Your Halo Infinite rank is probably going to be lowered by a full tier

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343 Industries has determined its previous skill assessments were "too generous."

Halo Infinite cat helmet
(Image credit: 343 Industries)

In a new Halo Waypoint post, 343 community manager, John Junyszek, announced that Halo Infinite competitive players are going to see a mid-season rank reset. The post also told players to expect to find themselves a full tier lower in rank than before due to tweaks to the game's skill assessment system.

According to Junyszek, 343 has determined that Infinite's "Competitive Skill Ranking" system has been "overly generous" in Infinite's first few months post-launch. This has led to an uneven distribution of players across Infinite's competitive tiers, and 343 hopes that the new changes to CSR it is rolling out will more accurately reflect players' skill levels.

Additionally, 343 will be resetting all players' competitive ranks, requiring them to play through their placement matches again. 343's assessment is that most players were set a full tier above where they belonged, and as such "...most players should expect to be placed a full tier lower (Diamond players will find themselves in Platinum, Platinum players will find themselves in Gold, etc.)"

Junyszek also mentioned that 343 reserves the right to make similar changes in the future stating "That said, this isn't the end of our updates to ranked, it's only the beginning. There is still more to go after, and we'll continue to make updates based on your feedback and live game data." The discussed round of adjustments will go live on February 22.

This all seems like the necessary work of maintaining healthy competitive matchmaking, especially given the game's relatively recent launch. Still, I recall a past self who would have been devastated if his Overwatch rank had been lowered a full tier, even if such changes show how malleable and impermanent competitive ranks are in the first place.

Ted Litchfield
Associate Editor

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.