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343 Industries's latest update, about 10 days from the launch of Halo 5: Guardians, concerns the multiplayer policies and structures — outlining new features, skill ratings and "a banhammer stricter than an MLB World Series Umpire."
Edit: Because this author is a moron, a previous edition of this story misidentified the maker of Halo 5: Guardians. It's 343 Industries.
"Halo 5: Guardians is engineered to detect and track" a variety of misbehavior, including betrayals, intentional suicides, quits and excessive disconnects, and idling. "If you repeatedly engage in negative behaviors such as (these) you will receive a ban and be prevented from entering matchmaking," 343 wrote.
Ban durations depend on the severity of the offense, and increase with each repeat offense. 343 didn't specify the lengths it has in mind, of course.
The rest of the post outlines the game's Competitive Skill Rating system meant to pair players of equivalent skill in matchmaking. The final ranks for this system have been renamed since Halo 5: Guardians' Arena multiplayer beta in December. They are now Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Onyx and Champion, and the first 10 matches a player completes in Halo 5: Guardians will determine his or her initial ranking.
The "Seasons" feature, which will not be present at launch but will arrive later this year, also gets a brief rundown. A Season is effectively a monthlong playlist where players' ranking reset at the beginning, letting them start fresh and try to better their performance over the last run. More is available at the link.
The Xbox One-exclusive Halo 5: Guardians launches Oct. 27 and it plans on getting serious about eSports. For more on the game's multiplayer, see our hands-on preview from September.
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