Hello everyone, and welcome to Halo Spotlight. This piece is a content creator Q&A. As the name implies, we have a sit down with a Halo content creator and ask some questions.
In our last Content Creator Q&A, we sat down with the YouTuber Ascend Hyperion. This time however, we’re sitting down with someone that creates content inside of Halo, rather than about it.
That’s right! This Q&A is with a Forger, someone that creates Halo gamemodes and maps within the Forge game mode. This Q&A wasn’t done via Discord, so sadly there’s no awesome video to accompany it. That means this article is the one and only place to be for this Q&A.
The Writing Spartan asked Artur some questions, and these are the responses. Please enjoy.
Question: For those who don’t know you, could you give us a little bit of background about yourself?
Sure. I am Arturo Pérez, but I’m known as ArturBloodshot in the community. I’m an architect and had been making Forge maps since 2007 during the Halo 3 era.
Since 2016 I became a Community Cartographer who helps 343 Industries curate Forge maps for matchmaking, judge contests and other special spotlights, while getting some of my own designs on the mix.
Question: What made you start creating maps back in 2007?
I always have been a Halo fan, when Halo CE released, I spent my afternoons playing with my friends who lived next door. It was so much fun!
Also, since I was a kid, I recall having a lot of creativity flowing though me. You would find me imagining games and sci-fi worlds, drawing them, and even materializing them using Legos. I spent more time doing that than doing homework. But my grades were fine for all you wondering.
When Halo 3 released and Forge was added as a map editor to create your own experiences inside the Halo Universe, that concept was what tied me down to Forge. At first, I only built maps to play with my friends, but in time it became a way of expression and discharge of all the ideas my mind was picturing, being at the end a motivation to bring that passion to the real world and finally studying architecture.
Question: How did you end up becoming a Community Cartographer?
It all began back in 2016 when the staff of 343 Industries were impressed by my immersive horror mini game: The Cellar. Since then, they’ve had eyes on my work.
When I entered the Meet Your Maker contest with my BTB map Unearthed, it stuck out during the judging. It didn’t get on the podium, but what caught off me of guard was 343’s community manager asking me to polish the map for its inclusion in an upcoming matchmaking update. I was so excited that I got down to business almost instantly and got it ready within a week.
After that matchmaking BTB playlist refresh and after reviewing my career as forger, level designer and architect, I was invited to participate in other matchmaking updates along with 343’s sustain team to playtest, provide feedback, and join other forger’s sessions to help them with their creations for matchmaking inclusion. That is what I’ve been doing since then.
Question: Do you have a favourite map that you’ve created for matchmaking?
Oh, come on! It is like if you were asking me who is my favourite child. But now thinking, probably I would say that my most recent addition to matchmaking. Athlon is a map I made for ForgeHub’s Forge the Fight contest, with the goal of bringing back MLG memories.
I started building Forge maps on Halo 3 and during those old days, the top goal as a forger was to get a map on matchmaking, so this is where you imagine a high schooler boy aiming for that achievement. My maps were cool, or at least that is what my friends said, but of course I still had a lot to learn.
Years passed, new titles released with new Forge versions and new stuff, new lessons, so the golden days of Halo 3 where gone.
Then, thirteen years later, thanks to 343, Halo 3 was back and on PC, and I got this opportunity to fulfil that achievement I had when a teenager, so is kind of fulfilling for me being able to live this personal victory.
Question: Outside of matchmaking, are there any personal projects you’ve worked on that you’ve really enjoyed, but have never released?
To be honest, I’m a designer who doesn’t like to leave any project half-baked, so when I start working on a map, I work it through until releasing it. Of course, I have a lot of conceptual sketches like a laboratory map for Infection or a low-gravity map, but never truly started building them on Forge.
But speaking of non-matchmaking stuff, a project I really enjoyed was the Ghost In The Shell Forge contest that was conducted on 2017 in which I was a community judge. This contest was run by 343 Industries as a collaboration with Paramount Pictures to promote the live-action movie of this classic cyberpunk universe where the winner would win a full paid trip to the World Championship finals of that year.
I was asked by 343’s community manager if I wanted to participate so I could go for the top prize, but I declined since I thought being a judge would bring me a new and better perspective as a designer, and of course I was flattered to represent the community as a Cartographer.
It was almost a full month of playing and evaluating more than a hundred of entries for this contest, but it was a fun time with lots of learning, especially on how each player expressed their ideas based on one common rule, that was getting a full playable map while precisely recreating the movie’s ambience. It was a great experience and I would like to repeat it on the future.
Question: What do you hope to see in Halo Infinite’s Forge mode that we haven’t seen previously?
There is a ton of stuff I would like to see for Infinite’s Forge, but overall, I would want to have freedom to alter the canvas. Right now, what we have is a map canvas with a determined topography, climate, and terrain, so we forgers need to improvise on how to use them on our favour.
That is something interesting, I have to add, it is part of the challenge as a designer to carrying out a project within some established boundaries. But sometimes I would rather have the freedom to express myself and having a blank canvas with the ability to change the climate, the terrain, lighting colour and the incidence of the sun would be awesome for creating a great variety of ecosystems for our maps.
Question: Do you have any current maps or projects you’d like to share?
Due to the success of Athlon on Halo 3, I am working on moving that concept into Halo 5. I conceived Athlon as a fast-pacing map with a lot of verticality, so I think it fits perfectly for the sandbox and mechanics of Halo 5.
It is still very green, but I can’t wait to show you the full outcome. Meanwhile, I am already brainstorming ideas for Forge maps I would like to build on Halo Infinite since Day One. You will probably start to see some teasers during the next weeks.
Question: Where should people go to find information on your maps and get updates from yourself?
You can find on any social media as ArturBloodshot. Twitter is my most active media where I share the new content I am working on, also some level design, architecture, and Halo stuff, including Forge of course.
I usually do streams on Twitch in the weekends too, whether playing with friends or working on Forge. If you are interested on my actual work on Forge, you can find my projects on ArtStation and ForgeHub, where also you will find a lot of incredible content while exploring these websites.
A huge thank you to ArturBloodshot for talking with The Writing Spartan. It certainly was wonderful to see just how Artur got into Forging and how far they’ve come.
For more awesome fan made Halo creations, do be sure to check out our new spotlights section of the site. You can also check our Twitter account and Facebook Page for updates relating to the site, our Instagram account for some awesome Halo artwork, and our YouTube channel for the latest Q&As and videos.
Want to see your Halo content or creation on the site? Check out the post submissions section, which outlines what you’ll need to do to get your piece in front of the spotlight. That’s all for now folks, so I’ll see you all next time.