Season 2 for Halo Infinite brought new maps, modes, and updates to the experience for all players including of course the competitive community. Today we wanted to detail changes coming to the map rotation for HCS. These changes have already been reflected in the Ranked playlist since Season 2's launch.

Map rotation goals:

• Provide a well-rounded competitive experience with a variety of maps and modes.
• Keep players engaged with new content to compete on while minimizing interference with HCS roadmap.
• Entertain fans with exciting and fresh content to watch.

With Season 2 released on May 3, we've integrated the new map Catalyst into the rotation, as well as the King of the Hill mode which has been updated with capture and scoring mechanics in comparison to the original versions which we feel will deliver a competitive and exciting experience. Here at 343 Industries, the Competitive Insights Team has been thoroughly testing new map and mode combinations, and the ranked playlist was already updated to get extra coverage on the maps and modes as well.

New additions:

• CTF Catalyst
• Slayer Catalyst
• KotH Live Fire
• KotH Recharge
• KotH Streets

While it’s important to add new content into the rotation as the season moves along, we also need to ensure the map rotation isn’t too big which in the past we've seen this to be too much for teams to practice and lowered overall quality of play.

Earlier in the HCS season, we asked players to provide feedback on maps and modes via surveys through our online partner, FACEIT. Thank you to everyone who took the time to give your feedback, it was this data that we used to make decisions for Season 2, especially the map rotation. When we asked players to rate each map and mode combination (AKA gametype), you told us that Slayer on Bazaar was the gametype that was furthest away from hitting the quality bar. Based on this feedback, we felt it was appropriate to replace Team Slayer on Bazaar with Team Slayer on Catalyst.

This is the new map rotation:

We also wanted to provide details on how tournament map rotations were going to be made now that there’s an additional objective mode in the rotation. Philosophically speaking, HCS considers all objective modes to be prioritized equally so therefore our goal is going to be balancing the modes during a tournament so that again we’re providing a well-rounded competitive experience that will test players across everything.

The following is unchanged:

Best of 3:

• Game 1: Objective
• Game 2: Slayer
• Game 3: Objective

Best of 5:

• Game 1: Objective
• Game 2: Slayer
• Game 3: Objective
• Game 4: Objective
• Game 5: Slayer

Best of 7:

• Game 1: Objective
• Game 2: Slayer
• Game 3: Objective
• Game 4: Objective
• Game 5: Slayer
• Game 6: Objective
• Game 7: Slayer

In a Best of 5 series, you’ll see a unique mode each time an objective mode comes up. We will do our best to balance the total number of occurrences for each objective mode throughout each tournament.

Below is an example of a few rounds in order to illustrate how rotations will be created.

Round 1:

• Game 1: CTF
• Game 2: Slayer
• Game 3: Strongholds
• Game 4: Oddball
• Game 5: Slayer

Round 2:

• Game 1: Strongholds
• Game 2: Slayer
• Game 3: Oddball
• Game 4: King of the Hill
• Game 5: Slayer

Round 3:

• Game 1: Oddball
• Game 2: Slayer
• Game 3: King of the Hill
• Game 4: CTF
• Game 5: Slayer

Round 4:

• Game 1: King of the Hill
• Game 2: Slayer
• Game 3: CTF
• Game 4: Strongholds
• Game 5: Slayer

We wish all teams the best of luck through the rest of the season on the road to the Halo World Championship.