Sanctuary is a classic, iconic map from Halo 2, still fondly remembered 12 years after it's release. The map is well balanced, featuring a memorable aesthetic in line with Halo 2's gritty visual style. Mynx, a prominent member of the ForgeHub community, has managed to make the map come alive again like it's 2004. Mynx has developed a reputation in the community for re-imagining old maps. The remakes she creates are inspired, have great attention to detail, featuring updated visuals, whilst maintaining nostalgic elements. Sanctuary is no different to that.

view original map thread​

The map uses a desert-like tone, utilising some of the new Tidal blocks introduced with the Warzone Firefight update, to both aid player orientation, and to provide an “oasis” type setting. This effect helps make the map come alive, like it is a real location in the Halo universe.

Nostalgia also plays well into this theme, as it strongly resembles the original Sanctuary, with updated textures and aesthetics. Mynx even inserts the Sniper Rifle weapon pads in to the wall so that it appears to lean against it, recreating the older, drop spawn style of weapon placement in the original trilogy of games.

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Matches on this map are exciting, interesting, and hold up very well with Halo 5's new movement abilities, though old strategies remain effective. Grabbing the Sniper Rifle and using the cover provided by the tower or base is still a great way to earn some kills, however you must always be aware of the risk of being flanked by enemy players taking advantage of the new spartan abilities. Using the Energy Sword located in the central ring can really help with those sneaky attacks.

Mynx put a lot of work into the scaling, as the map has been scaled up so players can’t clamber onto edges that they couldn’t reach in Halo 2. However, for players who want to play with classic settings, Mynx has also made a classic version of the map, linked below.

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I had the privilege of sitting down with Mynx, to chat about Sanctuary.

Alex: Hey Mynx! Thanks for sitting down with me to discuss Sanctuary.

Mynx: Thanks for doing this!

Alex: The first thing I noticed on the map were the visuals. They were simple, yet had a certain level of detail that felt nostalgic. Where did you go to for inspiration on the art?

Mynx: The nostalgic quality of the visuals are somewhat of a funny coincidence. My first Halo mutiplayer game was actually Reach. I'd played Asylum and MLG Sanctuary hundreds of times, and was also familiar with Shrine from H2A, but having only played disc maps and campaign from Halo 2 Classic, I'd never seen the original Sanctuary before. Prior to loading it up for the first time in MCC, I decided to go with a dirty sandstormy feel, with sandstone walls and details. Once I actually loaded into Sanctuary, I was pleasantly surprised to find that was pretty much the aesthetic of the original map, and I just went with it.

Alex: Speaking of which, I also noticed that there's two versions of the map - one that's Classic and one that's not. I assumed that you made a version that's slightly edited. What changes did you make and why?

Mynx: The standard version was made with the intention of accommodating for Halo 5's spartan abilities, most notably clamber and all of the jumps it fosters. The differences between the two versions are almost entirely height based, the classic version obviously being the "shorter" version of the two. I was inclined to make the classic version because my boyfriend pointed out the significant advantage players on the structural portions of the map had over the players on the ground. While height advantage is common knowledge in first person shooters, the height difference required to prevent clamber and exploitative jumps was so unlike that of the original Sanctuary that I felt that a release of two versions was sensible.

Alex: Did you have any difficulty scaling up to Halo 5? Were there any modifications that you needed to make in order for it to feel "right"?

Mynx: Since there isn't a way to measure distance inside of Halo 2 (at least not one that I'm aware of), I'm not sure how different the scaling is between the original and my remake. The only design element I purposefully altered from the original was vertical scaling in order to accommodate for the aforementioned Spartan abilities. By extension, some of the ramps are either proportionally longer or steeper (or both) in order to compensate for the changes in height. Everything else was sort of scaled 'by ear', in other words, I just built what felt right to me from what I saw in MCC and from my experiences in other versions of Sanctuary.

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Alex: Awesome stuff! Speaking of MCC, did your remake feature any of the changes made by Certain Affinity in the updated version called "Shrine"? If so, why? If not, why not?

Mynx: My intention with the map was for it to be a remake of H2C's Sanctuary, so I did not include any changes brought about with H2A's Shrine with the exception of spawning. Since there is no forge for H2C, I looked to H2A to replicate spawn points.

Alex: Moving on, why did you choose to remake Sanctuary?

Mynx: I've made my share of remakes over the last few years, usually the same ones each time - funnily enough, this was my first go at Sanctuary. I'd say a better question to ask would be "why now?" - which is a question I partially answer in my map thread: The combination of new Tidal objects, object count increase, detailed textures, and simple primitive blocks inspired me to try my hand at a remake I'd never done before with a level of detail that I'd never imagined would be possible in this forge. Before these updates, I never felt like I could do something with the map that no one else had already done, or could already do. When I finally felt like I could offer an improvement, that's when I decided to forge Sanctuary.

Alex: Awesome! Lastly, what remakes are you looking to make in the future? Anything we can expect to see from you?

Mynx: I have several remakes in the works, however I'm skeptical about my ability to finish a few of them because of frame drops. The ones I think you can expect me to finish are Zealot, Countdown, and tentatively, Narrows.

Alex: Sounds good! Thanks for sitting down with me to chat about the map.

Mynx: No problem. Thanks again for this!

You can find the standard version of the map here, and the classic version of the map here. You can also view the ForgeHub map post of the remake here.