Less than three months after the record-breaking release of Halo 3, developer Bungie Studios has rolled out its first new multiplayer map update in the form of the Heroic Map Pack. Consisting of three new maps—Standoff, Foundry and Rat’s Nest—the Heroic Map Pack will cost you 800 Microsoft Points (that’s $10 in English) and is available now.

The Heroic Map Pack will be the first of (hopefully) many map updates, the next of which Bungie says we can expect sometime in spring 2008, at which time the Heroic Map Pack will become free. Although there are no firm plans for a disc-released version of the Heroic Map Pack or any other add-on maps, Bungie hasn’t ruled it out as an option to get the maps to the near 50% of Halo 3 owners that don’t currently subscribe to Xbox Live.

We spent the better part of last night tinkering with the maps and trying a wide variety of gametypes, but to give you the full scoop, we got Bungie on the phone and talked to Bungie.net Community Lead Brian Jarrard and Multiplayer Designer Lars Bakken to get the skinny on the new shizz, as well as details about when we can expect more DLC. We also rambled on about Hump Day Challenges, achievement-oriented playlists, and MIA porta-potties, but we’ll get to that later. First, let’s talk maps:



For all you Forge-fiends out there, Foundry is a dream. In its stock form, Foundry is like any other map, budding with weapons and ‘nades and stocked with boxed-out, fenced-in blast zones aplenty. But with some quick Forging, Foundry can be reduced to a have-it-your-way arena of emptiness in no time. Bungie plans to offer a cleared-out version of the Foundry map via its Bungie Favorites portal, and there are already a variety of Foundry maps showing up on Bungie.net’s community map variant forum (a near-replica of Midship is our favorite so far). One item you might not expect to find on the Foundry’s budget list of items that you can plop into the map via Forge is a ha-uge soccer ball. Taking a cue from a feature Jarrard posted on Bungie.net last week, we constructed our own soccer field to give it a try. Now, we know what some of you are thinking: “Oh great, Halo 3 is going to become Halo Golf or Halo Bachi Ball.” Jarrard says that’s not the point.

“We’re going to look at how Foundry is received and what we can do to further the non-traditional, fun creative ways to experience Halo with your friends. To be clear, though, still the priority of the day is to make a really awesome, compelling, solid Halo 3 multiplayer map that will adhere to traditional Halo gameplay. Playing soccer is a fun diversion, but we’re not out to reinvent what Halo is.”

Bakken agreed, saying “If we can include little pieces of fluff that people who are really into Forge can have fun trying to figure out how to use, then we will. It’s not like we set out to make a soccer game in Halo.”

Our take: Foundry is ripe with possibilities. In its standard configuration, there really isn’t another Halo 3 map that’s as claustrophobic and disorienting given Foundry’s labyrinth of box tunnels, barriers and catwalks. It will take some time to memorize all the nook-and-cranny deathtraps, and we anticipate a lot of surprised rocket suicides and quick hit-and-run encounters. When you gut Foundry and start fooling around with Forge, it’s really a completely unpredictable experience. We think it was a great move to include a map with so much flexibility, and we’re excited to see what weird configs will start popping up on Bungie.net. Thumbs up!


A first for the Halo-verse, Rat’s Nest (based on the Crow’s Nest level from the single-player campaign) is an indoor vehicle map consisting of a track that goes all the way around an underground complex with an intricate pass. The two areas provide quite a contrast to one another; the loop quickly becomes a splatterfest demolition derby and flag or bomb escape route, while the inside of the complex erupts with fast infantry carnage. It will support bigger game variants and will likely find an early home on the Big Team Battle playlist. At first glance, one of the most prominent features of the map is the Pelican landing pad outside, which we’re told has been boxed out with invisible geometry and is physically unreachable, though it was a playable area at one time. We tried to jump the gap using a Grav Lift with both a Warthog and a Ghost several times but all we got was a big mouthful of FAIL.

Our take: Rat’s Nest has a ton of appeal and we can’t wait to see how it handles 6v6 and 8v8 games of CTF and Team Slayer matches. We really like the differences between the two separate zones and foresee many a contested flag bout in the tight halls of the inner territory. The pipeline that runs above the loop is rad too, which you can hop up to with a grav lift; that’ll be the place to run to during Infection (and even Oddball) matches. Given the race track, it’s only a matter of time until there’s an official Mario Kart map built in Forge (the Bungie peeps say one already exists). Thumbs up!



Hailed as a mini–Blood Gulch, Standoff has the most instant wow factor, thanks to the huge satellite dishes on the twilight-lit horizon of the battlefield. Size-wise, it’s smaller than Blood Gulch (and Valhalla) and is home to two bases separated by a ravine that’s riddled with rocky cover. The infantry path within the rocks is relatively short between bases, and even though each base has a Warthog and several Mongeese, there’s still enough cover for plenty of non-vehicular shenanigans. The interior of the bases have plenty of knotted-up halls and corridors, and each base has a complement of weapons (everything from BR’s to rockets), but there’s no sniper rifle which, according to Bakken, is no mistake.

“We had the sniper rifle on Standoff early on, but we realized that it’s the kind of map that you can stand in multiple locations and pretty much see where anyone is unless they’re inside. So, with a good sniper and a good team controlling the sniper, it was going to be very difficult to get anywhere out in the open. Now, there is a Spartan Laser on the map, which is an anti-vehicle weapon but also works pretty damn well on infantry.”

Our take: After one day with the maps, Standoff is by far our favorite map. It reminds us of Beaver Creek (without the dark back area of the Blue base) but has one of the greatest backdrops we’ve seen on a multiplayer map. Given the “insideness” of Rat’s Nest and Foundry, it’s really refreshing to play outside. Afterall, scoring a two-for-one Spartan Laser kill and tea-bagging teh jerks is always better done outdoors under a clear blue sky. Thumbs WAY up.
Speaking of two-for-one, we thought the funneling action of the tight infantry pass might make for a nice sugar cone to serve up a manageable double-scoop achievement with that Splazer, which is one of the only multiplayer achievements I’m missing. Naturally we asked if Standoff would be in the FFA Lone Wolves playlist and got some good achievement news:

“To me, that map seems gigantic when you see the screenshots, but when you start playing, it’s deceivingly small and it really forces the action down to a couple of choke points. So yes, I think so. We also have talked about maybe one weekend we could put together an achievements-oriented playlist that will help nudge people along. I’m with you on that [achievement], there are quite a few that I have still yet to earn.”

Even though we’re excited about the maps (and we know you are too), Bungie has taken some flack for the pricing, which they say was determined entirely by a crew of accounting ninjas at Microsoft. OK, not ninjas. Jarrard explained: “Obviously this is a sensitive topic that we’ve been fairly candid about. The reality is the pricing discussion started with Microsoft probably two months ago as the schedule for the maps was being finalized. Ultimately we have some ideas of what we all sort of feel like our fans might be responsive to and what we think we might be comfortable with but ultimately it’s not up to Bungie to make those decisions.”

Our conversation eventually meandered into the mundane things that gaming journalists who love Halo and gaming designers that make Halo talk about: Hump Day Challenges and porta-potties.

“We should have an OXM Hump Day again,” says Jarrard. “Totally,” I say, full well knowing that while I’m a respectable Halo player, the OXM staff as a whole aren’t exactly Halo 3 ringers. Bungie should try us at Rock Band, ha HA! We’ll keep you posted on the possibility of another Hump Day (we were dee-stroyed last time).

Lastly, if you recall before Halo 3 launched, Bungie released a handful of vid-docs, and in one of them, a Bungie dewd alluded to a porta-pottie, which was a curious item we hoped would appear in one of the multiplayer maps. As you must know, it didn’t, and we’ve got the exclusive downlow on the MIA porta-pottie.

Bakken tells it this way: “We actually made a porta-pottie object and the last week or two of development in Halo 3 I was going to put it into The Pit, one of the existing maps that shipped on the disc. The object itself wasn’t up to snuff unfortunately, and I couldn’t find a good place to put it that didn’t kind of ruin the overall feeling of that map, so I pulled it at the last second. But we did have a porta-pottie and it very nearly made it into the shipping game.”

Jarrard, now fascinated, asks, “So Lars, do you think the porta-pottie may surface in future DLC?”

Bakken laughs, “We could reassess that object.”

Jarrard: “If the fans demand a porta-pottie…”

Bakken: “Who are we to tell them that they don’t need a porta-pottie on their DLC map? It would’ve been beautiful in The Pit but it just wasn’t meant to be. But anything’s possible.”

It’s nice to know Bungie has high standards for porta-potties, so high that some just don’t have what it takes to be a Halo 3 porta-pottie.

That’s it for now, check out our February issue, onsale January 15, for our Heroic Map Pack review, which we’ll write after playing these new maps a few thousand more times.