343 Industries released details in the last day regarding the next update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. As expected, matchmaking and multiplayer continue to get improvements; the big news with this one is that fixes to parties have been included too.

How badly a lot of games handle parties on Xbox One has been a big cause of concern for many of us who like to group up with friends before playing. Hopefully the new year and this update will help put those 2014 gripes behind us.

In addition, Team Hardcore and Halo 4 playlists were added a couple of days earlier adding some further variety to what’s on offer for those who have returned to the multiplayer modes.

More info can be found at the source.

UPDATE – changes have gone live and reportedly also include fixes for Halo 2 Anniversary in relation to network spikes. This in particular was an issue for players with slower than average connections as it resulted in “rubber banding” of player movement that effectively killed the H2A multiplayer game. Will find out the results for ourselves soon.