the developers can also gauge the initial community reactions in order to plan long-term changes. Nothing is a lost cause. That constant chiseling and reshaping for the mode could unveil a true diamond that will luminously sparkle for years to come.
My mind is careening around with light-speed thoughts of new additions to come in Halo Infinite: terrain editing tools, custom sounds, uncapped budgets, physics controls, and a boundless sea of other dreams that could become a reality. People’s Forge maps could truly become as inimitable and unique as the Halo universe itself. Editors might no longer be bound to the aesthetic of pre-built map canvases. They might be able to import their own custom patterns and shapes to form new building pieces. An eclectic mix of awe-inspiring sounds and effects could potentially be emblazoned onto custom maps to add new levels of atmosphere and ambience to their settings.
Other factors in the mode’s success will be rooted in the supplemental features that promote community and integrate Forge into the rest of the game. Things like in-game rewards for preeminent editors, including special badges, armors, and nametags, could go a very long way towards incentivizing active users. Other motivators like community events revolving around Forge maps, and also messaging with callouts for industrious members in the main menu, could really help with shining a light on the active editors; when people are studiously working on their projects, they want to feel seen.
The mode also needs a very crystal-clear, conspicuous custom-game browser with a refined interface to facilitate engagement.
All of this can be achieved in an environment that’s less risky and demanding for the design team. They’ll be able to trailblaze with novel, over-the-top ideas, knowing that the game will be around for the next ten years. Experimentation and refinement could be the new norm, and the player base would be able to log into the game every day knowing there’s something new awaiting them around every corner.
The room for new things to blossom in Halo Infinite’s Forge are truly infinite, and that’s a very exciting place to be for the community.
Final thoughts
I’ve always been hopelessly enthralled with the sort of games that have a penchant for not respecting my time: World of Warcraft, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2, and many others that all fall into the role-playing category. These games are built with immersion in mind, with systems that trap you in a quagmire of time investment. You’re constantly trudging through meters keeping track of your progress, and a lot of it’s time-gated, so you’ll find your time spiraling into a black abyss with no clear end point.
Forge and Halo are a very therapeutic respite from those types of games.
You can hop on whenever you want and not feel guilty about how much or how little time you invest. If you’d like, you can painstakingly craft a true masterpiece where you’re scrutinizing every little iota of detail, or you can just hop on and blow things up for fun like a kid in a sandbox.
Forge is a mode that doesn’t expect a lot of you, but it provides you with more fun than you could ever need. It’s such an easy mode to hop into and lose a few hours to. Your friends can covertly wiggle into your sessions whenever to see what you’re building. And the sheer number of shenanigans that proliferate in custom games will acquire you enough gaming memories to last a lifetime.
Custom games have functioned as one of the main ways I’ve stayed in touch with friends from high school and the rest of my childhood. In most games, you have to coordinate with your friends to decide what sort of genre you’re all feeling like; in Forge, you get to experience the collective joy of crafting a new game together. Add the eccentric community on top of that with all its wonderful idiosyncrasies, and you’re blessed with a recipe for a great time!
I’m really yearning for the forge community to be unequivocally revitalized — veiled in that resplendent, gauze-like aura that pervades all games’ golden periods — and be at the forefront of map creation once again. The fact that Halo Infinite will be dropping out of space and into the PCs of many gamers is a very good sign. No matter what, I’m going to relish the nostalgia of returning to custom games with my friends. And I’ll gleefully extend my arms out to all the newcomers so they can join in on the camaraderie — I hope you, the reader, will be able to do the same.
Let’s bring back those halcyon days of gaming where times were so much simpler. The ones where people were outgoing and amiable. A time when they were open to collaboration, and people were willing to learn about each other and understand each other. Let’s make Halo Infinite’s Forge the best it can possibly be. That process will start with us appreciating the art of building together as a community. And the art of being able to look at others’ works and comprehend the passion and time that was poured into every little crevice along the way. I’m dreaming of a future where we’re rollicking around and building together — laughing, smiling, witty banter flying everywhere — and I know we can get there; we just need to set our imaginations free and open our hearts to those around us.
