Halo as a series has been blessed by an incredibly dedicated and creative community, one which has made exceptional use of the game’s ever-expanding in-game creation tools, but I think it would be in the best interest of the game as a whole to give PC players access to true mapping tools.
The forge mode is an excellent tool for creating maps, and with the advancements made between halo 3 and halo 5, it has become a tool with near limitless potential. Note I said NEAR limitless. Sure this tool gives you nearly full control over the map’s geometry, but forge maps miss a lot of what makes halo maps special. The perfect control over the atmosphere, the unique moving pieces, the unique items that adorn the maps and give them just that little bit of flavor. I think it would be in the best interest of the game’s longevity to give people who downloads the HALO:INFINITE multiplayer on steam access to a true mapping tool, one that allows you to change the lighting, textures, environmental effects, and every other small detail that the normal forging tools miss completely.
Keep in mind I am NOT asking for the removal of forge tools, far from it. I think HALO is in a unique position as a franchise that can introduce people to game creation by giving them the less complex stepping stone in the form of forge mode, while also providing them the very next step in a true dev tool. I think HALO fans are creative, and I want to see that creativity truly flourish with the addition of in-depth mapping tools.
I have claimed during this post that this is in the interest of the game’s longevity, and I do actually have proof of that. Team Fortress 2 is a free to play, first-person shooter from Valve (the creators of both the Half-Life and Portal series of games, and the company behind the Steam distribution platform for PC). The game has a long and storied history with user-created content. The first community created map to be officially added to the game came only a year after that game’s release, and since then some of the game’s most iconic maps (Harvest, Lakeside, Gullywash, and Process come to mind) have been ones created by the community. TF2 is a game from 2007 which still holds a significant player base today, a feat which would not have been achieved without the addition of user created content. It had just over 100k concurrent players about half an hour before this post was made, which is almost 20x the entire player base of the MCC on PC, let alone HALO 3, which released the same year. 343i could work with the community to integrate community-created maps into the official game, which would be a boon even for the console players who are usually completely locked-out from accessing user-created content made with tools outside of the game.
Allowing the community to create maps for the game would also be a benefit to the developers. Integrating community created content would allow the developers to move towards community updates later into the game’s life span, essentially putting the game’s future into the hands of the player base (with curation from 343i, of course). More than just maps, players with the right tools could contribute armor pieces, armor coatings, new additions to the sandbox such as weapons and vehicles, and even entire new campaigns! Imagine if 5 years later, HALO:INFINITE receives it’s “community battlepass” featuring community-created content, with a portion of the proceeds from the battlepass going to these creators. It’s a win-win for both 343i (who gets to monetize the game without putting excess development hours into it) and the community (who gets to participate in the ongoing development of the game they love, while also receiving compensation for their hard work.)
So please, 343i, even if it comes years down the line, please consider releasing proper devtools and fostering a working relationship with your community, beyond the highly curated in-game content.