The Forge AI Toolkit is Going to Change Halo Infinite Forever

Forge has seen a significant number of participants: 2 million users have created maps, and 40+ map creations by players are included in public playlists. The health of Forge can be gauged by these numbers. Halo Infinite community — in particular the Forge community — is incredibly strong nearly two years after release, and nearly one year since Forge dropped.

“It seems like every day on Twitter I see something new. Or at least once a week I see a pretty major map release,” says Schorr. “People announcing it and tagging me in those. There are a lot. And it’s not just ‘Hey, I made a box with a ladder in it.’ These are dev-quality creations.”

“Those 40 [user-generated] maps we’ve added [through Forge], each one is on par with our dev-quality maps and that’s what we’re adding into matchmaking,” Kennelly adds. “That’s like a six-month project for a lot of people. The fact there’s so many… we’ve had 24 to 30 maps from just the studio. The point is, we’ve already seen the community in the last 11 months produce even more maps than we’ve produced to date and they’re incredible and it just keeps going.”

All this points to an obvious influence that Forge can have on not just players, but future game designers as well – if you know how to use Forge, you know how to use just about any internal level creation tool. And now, coupled with the Forge AI Toolkit, it’s easy to imagine how robust some portfolios might become in the coming months. Kennelly, as well as many other Forge-level designers, are employed at 343 Industries.

“I know a lot of folks who got their start Forging in older Halos and learned basic level design. That can help make an amateur portfolio,” shares Kennelly. “My big interview here was, ‘Here’s all the stuff I Forged, the professional skills I have…’ It’s really cool to see that pipeline. There are people I know who work for other companies and got started [in Forge]As well. It’s a cool way to get your feet wet in the [game] industry. Forge’s existing user base is what I like most. You can find five to ten testers if you make the game engine and create your own. You can put your game in the Forge custom browser and get play testers. I’m super passionate about that.”