This Week's Halo 5 update adds a lot for Forge fans: 650 new objects, new scripting commands, Race and King minigames, extra canvases and more
Halo 5's latest update really is enormous.
Halo 5: Guardians will receive another free content update this week. Called Monitor's Bounty, it drops on December 8 (US time) and delivers stacks of good stuff to Xbox One players as well as bringing Halo 5's Arena, Forge and join in progress custom games browser to PC.
343 Industries broke the update reveal into two halves to make it more digestible, and today's intel drop goes in-depth on what's new in Forge, Halo 5's UGC tool set. The executive summary is: a lot.
The most exciting update to my mind is the addition of a stack of new scripting options, making Halo 5's Forge much more flexible than ever before. By providing users with these tools, 343 Industries has opened the door to much more complex user-generated game modes.
343 itself has been playing with these new tools and produced a few mini-games for the Halo 5 community to enjoy, including recreations of Race and King, two old Halo favourites. There's also an all new mini-game called Battle Golf.
To help users start making new Halo 5 modes at this level of complexity, 343 Industries will release a stack of documentation in the near future, detailing how they were created.
And, of course, there are also heaps of new elements for Halo 5 creators to play with. 343 Industries has produced two new flat, empty canvases - the desert Barrens and underwater Depths - and some new filters and effects including Heat Distortion, Under Water and Infected Flood. With that framework in place, you can check out over 650 new objects including billboards, the Master Chief Unicorn Van, landmines, crabs, destructible objects and the "Wernecke Wrecker".
Finally, when Monitor's Bounty hits Halo 5, Forge will support file recovery, machinima mode, material overlays, a map reset option and more custom game settings options.