Bungie Map Mojo

Bungie has always been pretty good at listening to its Halo fans. I truly believe that. So why then, hasn't Bungie listened to the roars, rants, and screams for some Halo 2 maps to be remade for Halo 3?

Well one thing you need to understand about artists and engineers first and foremost is that their inspiration isn't unlimited. There's no office muse or some Inspirational Psychologist to talk to when you've run out of ideas for creating a new map. A talented map designer had to come up with the idea for a multiplayer map that has a delicate balance of open-plain long-range battles and close-up tunnel-brawls. Then an artist had to say to himself one day "Hey this map could look like an alien defensive installation for a snowbound canyon." Viola: Snowbound.

Then a map has to get playtested of course. A brand new map certainly has the potential for a lot of unforeseen uses. The makers of Snowbound probably didn't want to see 4 people camping inside a base with a 2 point lead on Team Slayer (because they hold the shotgun).Who cares if Snowbound is not going to leave a big imprint in my mind when I look back on Halo? The map is still alright by comparison, and it plays nicely about half the time, so nice try whoever was involved with that map.

My point being here is that remakes don't require as much inspiration or playtesting. So if the Bungie team is still getting a steady stream of map mojo and they have the time to work out all the kinks of brand new maps, I say more power to 'em. Keep on trucking with these fresh (and sometimes I think experimental) maps, because eventually Bungie will run out of new ideas or they'll want to save some for their next project. Or they'll run out of resources to test new maps because they need those testers for a new project. When Bungie reaches that point, that's when they're sure to start rolling out the Halo 2 remade maps. We could try and save some time by screaming so loud they bleed from the ears, but let's just not do that.


Maps that have already been made before obviously require little in the way of imagination. Just look at Last Resort, its geometry is almost inch for inch the same. The one big difference being Camp Froman's new basement. It's got to be one of the best asymmetrical maps in all of Halo. So just keep reminding them how good their previous work is, and when the time is right, they'll come around.