Halo Infinite Season 5 is finally here and Forge is got a huge update. Since Forge launched in Halo Infinite in November 2022, there have been over two million user-generated creations added. Now with Season 5, Forge has a new AI Toolkit to help players make even more content and include PvPvE content. The Forge developer team sat down with me to demo the new update so here’s what I learned.
Spawning Campaign AI
The new AI Toolkit allows players to spawn specific AI from the campaign to fill out their custom game creation. Players can choose from 43 AI types and can have up to 32 AI and 24 players in one game mode. In order to spawn AI, you have to put down the AI Spawner where you’d like it to be.You can also drop an AI Phantom Spawner into your game that lets you drop a Chopper, Ghost, or Wraith with or without a driver, or pilot.
Here are the 43 AI Types you can have in your creation:
- Grunt (5 variants)
- Jackals (4 variants)
- Skimmers (3 variants)
- Elites (5 variants)
- Brutes (16 variants)
- Hunters (2 variants)
- Marines (6 variants)
- Bosses (2 variants)
When you spawn in the AI you want, you can go further and specify in each AI what weapon you want them to have equipped. You can also change the AI Difficulty from Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary and also toggle a Player Count Difficulty Multiplier setting that allows you to scale difficulty based on how many players are in the lobby. The best part about both these new features is that these can be changed mid-match with a node graph script or be set as a global Custom Game option.
Control Your AI
Speaking of node graphing, to help you map out where AI move around and exist, there’s a new node graphing system to let you control all of that. You can lay out a path to tell AI units to stay within and travel back and forth from if you have a wider space selected.
AI node graph scripting can get as complicated and deep as you want it to be. You can set the trigger points for AI spawning (say walking through a doorway is the point that spawns five jackals armed with shotguns in that room). All you have to do is link the spawner to the trigger and the AI will be set.
Play PvP or PvE
The most interesting part of this update is that you can set the AI allegiance to however you want. There are eight different team allegiances you can select. So the new AI can work with you or against you. So PvPvE modes are totally feasible now with the new AI toolkit with the ability to customize teams with AI.
In case you need a little inspiration on how to utilize the new AI toolkit and the node graphing, Connor Kennelly, 343 Industries Technical Game Designer, showed us a fun example. Kennelly demonstrated how you could spawn Marines and have them follow him around or follow any object. He said, “I’m very excited for someone to hook this up to one of the ball objects so you could play catch with a marine. I don’t know how they bring it back, but maybe you could find a way with scripting.”
When I expressed my delight in the cute game of catch, Kennelly went on to say, “we definitely built this with wave based modes in mind, but we’re really hoping at least I’m personally hoping to see some single player experiences in the customs browser where someone goes and makes a campaign-like space and uses a lot of the like trigger volumes we showed you or switches or just map events to kind of give you some allies, give you some enemies and make a fun little scenario.”
New Canvases and Objects
While AI is the biggest new addition to Forge this season, we also got new Barrage and Permafrost canvases to work with. Barrage is themed after remnants of a Banished bombardment with craters, abandoned earth and plant life. Permafrost is, well, what it sounds with snowy backdrops and iced over bodies of water. Along with new canvases, new Banished objects were added with over 100 new items for players to toy with.
There have also been a variety of quality of life updates brought into Season 5 like lighting, reflection, shadows, and control improvements. Players can also earn Battle Pass XP in Custom Games and is a great way to encourage people to try Forge game modes and be rewarded for it.
Halo Infinite Season 5 is available now for everyone. In case you missed it, be sure to check out my video breakdown of all the multiplayer updates.
Stella is a Video Producer, Host, and Editor at IGN. Her gameplay focus is on competitive FPS games and she’s previously reviewed Apex Legends, Hyper Scape, Halo Infinite Multiplayer, and Battlefield 2042. She regularly hosts and shoutcasts competitive Apex Legends and Halo Infinite tournaments when she isn’t streaming on her Twitch channel after work outs. You can follow her on Instagram @Parallaxstella.Official
