"So many amazing Forgers have just given up" — Halo Infinite just lost its best Forge creators over lack of support

Community-created Halo Infinite maps and modes built using the robust mapmaking tool Forge — first added in late 2022 and expanded significantly over time with improvements — have been at the heart of the Xbox and PC shooter's content updates for several years. One well-known team of Forgers, though, has voiced its frustrations working with developer Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries) and announced its intent to cease creating Halo Infinite projects.

That team is The Forge Falcons, a group you may recognize given that it's responsible for making arguably the best Halo Infinite Forge creations. These include a CoD: Zombies-inspired Survive the Undead mode that was briefly added to matchmaking, a 24-player Halo Battle Royale mode complete with three maps, and an extremely impressive Helldivers 2 mode that brought the co-op intensity of Arrowhead Game Studios' beloved shooter to Halo Infinite.

Addressing both Halo Studios and the community at large in a letter posted to social media, The Forge Falcons — emphasizing that it's speaking to its own experiences, and not that of other Forgers — explained that its members have been disheartened by a lack of support from Halo Infinite's developers. Specifically, the team feels that its hard work has not been appropriately acknowledged or appreciated, and that what should be a collaborative back-and-forth between its Forgers and the devs instead feels very one-sided.

"None of us ever started making things in the hopes we'd get compensated and have never expected it, and to our knowledge, not a single forger in the community has," the group wrote. "But to see your work used in promotional material for a game, plastered all over in-game and featured in Matchmaking, to not receive even a simple sincere thank you or anything to make us feel appreciated beyond marketing events for the game, it's just a odd feeling."

"So many amazing Forgers have just given up working in Halo Infinite because of the lack of support and it is honestly just such a shame, some even for the same reasons we are stating here," it continued.

The Forge Falcons went on to note that when working on projects that could potentially come multiplayer matchmaking, it's felt that it's had very little choice when it comes to the direction maps and modes are taken in. Speaking to Windows Central, the team stated it has "very little choice overall" and rarely receives meaningful help from Halo Studios.

"The way the community is viewed and treated in regards to Forgers, needs serious work to be a really fun, collaborative and a reward-feeling experience," the post reads. "In our experience, it feels very one-sided on the Forgers throughout the entire process, even down to decision making on a feature or how an experience plays for example, and it just makes the experience working on it for Matchmaking un-fun, when it should be the complete opposite."

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As a result of these frustrations, The Forge Falcons will no longer develop new Halo Infinite Forge creations after the release of its next one (the team says it's already finished), and will instead move to make content in Unreal Engine for Fortnite. Notably, Fortnite developer Epic Games has a robust Island Creator Program in which community creators can apply to get engagement-based payouts for the Fortnite maps they build and publish.

The team says it looks forward to "the next Halo and the next Forge" — also coming to Unreal Engine — and hopes for major improvements to both the tool itself as well as the process of collaborating with Halo Studios.

It then concluded the letter with the following: "And to Halo Studios, Forgers deserve better and they deserve to be rewarded for their immense contributions to this franchise, it's saddening these conversations are still happening in 2025, please, do better."

While it's true that Halo Studios accurately credits Forgers for their creations in marketing materials like trailers and blog posts, this account from one of Halo Infinite's most prominent community Forge teams speaks to a worrying lack of open-minded teamwork from the developer. As someone who's greatly enjoyed The Forge Falcons' work, I'm sad to see it leave Halo Infinite behind — and given how much of its post-launch content has come from Forgers, I hope future partnerships between them and the studio are more cooperative.