After a long wait, January finally is finally here.

Hooray! Testing is finally done and over with, and if you haven’t already noticed, the January Matchmaking Update has been applied.

If you missed the Weekly Update where we described the changes for you, here they are again:

General Changes

Playlist Clean Up, Mythic Prep
In preparation for the new maps coming later this year, some of the less popular map variants are going to be removed over time. Some of these removals are not listed below, but will be reflected in the Matchmaking Playlist page here on Bungie.net. This will be an ongoing process with maps and their variants being systematically removed as warranted.

Push to Talk Restriction Increased
Since Halo 3?s release, if a player were to join a Matchmaking playlist with a team size larger than four, he or she would have to push a button on the DPad to communicate directly to their team. After the January update, the PTT restriction is being increased to 6 players per team, meaning that players will not need to use the D-pad to communicate on any Matchmaking playlist but Social Big Team.

What does this mean for players? Well, for starters, it means communicating to teammates in 5v5 or 6v6 playlists will be trivial. However, this could mean an increase in bandwidth necessary for these larger format playlists, which means the potential for ?laggy? games is increased. The best way to avoid lag in these games is to ensure that you are not constantly broadcasting to your teammates, and that your teammates are not constantly broadcasting to you. If you often play with strangers, be prepared to mute and report players that abuse their microphone. To mute a player quickly during a game, hold the back button to bring up the scoreboard and select their name with the left stick. Then press X. Muted! To report players, select their name in the post game carnage report and view their gamercard, then use the Report Player options listed therein.

DLC Category
In an effort to make the Matchmaking playlists easier to navigate and bring the populations together, the DLC category is being retired, and the playlists it contained are either being moved into Social or integrated into existing playlists.

Ranked Hopper Updates
Lone Wolves ? No Changes
Team Slayer ? No Changes
Team Objective
KOTH, Oddball, 1 and 2 Bomb assault set to skip after veto, and weighting on these gametypes will be reduced to refocus the hopper primarily on 1 Flag, 2 Flag, and Neutral Assault.
A couple community map variants for Foundry are being added to the CTF rotation.
Team Doubles ? No Changes
Squad Battle ? No Changes

Social Hopper Updates

Rumble Pit
DLC FFA and Rumble Pit will be merged. Rumble Pit will now require All DLC, and include gametypes such as Infection.
Social Slayer
Population increased back to 5v5
Isolation, Foundry removed.
Social Objective
Slightly reduce weighting on Land Grab, and increase weighting on multi flag to even distribution of these two gametypes out.
Reduce weighting of VIP. Set to skip after veto.
Territories variants set to skip after veto.
ADDED Social Team DLC
5v5 Slayer and Objective strictly on DLC maps. Heroic and Legendary map packs required.
The most popular slayer and objective variants, strictly on DLC maps.
Multi Team
Reduce weighting of VIP, KOTH, and Oddball.
Some maps being removed from rotation.
ADDED Social Big Team
DLC Big Team will be moved and renamed. Weighting between DLC and non-DLC maps will be equalized. The hopper will continue to require DLC 1 and 2.

DLC Hopper Updates

REMOVED DLC FFA
DLC FFA and Rumble Pit will be merged. DLC FFA as a separate hopper is retired.
MIGRATED DLC Big Team
Being moved to Social and being renamed ?Social Big Team.? Non-DLC maps are getting a weighting increase such that they are equal to DLC maps. Still requires DLC 1 and 2.

Hardcore Hopper Updates

Team SWAT ? No Changes
Team Snipers
– Reduced weighting on Standoff.
MLG ? No Changes

Double EXP Weekends (listed in order of appearance)

Grifball ? Winter League (1/8-1/12)
3 Ball (1/22 -1/26)
Living Dead (Unranked) (1/29 ? 2/2)