Halo 5 Multiplayer Detailed
With the upcoming Halo 5 comes a lot of questions. Not the least of which is how the game will handle multiplayer, which is easily one of the most popular parts of the Halo franchise.
Recently, via Halo Way Point, the Arena portion of Halo 5 was detailed. For those who don’t know: “Arena allows players to go head-to-head in a game of skill where everyone starts on a level playing field. Each player begins with the same weapons and abilities and vies for possession of power weapons and power-ups by maintaining map control throughout the match.”
The major reveals were about rankings, and how matchmaking would be taking place.
“The Competitive Skill Rating (CSR) system in Halo 5 is designed to ensure high quality matches between players of equal skill, on a per-playlist basis. When you first hop into any of the Arena playlists, you will play a series of placement matches before being earning your CSR. After you complete 10 games, you will be placed into one of 7 CSR ranks based on your performance.
Coming out of the Arena beta, we’ve renamed the ranks based on community feedback to provide a more familiar and easily understood sense of progression between ranks. The final CSR ranks for Halo 5: Guardians are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Onyx, and Champion.”
They also emphasized the importance of matchmaking to the development team, and noted how they’re taking great strides to ensure that every match is fair.
“In Arena, you will never join a match that’s already in progress. You will get a fresh match every time without fear of putting your hard earned CSR at risk and joining a losing team in the middle of a match. Your skill, teamwork, and decision making during the entirety of each match will decide whether you win or lose. Since joining a match in progress is disabled for Arena matchmaking (still available in Custom Games and in Warzone), quitting out of a match damages the quality and experience for the other seven players in that match. Leaving your teammates high and dry is not cool. If you quit out of games, not only will you suffer a loss and forfeit any REQ points or XP but you’ll also receive a temporary cooldown penalty (ban) preventing you from matchmaking in Arena.”
Halo 5 arrives October 27th.