Level Design‎ > ‎

Map Control

By careful design of your Geometry, you can forge specific Meta Games into your map. You can also leverage your Geometry with careful design of your Spawn Layout to enable Spawn Influencing and Spawn Traps as additional Meta Games.

Manipulating Enemy Movement

The right Power Position overseeing adequate areas of the map allow a player in that position to influence how their adversaries will move about. They can do this by suppression fire where they do not want their adversaries to move through, forcing them to find alternate Paths. This can be used to a team’s advantage, and can turn a Slayer game into a game of manipulating one’s adversaries. The focus changes from Slaying to manipulating. The goal would be to utilize this advantage to achieve the primary objective (killing the adversary in Slayer). It could also be to lengthen the adversaries’ Path to a KOTH Hill, for example.

The point is that Power Positions can be used in various ways, and can open up Meta Games that others discover later as they work to find advantages over their adversaries through many games over time. And while I talk about Geometry influencing movement, I am certain there are other Meta that Geometry can introduce that I am not even aware of. But this example should get you started in realizing how Geometry can create Meta even in potentially unsuspecting ways.

Baiting Power Positions

Now I want to take the idea a step further and discuss how one Power Position can be used to over look another Power Position, yet not be the Super Position.

Take a map in which there are three levels, level 1, the ground level; level 3, the high ground; and level 2, an intermediate level. Now create the Geometry necessary to allow level 2 to overlook level 1; and the Geometry to allow level 3 to overlook level 2; and finally the Geometry to prevent level 3 from having any sight lines on level 1. The result is level 3 influencing level 2, and level 2 influencing level 1.

Now put something important, say a Power Weapon, at the bottom of level 1. You now create the scenario where players on level 2 can use the Power Weapon as bait. But wait! Level 2 now is bait for level 3!

Do you see how this can increase the depth of your map? Do you see how players on either team can play levels 2 and 3 in a constantly dynamic changing strategy through out the match?

Influencing Spawns

Many of us have heard how in Halo 2 one could stand at very specific locations to help their team mates spawn in very advantageous locations on the map. The Spawn Engine for Halo 2 made this possible.

On the other hand, you can also influence the spawning of your adversary. For example, in Halo 4, in CTF games, one could stand in the enemy base and force the adversary to spawn far away from their base.  The difficult part was sneaking into their base.

To understand how any of this happens, either someone must discover it in game, or someone must analyze the map’s Spawn Layout in forge. In each case, manipulating spawns on a map, either your own teams’ or those of your adversaries’, become Meta Games in and of themselves. They are strategies, conscious decisions on the part of players, to pull them off for the purpose of achieving an advantage in Game Play.

Prosecuting Spawn Traps

Another favorite Meta Game that some maps lend to is setting up and prosecuting Spawn Traps, or even Spawn Kills in the open. In this sort of Meta Game, a team carefully shuts down their adversaries’ spawn points so that they only have one place to spawn on the map. When they come out from the cover, they are exposed to fire from multiple angles.

This particular Meta Game may be considered too rough for most playlists, but it is something to consider. If you implement this in any way, make sure there is at least one way to break the trap.

Finally, Spawn Traps collapse in Reach, but heavily sustain themselves in Halo 4.[1] I mention this to point out you should learn how the Spawn Engine of the title you are forging for behaves to fully understand how to forge a Spawn Trap (or how to ensure one cannot occur).


Like Power Weapons and Vehicles, the Geometry and the Spawn Layout can also create Meta within your map.

Geometry can help create a Meta Game of manipulating movement to gain advantages, and can result in some interesting Game Play.

Geometry and Spawn Layout together can create a Meta Game of manipulating spawns for either team.

And you could, to the degree that the title you are forging for enables, add Spawn Traps as an additional Meta Game to your map.

[1] Understanding Why Spawn Traps Exist