Halo 5: Guardians is just a few weeks away from its release on October 27, but players of the upcoming Xbox One shooter will have to wait until sometime in December to get their hands on the game's Forge map editor.
Microsoft and developer 343 Industries will release Forge as a free update to Halo 5, and new features and content to the editor will be added in further updates. A new post on the Halo Waypoint website has a ton of information about how Forge will work in Halo 5. There are far too many details to go over here so here's a look at just the Options feature for the editor
- 1600+ Objects – Take that in for a minute. Previous iterations of Forge had a couple hundred. Shaun, Randal, and Ryan on our art content team have been crazy busy building LOTS of pieces from primitive shapes, structure parts, accent pieces, detail props, and gameplay objects custom built for Forge. Mix them in with things like the weapons, turrets, and power-ups makes this Forge have pretty much the ultimate building block set you wished you had when you were eight years old. I've been working with our art lead Wade to try and squeeze in a few last assets before we're done; that said we're in pretty great shape.
- New Object Types – We've added lots of new types of object types to Forge this time; FX emitters, decals, invisible blockers (big community request), chroma screens for machinima makers, objects for building map intros/outros, and yes, even a large adorable whale toy that we love dearly.
- Projected Terrain Pieces – Our new terrain pieces sample textures from their position on one of our Forge maps which makes them blend in almost seamlessly with the prebuilt terrain of the level when you mix them together. Watching them move around the map for the first time generally breaks people's brains for a few minutes because it looks like voodoo. I don't think it's actually voodoo but instead it's a lot of complex graphics code which might as well be.
- Unconstrained Objects – We've maintained keeping all of the objects in Forge "map autonomous" meaning any object can be placed on any map thanks to our engines new asset management systems. Now users can experiment and try pretty much any idea on any map. For example if you wanted to you could place a Scorpion tank in the middle of Truth. This doesn't mean you should, but you could.
- Object Enhancements – Lots of the returning objects have new features and improvements: Dial in the amount of extra clips with weapons. Man-Cannons and Grav Lifts launch distances and heights can be tuned in their properties and show the path where the players will go when used. Teleporters output directions can now be changed it displays which way players come out facing. We have commitment to improving everything Forge, not just the new.
All of Halo 5's Arena/Breakout maps can be used in Forge, and there are three all-new maps (Alpine, Glacier and "Space") that have been made especially for the editor.
- Pre-order Halo 5: Guardians on Amazon UK for £41.99
- Pre-order Halo 5: Guardians on Amazon US for $59.99
Source: Halo Waypoint
