Next ‘Halo 5’ Free Update Brings Two Remix Maps, Huge Forge Addition Teased

343 Industries began dropping details on the next free Halo 5 update late Friday evening. The Xbox One exclusive will receive the Infinity’s Armory update. It is on track to release later in January and will bring plenty of armor, weapons, skins, and two remixed maps. However, the most interesting bit of news may be a tease of an upcoming Forge feature.

Infinity’s Armory Content

Remix maps in Halo 5 have had a mixed reaction from the game’s community, no pun intended. Taking an existing map and reskinning it has simply not sat well with some Xbox One owners. 343 Industries has heard the feedback and is focusing on making the two new Remix maps added with Infinity’s Armory “feel, look, and play like entirely new spaces.”

The new Urban map is a remix of the Battle of Noctus Warzone map that was added in the Cartographer’s Gift update from December. This adds the Warzone Assault variant to the map, but 343 Industries’ map makers have made other touches as well.

The central area of the map has been redesigned to allow for more vehicle gameplay than the original. The huge monument was removed from the center of the map to open the battleground up significantly. A smaller based was added in the middle, but the overall effect is a huge new open pit for vehicles to tumble with one another.

New lines of sight were also added in different areas, such as along the street and home base. Visually, 343 Industries moved Urban to a night time setting wit the streets glowing from street lamps and other light sources. How players use the shadows to their advantage will be key.

The Fathom Arena map is also getting a makeover with the Riptide remix map. 343 Industries has only shared a couple of images so far, but plans to reveal details of the changes in a livestream next week.

Like any Halo 5 update, Infinity’s Armory comes with a big selection of new REQ content. The headliners are the new Atlas, Achilles, and Mark V Alpha armor sets, but there is the usual assortment of weapon skins and more.

Upcoming Forge Feature

The new Halo 5 Forge feature was discovered by users of the map making tool via a glitch and promises to take object groupings to the next logical step. 343 Industries is calling them Forge Prefabs and will allow players to build, save and share their own structures.

“The idea of building an amazing structure, saving it out, and placing it on different maps or sharing it with the rest of the world would be an EXTREMELY powerful tool in the hands of the Forge community; a potential game changer really. I even see it opening up the possibility of a new kind of Forger, one who isn’t focused on all the details of building a full level, but instead focuses on building pieces that others can then grab and kitbash into their own worlds,” UGC Design Lead Tom French wrote.

Indeed, Forgers have already created some amazing builds in Halo 5 since the feature was first released in the December Cartographer’s Gift update. Prefabs offer the ability for creators to take things to builds to the next step and do so in a reduced amount of time.

Forge Prefabs will not be included in the Infinity’s Armory update and 343 Industries does not have a timeline on when it will arrive. French stated the development team still has “plenty of work to do,” so it may be an update or two after January’s release before support for Prefabs is added.

[Image via Halo Waypoint]