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Xbox’s Halo Infinite has been kept alive by Forgers even for official updates, but these fans are leaving following “lack of support” from Halo Studios

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On June 21, 2025

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Halo Studios may be working on a full remake of Halo: Combat Evolved for the franchise’s 25^th anniversary next year, but, for now, there’s still ongoing support for the free-to-play Halo Infinite.

In the current climate of the latest Halo game, new maps added to the game are created by Forgers, community members that create new arenas with the game’s in-built creation suite. However, one of the largest Forge teams have left the game behind due to a lack of support from Halo Studios.

Halo Infinite Forge group leaves the game behind

The Forge Falcons, a team that has provided many awesome experiences for Halo Infinite, announced their departure from the game. In the past, the team released a full Battle Royale mode for the free-to-play title dubbed Helljumpers, an enjoyable take on what a Battle Royale mode could be in the latest Halo game.

On June 7, the team expressed disappointment that the once-popular Forge mode was never supported by Halo Studios. “It would have been cool to see it make it’s way to matchmaking at some point so everyone could enjoy it how it was supposed to be enjoyed,” the Forgers said. “Sadly, that wasn’t meant to be.”

In a follow up statement to fans, The Forge Falcons announced their departure from Halo Infinite due to a “lack of support” from Halo Studios. For starters, Forgers who are keeping the game alive with new maps are “getting no meaningful compensation” from the developers, even as players create maps that are advertised as major additions in new seasons.

The ongoing Legacy update celebrating Halo 3 comes with a slew of brilliant map recreations to play with, all made by Forgers with minor assistance from 343.

“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 Forge group said on social media. “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 [sic] odd feeling.”

The Halo Infinite map creators explained that Halo Studios’ treatment towards Forgers “needs serious work”, no just due to the lack of compensation that creators are given. Halo Studios’ relationship with Forge users was described as “one-sided” which “just makes the experience working on it for Matchmaking un-fun”.

While Halo Studios created the new Hayabusa helmet in this image, the remake of Halo 3’s The Pit map was created by Forgers.

“We look forward to the next Halo and the next Forge, and we really do hope the tools are better, the entire system on how things are done is vastly improved, and the forgers are given more freedom, support and acknowledgement,” the Forge group said. “Because we love Halo, the community and forge and we would love to be able to carry on giving the players new and innovative experiences in future instalments.”

As a longtime Halo Infinite player, Forgers have carried the post-launch support for the game as Microsoft pushes official developers onto new Unreal Engine 5 projects. At the time of writing, the game’s big Delta Arena Halo 3 event is populated exclusively with maps made by Forgers while official development time goes into rebalancing, battle pass items and paid store cosmetics.

That’s not to say Halo Studios isn’t putting effort into the game. Despite a skeleton crew left on the game, the studio has created new Firefight experiences and even new weapons in the form of the Bandit and the Mutilator, although these won’t be coming to the game’s campaign as endgame weapons for some reason.

As it stands, Forgers have done a lot for Halo Infinite as more official maps made outside of the Forge toolkit seem off the table. Forge maps look considerably worse than official maps such as the stunning Prism or Oasis. However, right now, those Forgers are creating everything with just a little help from the game’s official developers, and it is uncomfortable to see.

Halo Infinite Forge isn’t the only part of the Halo franchise that has been said to have taken advantage of fans. In fact, the Halo Digsite team, which helped to polish up and release cut Halo content for the Master Chief Collection on PC (such as the infamous Halo 2 E3 demo) have also expressed upset at the lack of support from Microsoft, Xbox and Halo Studios while their work was taken as a win for the developer.

Hopefully, Halo Studios will start to take this feedback on board for the future of the Halo franchise. The reliance on Forgers has existed since the days of Halo 5, and Xbox’s quick plug-janking of Infinite’s post-launch plans has only exacerbated the issue. If fans are keeping your game alive, they should be compensated and supported – that’s the end of it.