Season 3 will bring many updates to Halo Infinite and that includes new content for matchmaking, new playlists, as well as improvements to the ranking system. In today’s blog we’re going to share more of what you can expect, and get the details on what’s changing for Season 3. Let’s dive right in! 

PLAYLISTS FOR THE MONTH 

Season 3 brings with it 3 entirely new maps in Chasm and Cliffhanger for 4v4 arena, as well as Oasis for Big Team Battle. Our version of “gun game”, Escalation Slayer also makes it’s way into Season 3.  

As with Empyrean, we’re offering a special playlist for the first week that only features Chasm and Cliffhanger called New Arena Unlimited. After a week, New BTB Unlimited will rotate into that slot and exclusively feature Oasis for the next week.

New Arena Unlimited

• 4v4 
• Maps: Chasm and Cliffhanger 
• Modes: Escalation Slayer (new mode!), CTF, King of the Hill, Slayer, Strongholds, One Flag CTF 

New BTB Unlimited

• 12v12
• Map: Oasis 
• Modes: BTB Escalation Slayer (new mode!), CTF, Slayer, Fiesta, Fiesta Total Control, Total Control

We’ve also updated most of the playlists to feature Season 3's new content with an increased weighting for the start of the season.

Playlists featuring new content

• Quick Play 
• Bot Bootcamp 
• Fiesta 
• Team Slayer 
• Tactical Slayer 
• Big Team Battle

And here’s a look at the full calendar for the month so you can see when each playlist will make its way into the game. 

We can’t wait to jump into matchmaking with you on March 7 when Season 3 releases! 

To talk about ranked, I’m going to pass it over to Tashi with the latest. 

Ranked Improvements

CSR-Based Matchmaking

As announced and released on February 28, we’ve made an update to the ranking system to match based on CSR as opposed to MMR. From a philosophical standpoint, this means teams will match based on what they’ve accomplished in the system as opposed to an underlying skill rating. While today we’re nearing the end of the season and almost all active players have settled into a rank, the experience will be different from prior seasons on March 7 when the rank reset hits. There will still be placement matches but you might find that early on there are higher skilled players in matches where there weren’t ones for prior season starts. Because matching is done on CSR, the players at the higher skill rank (Onyx, for example) will have to qualify (Diamond 4 is highest placement) and then work their way out of Diamond and into Onyx. This will mean that you might see some more lopsided matches at the start of the season, particularly for true Diamond players, while players settle into their ranks. And, for those wondering, we will use MMR to match players who are still completing their placement matches.

The Fireteam CSR Limit range has not changed as part of this update and is as follows:

• For 899 CSR (Gold 6) or lower, there are no restrictions.  
• At 900 CSR (Platinum 1) a limit of 900 points is introduced. 
• Between 900 CSR (Platinum 1) and 1500 CSR (Onyx) the Fireteam CSR limit will slowly tighten as you climb the ranks. It will start at the 900 limit mentioned above and tighten to its final destination of 500. This essentially means that on the way to Onyx, every 2 CSR gained will tighten the Fireteam limit by an increment of 1 CSR. 
  • For example, if a player progresses from 900 CSR (Platinum 1) to 1200 CSR (Diamond 1), their Fireteam CSR limit would tighten from 900 to a stricter 750. At this new 1200 CSR, the lowest rank they could party up with would then be 1200 (their CSR) – 750 (the Fireteam CSR limit) = 450, or Silver 4. 
• At 1500 CSR and above, the limit is 600 points. 
  • For example, if a player was Onyx 1700, the lowest CSR they could party up with would be 1100 or Platinum 5. 

We’re going to closely monitor the performance of these changes across all CSR divisions to ensure things are behaving as expected via data as well what player feedback we see online.

Placement Matches

Placement matches are in place to ensure we’re accurately putting players in the appropriate division to ensure they have a smooth and fair experience once they’ve been placed. While this is working, we’re also finding that the number of placement matches is also creating a barrier between friends who want to play together but haven’t finished their matches yet. In order to alleviate this, we’re reducing the placement matches required from 10 to 5.  

Our hope is that we see more players complete their placement matches and continue on their ranked journey to improving and testing themselves against other players.  

Like with CSR matchmaking, we’re going to keep a close eye on the performance of this update and will make further tweaks in the future if needed.

We’re excited for these playlist and Ranked updates to come together with the launch of Season 3: Echoes Within, and we’re looking forward to jumping in to play them with you on March 7.

To get a closer look at the three new maps, be sure to check out our latest Maps & Modes Preview blog here on Halo Waypoint!