Not long ago we celebrated the anniversary of Halo 3 and in only a few weeks we will be celebrating the release of Halo Infinite Forge. For the anniversary of Halo 3 a few of us got the opportunity to interview with Gamespot for one of their articles, you can read it here (Halo Forge Slowly Transformed What It Means To Play Halo - GameSpot). There ended up being a lot more that wasn’t included in the article, so we have decided to form our own article with the additional content reflecting upon the legacy that Halo 3 left as we approach the next chapter.


How did forge begin?

SIR IRON WOLF

Forge as many people consider it, began as a straightforward tool in Halo 3 allowing players to make simple adjustments to maps. We only had a limited number of options and functionality that we could utilize compared to its predecessor of the same name for Bungie's game series Marathon and later Halo Custom Edition for the PC. Forge was introduced into Halo 3 but was limited from hardware and software constraints being limited to the Xbox 360. For example, they had to worry about how many vehicles someone could place on a map as it will start to pull from texture resources if memory serves right. Starting out we didn't have any blank canvases or open spaces to make maps, we had to use the dev maps. Being restricted to dev maps was very limiting but mainly for the fact you couldn't place a whole lot down and what you could places was generic scenery or gameplay items. It wasn't till they released the Heroic Map Pack that really changed the game as it brought us Foundry, the first forge centric map.

Foundry wasn't very big, but it gave us a flat open space to work with and on top of that it gave us more items to use in Forge. Not long after, the simpleness of the editor did not stop people from finding glitches that allowed for more advanced techniques to develop. The most notable was the merge glitch, this allowed people to merge two items into each other. What once use to be a bumpy wall or floor from two crates butted up to one another now turned into a flat surface. All someone had to do was set the respawn time of an object to not spawn at the start of a game, then exit the game, start it up again, place an object to slightly intersect where the first object will spawn and then wait for it to pop into existence and check your work. There were a few glitches that those more experienced used to create many of the original maps us veterans played on day and night.

Foundry and Forge spawned probably one of the most popular and long-standing community modes to date, Grifball, next to Infection which started in Halo 2. Infection though really got it's rise and popularity in Halo 3 as Forge now allowed people to create more themed maps for the mode and to even further evolve the mode into various subcategories and games.

Eventually they released more maps and even another Forge centric map, Sandbox. Sandbox had three levels to the map. There was a skybox with a large flat grid and if you fell off of it then you would die, there was the ground level which had a large flat area surrounded by sand terrain, and an enclosed crypt that was large and flat on all sides. This map was revolutionary as it gave us a large area that would kill those that fell off the map so you wouldn't have to worry about containment as heavily. Duck Hunt was a popular mode spawned from this map as well as many different racetracks.

When forge released, we also had the ability to do some minor scripting, nothing as advanced as we have now as most of the scripting revolved around setting when objects spawn or despawn. There was also the ability to put down screen effects or Map Filters as they were called. These allowed you too totally change the look and feel of a map and combined with the basic scripting you could have a map go through stages as time progressed.

Forge drew in a large and loyal fan base of creative minds that redefined the custom game experience and established a solid foundation for years to come. I remember hearing that Bungie didn't expect this from Forge, and it was more of an afterthought they added in. If it wasn't for those glitches and the strong community behind forge, then we probably would not have it today.


What do you remember when Forge was first released or your first impression of Forge?

WOLF

I remember being astonished. Forge was a literal game changer that allowed unlimited opportunities for replay ability. At first it was meant to just be a simple editor that allowed you to slightly adjust some of the developer maps, Bungie never thought it would turn into what it has today. I was still in school when Halo 3 was released and every day I would finish my homework and then hop on Halo with my friends till my parents told me to go to bed. Back then too you could only have 100 maps saved and I remember constantly running out of space, I ended up making other Xbox Live accounts just to save more maps I made or calling up a friend to hop on and save a map I was working on. Forge redefined Halo and paved the way for other games to develop in game editors and is a big reason people continue playing long after a typical game life cycle.

I Crush All

When Forge was first released, I remember all the times that I spent with it, even as a kid I still had the drive to create, Forge allowed for that possibility. I remember all the fun mini games and maps people created with such basic tools, classics like "Duck Hunt" and "Halo on Halo", modes that brought people together for a fun party-game-like experience.

Ducain23

Back in Halo 3, I was mainly a competitive player going to local tournaments and playing online. I did dabble a bit in Forge since I enjoyed the map makers in TimeSplitters Future Perfect, but I didn't make much since it was mainly just to move weapon spawns and a few blocks. Once the Foundry (Heroic map pack) came out, I did a bit more but still not much since phasing objects wasn't possible except through "ghost merging" and that was annoying to do...haha


Did you use it a lot back then?

Wolf

As much as I took breaths, I used forge. Since it came out, I probably spent close to 8 hours a day for the majority of 4 years playing Halo 3, most of that being custom games and forge. I was constantly creating and always running out of save space, making things just to make them. When I was done with school, I was either playing in custom games or in Forge and I have a lot of fond memories from back then. I remember building a X-wing, Stargate Command with a Stargate, a warthog obstacle course I called Jump, and a bunch of infection maps. In my friend group I am the artist and builder, so usually we played on maps I created or with custom game modes I made. With the amount of stuff I made though, and only having 100 save slots, I had to often times clear out old creations or use my friends accounts to save maps. So yes, I used it a lot.


Was it tough to use?

Wolf

It depended on what you wanted to make. The beauty of Forge is that the base tools were easy to use, and the level of entry was pretty low. At the base level you could spawn items, delete, rotate, and move them. This allowed the average player to make adjustments to the dev maps and create some fun variations.

Those wanting more though had to learn about some of the glitches to make cleaner maps and also had to spend a lot more time in the editor. Since the editor was so simple it made it more difficult to be precise and develop a more polished product. Since the more advanced techniques like merging relied on glitches or round about procedures this opened the door for unreliability and thus a much more tedious process.

All in all, it's kind of a yes and no answer. It was simple and easy to use what it originally was developed for, making adjustments to dev maps. While they eventually added more support to it in its life cycle it was still an annoying tool to work with when you wanted to create your own map. In Halo MCC, 343 went back and added some of the current tools to make it easier but being spoiled with the current forges it helps show how tough we actually had it as those glitches and procedures are now standard tools.

Some might say though that today's forge even with all its advancements is tougher to use by comparison because of its seemingly higher level of entry. There is a lot more tools and items to utilize that while we can create much better stuff the learning curve is also higher.



How has Forge changed over the years and what has been your favorite part of the change?

Wolf

Forge has changed a lot over the years by allowing more creativity to happen. it started out as a simple editor where you could place down some blocks, crates, vehicles and weapons with some basic tools. Now you are able to place down a much wider assortment of items, merge them into each other, and even script things to happen. My favorite part of the change would have to be the better support of minigames by allowing them to become more complex and intricate. This allows for near endless opportunities and many of the popular modes have made it into various matchmaking rotations. Forge also allows the everyday person with a passion to become a developer and see something they create in an official playlist being played by millions. Many, like myself, ended up joining the industry because of Forge, something unheard of a little over ten years ago.

Crush

Forge over the years has become a creative outlet with better tools to allow us to express our creativity even more than we have been able to before. My favorite change being the amount of detail we're able to put into our maps that just wasn't possible back at Forge's initial release in 2007.

Ducain

Forge has changed drastically over the years. Originally with Halo 3 it was very limiting, and people had to get very creative to make things. Once Reach came out, the Forge community exploded because Bungie provided us with crazy tools at the time. It wasn't until Halo 5 that we got another massive improvement in Forge that gave us in depth scripting, changing materials on blocks and placing up to 1600 objects on a map! Although Infinite's Forge has blown Halo 5's out of the water but I will talk about that on another question. My favorite part of the change has been seeing what the community has been able to come up with in each version of Forge. The creativity of using Forge World in Halo Reach to build huge environments in Halo 5. The community has done an incredible job bringing custom games to life in Halo and I believe we are just getting started!

Captain Punch

Halo 3:

- Originally, Forge was intended for rearranging things (spawns, weapons, vehicles, objectives, crates, etc.) on existing levels rather than creating them from scratch.

- Forge was baked into each level rather than being its own system, as a side effect of this Object Palettes were different on each level.

- Glitches had to be used to merge objects with each other or make them float.

- During updates to the game, Bungie responded to what they saw the community doing with the tool and released multiple levels that were designed as canvases with new palette options specifically crafted to allow for players to create their own layouts.


Halo Reach:

- Forge World was released as a large-scale, extremely versatile (relative to what we had seen before), canvas, was the only level that was intended for use as a canvas and had the largest and most robust palette we had seen so far.

- All weapons were now part of every canvas’s palette.

- Users were able to 'phase' into each other/the ground or float in midair were features rather than glitches and objects could be set to interact with the physics engine or be fixed in place.

- Objects could be labeled based on what mode they were relevant to, which allowed users to have differences in their designs between modes like Slayer and CTF beyond the latter having flags spawn.

- Objects could be moved around via editing their coordinates and rotation could be set to happen in discrete increments rather than players having to eyeball things.

- Objects could have some colors on them changed (lights) to help delineate sections of levels per team.

- The per-object limits for how many could be placed were replaced with a per-category limit.


Halo 4:

- Trait Zones. Cuboid regions that, based on settings, would manipulate the traits of the players inside them to create low gravity zones, etc.

- Baked lighting. Shadows were no longer fully dynamic.

- Changing object colors was more robust and would affect their texture's coloring rather than just the color of lights attached to them.

- QoL improvements like:

-- An outline on the selected object so players can more easily tell what they are selecting/manipulating.

-- "Magnets". Sockets of a sort that show up at the corners, centers of contours and faces, etc, of objects that, when brought close together, will cause the object being held to snap to the other, lining up two of the sockets and making it so the user doesn't have to align them manually. (this actually had issues as the magnet sockets weren't properly aligned on all objects)

-- Object duplication. Users could have an object selected and create a duplicate without having to open a menu and spawn a new copy that way.


Halo 5:

- Did not launch with the game, coming with an update instead.

- The object palette exploded, thousands of objects were now available (including large terrain pieces for creating entire level's terrain from scratch), and more were added over time.

- All objects could now be placed on any level.

- More than one object could be selected and manipulated at once.

- Objects could be grouped and manipulated as if they were a single object, and groups could be saved as 'prefabs' that users could share with each other the same as they had been sharing entire levels, prior.

- Per-category limits were removed and any object could be placed as many times as the user wanted.

- Many objects could now be re-textured and fully recolored, as well as having configurable overlays on top of the base texture and color.

- Decals, chromakey screens, placeable lights, and fx objects (like particle emitters) were added.

- Joint/Hinge constraints were added, allowing players to make doors that swing and add many other dynamic elements to their designs.

- Scripting was added and, through a series of updates, made more and more robust. This allowed for the creation of a myriad of new experiences and has been, without a doubt, the most consequential feature added to the tool.

- A PC version of Halo 5 (Halo 5: Forge), which just included support for Forge and Custom Games, was also released. It granted the use of a mouse/keyboard to edit levels more similarly to tools like Blender, and also allowed users to directly type values when doing things like editing coordinates instead of having to just hold down a joystick and wait till they reach the desired value. This PC version was a game changing QoL improvement over editing on console.


Halo 2: Anniversary

- Nowhere near as powerful as Halo 5's Forge, more akin to previous titles overall but with many more options for terrain.

- Had some *extremely* limited scripting

- A snap/align to ground feature as an object manipulation QoL improvement.

PART 2

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