Halo 5: Two Playlists Have Been Removed And Here's Why

Two Halo 5 multiplayer playlists have been removed. In its latest weekly blog post, developer 343 Industries announced that Arena playlists Triple Team and Shotty Snipers have been removed from matchmaking--for the time being at least--and will be replaced by "rotational playlists."

"The Halo 5 sustain team is working on more frequent, regular updates to matchmaking including consolidating some of the existing playlists to help maintain a positive player experience," 343 said. "While it would be great, in theory, to have tons of playlists spanning every possible niche of gameplay, the reality is some playlists just don't have a consistent enough population to support a good matchmaking experience.

"We know there are players who enjoy the gameplay these two playlists offer but overall each of these hoppers attracts a tiny fraction of the online population and as a result can't really sustain a permanent position in matchmaking," the developer added.

As for the new rotational playlists, as the name suggests, these will be playlists that come and go regularly. The idea is to keep Halo 5's multiplayer "fresh and interesting while also allowing an opportunity to try out new ideas and explore oft-requested additions from the community."

Starting things off will be Assault, a social playlist. This is basically Assault as you know it, but the one major difference is that the player count is increased to 5v5 and you'll play on the newest maps.

"Going forward, the team will be building out a variety of rotational offerings in addition to looking for opportunities to inject fresh content into existing playlists," 343 said. "These decisions will be driven by usage data in addition to fan feedback and generally monitoring what the community is actively building in Forge and playing in custom games."

343 added that it hopes to be able to give players a heads up about what's coming in the rotational playlists through a calendar. While that hasn't happened yet, 343 did confirm the next special playlist, Team Doubles. It comes out next week on Valentine's Day (see what they did there?).

In other Halo 5 news, 343 this week released the $10 Classic Helmet Req Pack, which comes with nine helmets from Halo 3 and Halo: Reach.

The next Halo game is Halo Wars 2, which comes out on February 21 for Xbox One and PC.