Time to snipe like it's 2004: Halo Infinite just added Halo 2 throwback maps for the game's 20th anniversary, built in Forge "with the help of key Halo community members"

Halo 2
(Image credit: Microsoft)

You better put on your Ed Hardy sweatshirts, because 🎶Halo Infinite is taking us💖 back to 2004 to celebrate Halo 2's birthday. The free-to-play FPS just added recreations of several recognizable Halo 2 maps in the Delta Arena playlist, a group effort to be as nostalgic as possible. 

The maps that appear in the play🐬list were created with community experts in Forge, the multiplayer map editor first introduced in Halo 3. In an , Halo Infinite designer Evan Colson explains that the process of refining the Delta Arena playlist "beꦓgan by looking at what had been recreated by the community and seeing what could work in tandem with the modes we were developing internally."

"We ultimately strived to find fan-favorites that were faithful to their original designs and that could play well within the Infinite environment," he𓆏 continues. 

The final array of maps includes the foreboding, gray Ascension, an upgraded version of Beaver Creek called Beaver Canyon, and a placid edꦡition of Sanctuary called Serenity. 

"Beave🦹r Canyon feels exactly how you remember it," says producer Nick Treitman. 

To make it actually play that way, developer 343 Industries ha꧅d to alter Halo Infinite's gameplay to better reflect the movement in 🥃Halo 2. So sprint and clamber are disabled, while players can collide with friendly teammates and utilize a 120% jump height.

"Considering all the subtle differences between Halo Infinite and Halo 2, a 1:1 recreation was never quite in the cards," Colson says, "but what we did come to w💎as that of an amalgamation between the two, with settings that move like legacy Halo, but play with elements of the modern sandbox." The best of both worlds, a great birthday present. 

Here are the best games like Halo to play when you're done with Halo Infinite.

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about﷽ horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.