Yes, skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) is in Halo Infinite, and surprisingly, it is in both ranked and unranked playlists.
How does Halo’s SBMM work?
Most players would expect the Ranked Arena playlist to match players based on their matchmaking rank (MMR). However, your MMR also affects which players you play with in “casual” unranked playlists like Quick Play and Big Team Battle.
When you search any playlist in matchmaking, your performance is always being judged. In the past, your MMR was tied to each playlist in Halo games, but in Halo Infinite, it is now tied to the whole game. So, if you do well in Rumble Pit, your MMR will go up, which will make it harder to find matches in Quick Play, and vice versa.
Based on your MMR and the MMR of other people looking for games, a system called TrueMatch will find the best possible match for you. You’ll be put into a match, and your MMR will go up if you do better than the system thinks you will. If you do worse, your MMR will go down.
It’s still unclear exactly how your performance is judged. Still, it seems that the system values a high Kill/Death Ratio over the objective play, like capturing Flags and getting a low Oddball time, so if you want to rank up as quickly as possible, focus on getting kills.
What does CSR mean?
Your Competitive Skill Rank is the rank you get when playing ranked playlists like Arena. It is shown visually by the six sections below:
Each division has six tiers, except for the highest rank, Onyx, which has a number that starts at 1500 and goes up or down based on how you play. Make sure to read the official ranked blog from 343 Industries for a detailed explanation of both MMR and CSR.
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Terminology
TrueSkill2
The system is used to determine how skilled each player has compared to the other players as quickly and accurately as possible.
Skill / MMR in Halo Infinite
Skill is how “good” a player is, and MMR (MatchMaking Rating) is a number that shows how good a player is for a certain playlist, based on how the TrueSkill2 system measures it. We use this skill rating to ensure that matches are fair and even.
TrueMatch in Halo Infinite
The underlying system is used to find the best possible matches by changing the parameters of matchmaking in response to changes in the population.
CSR in Halo Infinite
This is the ranking you see as a player. CSR stands for “Competitive Skill Rank.” CSR is closely related to MMR, but it is not directly used in finding a match. It shows how well you did in a ranked playlist throughout the season.
Crossplay: Does Halo Infinite support it?
Now that a new Halo game is available on both PC and Xbox for the first time, what does that mean for crossplay?
Does Crossplay work in Halo: Infinite’s multiplayer mode?
Cross-platform play is turned on in all Halo: Infinite multiplayer playlists, so you’ll be matched with players on both Xbox and PC.
At the moment, there is no way to turn off crossplay. However, in the Ranked Arena playlist, you can switch between Open and Solo/Duo queues to have a little more control over who you play against.
Open queue lets groups of three or more players look for a match, while Solo/Duo only lets you match with single players or groups of two.
You can choose input-based matchmaking in the Solo/Duo queue if you only want to play with people using a controller, mouse, or keyboard.
Both input-based matchmaking options are still crossplay because you can play on Xbox with a mouse and board and vice versa, but it gives you a little more control over the types of players you find.
For example, you can figure out that most controller players are on Xbox. If you want to avoid PC players, choose this option. In the same way, you can limit your search to only MKB, and you’ll be much more likely to find players on PC.
Does the Campaign in Halo Infinite have Crossplay?
Yes, you will be able to play the story mode of Halo: Infinite with your friends on PC, Xbox One, or a newer Xbox Series X|S.
Co-op play has been a big part of Halo’s identity as a video game for a long time. It won’t be available when Halo Infinite comes out, but work is being done to bring back the fan-favourite game mode “later in Season 2.”
