If you’ve spent any time wondering about the desolate and mazelike remains of Crumbling Farum Azula in Elden Ring, a new Forge creation recently released in Halo Infinite will no doubt look familiar to you. That’s because map maker Blupe Vave has taken the new tools recently released in the title to painstakingly recreate the small region with an impressive amount of detail.
The Forge mode in Halo Infinite is a major upgrade from its previous incarnations in other titles thanks to the additional power of the Series X console and its place on PC, and “Crumbling Lands” is a great example of what that upgrade can afford. It’s only a work-in-progress as of right now, with the video showcasing its vistas serving as a call for community playtesters, but the visuals already look to be in a fairly complete state.
It isn’t a perfect tribute, with Forge inevitably struggling to empower Blupe Vape to include finer details on the architecture or mimic Farum Azula’s stark lighting. But the framework of the architecture is still stunning and the details that do exist would have never been possible in prior Halo titles.
Interiors are faintly lit by the amber light of melting candles, with ancient murals covered up by fabric drapes and the rubble from floating staircases and old buildings—now detached from their foundations—filling the sky around the map. The atmosphere perfectly captures that of Farum Azula, with the only difference being that these crumbling halls serve as a Slayer arena for Spartans rather than a home for a Dragonlord or Black Blade.
As it is a Slayer arena, it’s also much smaller than any full-scale recreation would have to be. Yet a map of this small scale, serving a functional purpose for custom games, is more than likely the best road that Blupe Vape could have gone down. By taking out only a small chunk of Farum Azula to work on, they could put the large Forge budget into making every section of the map look highly detailed to where some in-game screengrabs can look indistinguishable from those taken in Elden Ring.
If you want to help the creator out with testing the map, which already features a number of power weapon and equipment spawns, you can do so by bookmarking the file on Halo Waypoint or in Halo Infinite. After it’s been bookmarked, you’ll have immediate access to it in custom games and Forge to explore or battle on at your leisure.
