How to Make a Map Compatible With Halo: Reach

Creating a Halo:Reach Map

• 1

  Load the game. Once the game loads, you have two options: campaign or main menu. Click on the main menu by pressing A. If you are not logged in to your Xbox, it will say "You do not have a chosen profile." Choose between a profile or a temporary profile.

• 2

  Select the "forge" option from the main menu. Other choices are campaign, matchmaking, firefight and theater. Ignore those for now. This will take you to the forge pre-game loading screen.

• 3

  Choose the map option and select one of the maps from the list. These variants are templates you can use to start creating your own map. Select "start game." Inside the game, press up on the D pad and turn into a monitor, then press X on your controller. This brings up the option screen of things to create. Categories include gadgets, armors, abilities, weapons Covenant, weapons human, structure and scenery. All categories contain things that you can place on your map. Select structure to place walls, roads, bridges, ramps and buildings. Scenery is stuff that you can put inside your base, race track or house. Inside the scenery are barriers. Inside gadgets are lights, special effects, what you want the screen to look like and other features. Armor abilities are special equipment that can be used by pressing a button on your controller. The specific button changes based on your settings.

• 4

  Go to "Structure" and press A. Choose to make what you want from the categories presented. For example, inside the "building" category there are towers. There is a two-story tower and a three-story tower. If you select the two-story tower, as soon as you hit A, the option screen disappears and you have the item. To move it, move the analog stick on the left. The analog stick to the right is to move your perspective so you can look at what you are building from different angles. There are three ways of placing an object. The default mode is phased. Phased means that it doesn't interact with any of the actual environment. You can put it through a wall, inside a rock or inside the map where people can't go. You can change this by pressing B. When you press B, you'll see options such as what team color you want the structure to be, what spawn time you want and whether you want to go into advanced mode. You can also switch the placement mode. Normal mode will drop the item to the ground when you let go. Fixed will leave the item wherever you have it -- even if it is in the air. The advanced options let you select spawn sequence, game type and the percentage of those items that must be on the map before the new object spawns.

• 5

  Press the start button. Select "save map" or "save changes." When you save it, you'll have the opportunity to name the map. You can also write a description for your map. Your map is now compatible with "Halo: Reach," and you or other players can play on it.

Respond to Non-Compatible Map Type Errors

• 6

  Go to the forge lobby on the map where you are getting an incompatibility error. Load the game type you want to play. Try a different game type. If this is not your compatibility issue, try step 2.

• 7

  Go the map setup screen. Choose the game type you were trying to play. Pull up the list of required objects for that game play type. Verify that you have each of those objects in your map and that all of the objects are labeled.

• 8

  Place any missing objects in forge mode and label any unlabeled ones.