Halo Infinite updates aim to improve online play

pcgamesn.com:

The Halo Infinite devs have been busy working on ways to improve the FPS game’s online experience. Developer 343 Industries has shared some lengthy posts outlining a bunch of new updates it’s rolling out to improve matchmaking, match stability, multiplayer playlists, and more.

In the game’s ‘February Fix’ Halo Waypoint post, the devs note that “desync and the overall online experience have been topics of concern of late”, and they’ve detailed a bunch of updates and tweaks aimed at addressing some of these, as well as a thorough look at how the online experience works, across a range of different facets. Sandbox team lead engineer Richard Watson explains that the devs have increased the priority of low pings to the game’s servers in the matchmaking process.

“This step should help you match with local players, and therefore have a better connection, more often,” the post explains. “As you get more of these local matches, instances of playing on further data centers will also decline.”

Additionally, the devs have taken some extra steps to “ensure you can have quality matches with players from your respective regions, more often”. They believe that the tweaks they’ve made will have a noticeable effect on matchmaking in less-populated regions, including Australia and Asia, among others. The update rolling out these changes went out earlier this week, and the devs say that results are already “promising”.

The new update should also prevent players from “geo-filtering” their online matches, which should hopefully improve online gameplay stability. “Geo-filtering” refers to – as the devs explain in a separate, dedicated post – the process of manipulating system files or router settings to get the game’s matchmaking system to