Halo 5: Guardians continues the story of the Master Chief, and introduces a brand new central character to the Halo universe – Spartan Locke.  Peace is shattered when colony worlds are unexpectedly attacked.  And when humanity’s greatest hero goes missing, Spartan Locke is tasked with hunting the Master Chief and solving a mystery that threatens the entire galaxy.

Experience the most dramatic Halo story to date in a four-player cooperative epic that spans three worlds. Challenge friends and rivals in new multiplayer modes: Warzone, massive 24-player battles, and Arena, pure 4-versus-4 competitive combat.

Since the release of Halo 5: Guardians last year, the team here at 343 Industries has continued to provide free content updates, expanding the experiences available to players within the community and supporting the game post-launch. The goal in making this content free was to keep our players playing together across all experiences and prevent anyone from feeling left behind. To date the reception from players has been incredible and I’m happy to say that our active player base at this point is the best we’ve seen for any Halo title since Halo 3.

Today, we are releasing Anvil’s Legacy, which is our ninth major, free update for Halo 5: Guardians on Xbox One. In it, we are releasing two new maps, the Content Browser, and a bunch of new REQ content, but perhaps the biggest news relates to Forge.

The Halo community has been the heart and soul of our franchise from the very beginning. The passion of our fans continues to inspire and energize us, each and every day. When the original Forge mode was released almost a decade ago in Halo 3, it provided aspiring creators with the power to express themselves and share their ideas with the world.

Since then the Halo Forge community has been amongst our most passionate and devoted fans. The Forge toolset we released for Halo 5: Guardians on Xbox One is the most capable yet and since its release this past December, we’ve continued to update Forge with new content and expanded functionality. In doing so, we’ve worked closely with community Forgers, taking their input and feedback with the goal of providing the most robust suite of creation tools possible for Halo.

The Forge community has long requested the ability to build levels on the PC. Along with Anvil’s Legacy, we are finally bringing the Forge toolset to Windows 10 PCs with the release of Halo 5: Forge. The precision, speed and control available on PC using keyboard and mouse will make it easier than ever for creators to bring their Halo vision to life. All content created with Halo 5: Forge on Win10 PC will be shared with the Xbox One community and vice versa. Creators will be able to build, shape and play their content on either platform through their file share.

In addition to the core suite of builder tools being made available through Halo 5: Forge, we’ll also be allowing players to play custom Arena multiplayer games on Windows 10 and making available all of the existing Halo 5 Arena maps. Players will be able to set up custom matches with friends over Xbox Live to play and test their creations on the PC before sharing them with the world.

Best of all, Halo 5: Forge is a free offering. Anyone with a Windows 10 PC that meets the minimum requirements (which includes having Windows 10 Anniversary Update, get it here) for the game can download the client and join the community, building and playing within the Halo 5 ecosystem. 

As 343’s first Halo FPS release on PC, we are approaching this as a learning opportunity. In developing Halo 5: Forge for Windows 10, we have been fortunate to work with a great partner in Skybox Labs, based out of Vancouver, Canada. Skybox has worked closely with Tom French, Nahil Sharkasi, and the entire team here at 343 Industries to ensure we provide the sort of experience that PC players have come to expect. They have done a terrific job and we look forward to continuing to work with them in future.

For those lucky enough to own a PC capable of running the game at the highest resolutions, you are in for a treat. Playing the game at full 4K resolution and revealing all of the glorious detail our artists have put into the game is really special. Halo 5 multiplayer looks truly spectacular running at 4K.

One of the first things you’ll notice when you download and launch Halo 5: Forge is the new Halo app on Windows 10 PC. From this new launcher you’ll see the latest Forge content highlighted from across the community and find links to a number of Forge tutorials to help you get started with your creations. Content in the Halo app will remain fresh, and not only keep you up to date on everything going on within Halo 5, but will also bring all of your future Halo games on PC together in one, unified place.

We are incredibly excited to see what the Forge community will create with this powerful new set of tools and to bring Halo and Forge to a new audience on Windows 10. Looking ahead, the team remains hard at work on our next update even as we prepare for this release. In a future update for both PC and console, we will be expanding the existing Content Browser to allow players to search for and join custom games in progress. This will make it easier for players to sample the amazing content being created by our community and to find new players to match up with in multiplayer.

Together we’ve been on an incredible journey since the release of Halo 5 last year. Thank you all for your continued support and for coming along with us for the ride.

Join us and start building and playing in Halo 5: Forge now.  You can download Halo 5: Forge and the Halo app bundle, for free, via the Windows Store here: Download Halo 5: Forge Bundle