The Cartographer’s Gift

The Cartographer’s Gift update for Halo 5 has dropped today, which brings its arrival in seasons.  For those who are not familiar on how Seasons work, they are a new competitive feature for Arena, which gives the player the opportunity to to continually test themselves in ranked playlists, and also proves the progress made from the previous season.  The January 2016 season will begin today, with the Cartographer’s gift update, and will end on the 31st of January (which technically makes the first season longer than it needs to be).

Now that new season has begun, all the player’s progress from pre-season will still be view-able on the player’s Halo Waypoint Service Record, and all the CSR ranked playlists have been reset, giving the player a chance in each of the playlists available.  At the end of each Season, those who have participated in at least one playlist (by playing 10 placement matches in any ranked playlist) will earn an exclusive seasonal pack reward emblem, only available at that Season.

Additionally, the social playlists are now available along with Big Team Battle and Holiday Social, which includes a variety of Slayer and Sniper playlists from launch.  Over time, 343 industries will be expanding the social mode offerings as new modes come online, and amazing community-created content surfaces.  Also, Team Doubles has returned for the ranked playlist, and will stay for the holidays.

Source: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/community/blog-posts/halo-5-seasons-explained