Halo Infinite devs are introducing a huge change to Ranked Play, and it’s already earning them plenty of virtual high-fives. The extremely controversial Behemoth CTF map has been removed from the Ranked Arena playlist in response to ongoing player criticism, and Halo Infinite‘s Community Manager John ‘Unyshek’ Junyszek detailed the reasoning for the decision in a new blog post.
“We’ve seen enough data to show us that the map is not performing in ranked as intended. Most of this data revolves around spawning and effective cover around the map,” Junyszek said. “Players seem to be respawning in places that can often feel unpredictable and therefore frustrating to deal with. This goes for both attacking and defending teams.”
When players spawn on the perimeter of the bases with a direct line of sight to the flag, matches are becoming “more frenetic” than intended. “This leaves players feeling that even a well-coordinated team push into the enemy base can fall apart quickly; resulting in flag pulls being much more difficult than they should be,” 343 explained.
Behemoth also lacks decent cover, leaving many players without many options as they are pulled into firefights. While it will take some time to address the issue, 343 is looking to fix the map before returning it to Ranked Play.
The playerbase loathes Behemoth, so this is being considered a major win across social media. Enjoy this personal favorite:
Halo Infinite is available to play on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. In just over one month, the game has amassed 20 million players, making it the biggest launch in franchise history and the biggest Halo game in terms of players. For context, it took Halo 3 five years to reach 14.5 million sales. Earlier this week, it was announced that certain items in the game’s shop would be on sale individually, after player complaints regarding the prices of bundles.