RejectedShotgun retweeted
It's so peaceful here. #halofest #shortfilm
128 players on a seamless, non-glitchy, full-scale Mombasa Streets for Halo 3 Project Reclaimer is progressing.
Baby steps...
So unbelievably goated.
Hugegrass went down to ONE HOUR to lightmap when it used to take 14 HOURS
and its in higher quality.
I’ve just released H3LM! github.com/Zoephie/H3LM
This project aims to make modding Halo 3 a little easier with GPU-accelerated lightmapping. It’s been tested by @RejectedShotgun and myself, and I hope you all enjoy it.
Happy modding!
RejectedShotgun retweeted
I’ve just released H3LM! github.com/Zoephie/H3LM
This project aims to make modding Halo 3 a little easier with GPU-accelerated lightmapping. It’s been tested by @RejectedShotgun and myself, and I hope you all enjoy it.
Happy modding!
Began the process of putting Mombasa Streets into Halo 3.
128 players has a lot of potential with this. Battle Royale might be kinda sick.
It's seriously wild to see my giant mods getting this level of exposure thanks to Project Reclaimer.
I know the gameplay is imperfect but it makes me really happy that my instinct to make massive-scale maps like this was on point and Halo fans are resonating with the vision.
RejectedShotgun retweeted
I'm a Halo modder that Halo Studios hired when planning to bring MCC to PC, and with it, modding support. And last month I re-became a Halo modder after @asha_shar's leadership decided I and others needed to be laid off because our rolls didn't align with the business
Microsoft just announced Xbox Labs, a response to the AI-powered game decompiling we've seen recently. Whether it's skateboarding in CoD or Halo in a browser, Xbox Labs is a new group tasked with exploring this new era of modding. Details 👇theverge.com/news/1010406/xb…
Wow. The inevitable expectation is that these decompilation projects would eventually be shut down by higher-ups and yet Asha has seriously broken the mold here.
"These are unmistakably good outcomes for players, even when (and sometimes because) they challenge our existing business models."
I'm shocked because this feels like the absolutely correct decision in regards to what is good for the players. Finding a way to make this work for both players and developers is the most sensible decision and I'm just GENUINELY shocked to see this actually happen.
Asha really is great.
Today we're standing up XBOX LABS (labs.xbox.com). Here is the note that I sent to the team:
Team,
The first video games emerged some 75 years ago. In the time since, there have been booms and busts, but every year there are more great games to play, more devices to play them, and best of all, more people than ever playing. That growth helped make XBOX what it is today, and we've helped shape the industry in return, from bringing hard drives to consoles and online gaming through Xbox Live to Game Pass and cloud gaming, alongside franchises that have brought millions of people together.
In recent weeks, we've seen games rapidly decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never originally designed to support. Windows PC builds have been translated to run on Apple Silicon or ported to run inside a browser through WebAssembly and WebGPU, the latter now approaching 90% global browser support. Perhaps more surprisingly, we've seen many of the biggest games in the world have been remixed into the source code of another.
These experiments challenge long-held assumptions about our industry: the tether between software and hardware, the boundary between creation and play, and how people discover and experience games. While it is hard to predict the future of gaming, it is easy to see the possibilities in making great games easier to access, giving old games new life and allowing more players to become creators and co-creators. These are unmistakably good outcomes for players, even when (and sometimes because) they challenge our existing business models.
To explore these possibilities, I’ve asked Scott to stand-up XBOX LABS, a small group of game makers, engineers and scientists whose job is to turn emerging ideas into things our players and developers can experience. We'll build in the open, learn from what people do, and measure success by whether more people are playing and creating.
I think XBOX has an important role to play here. Coding became the first major workload for agents because they can write, run, and test software. Games share many of those same properties, and people spend more than 72 billion hours a year playing XBOX games, roughly five times the estimated time spent writing code worldwide. We've spent 25 years learning how to make great games, and I want our game makers to help shape what these new technologies make possible. As we learn, we’ll share the tools we build with developers across the industry, just as we always have.
Our priorities aren't changing. We remain committed to the 4Cs, to making great games, to our hardware and to being responsible stewards of IP and the communities built around it. LABS gives us a way to explore new technology that is game design led without abandoning the work already underway.
Asha
Once again, you could easily make/play Halo 3 maps like this yourself!
Every ship and vehicle is a Forge object you can place down in Ultimate Forge! Best played through Project Reclaimer.
These 128 player server aren’t gonna play themselves.
Download Halo 3 and boot up Project Reclaimer tonight!
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is $9.99 on Steam buff.ly/yaqBHoO
Xbox buff.ly/oaZb92v
BTW you can make maps like this yourself!
My mod, Ultimate Forge, lets you Forge with Drop Pods, destroyable buildings, roads, Pelicans, Scarabs, and WAY MORE with 10 new giant canvases including Forge World for Halo 3.
Project Reclaimer makes Forge mode 10x better too with raised limits and way better controls!
Hugegrass is far from perfect and my newer map Permafrost is objectively much better BUT
Halo multiplayer really shines at this scale. I made this map because I thought it would be awesome and IT IS.
I really hope new official Halo titles lean into this scale in multiplayer.
Creator of Hugegrass here.
This is the best thing ever. Almost nobody has been able to play my multiplayer/Forge mods until now and I couldn't be happier. 128 players is INSANITY.
Releasing some big updates & new maps ASAP.
This was the most, insane, chaotic fun I’ve had in years.
Project Reclaimer is amazing. The server browser with mod support, Forge upgrades, upped player count, and rebuilt UI are so good.
It’s still early development but every PC Halo fan should give it a try!
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HALO HISTORY
64 PLAYER HALO 3 MULTIPLAYER AND IT WORKS
Featuring @RejectedShotgun's HUGEGRASS Mod
Halo 3 with 32 players on Permafrost. Project Reclaimer is nuts!
I did NOT optimize the mod to work with this many players but it feels so much better than 8v8.
I seriously can't wait to start a mod for 64 players and custom Megalo gametypes.
I strongly feel that we're seeing the very beginning of a complete shift in what modding can do.
I also optimistically think we're about to see a golden age of custom content everywhere.
The bar for entry is being lowered while the ceiling is being raised sky high.



















