Halo Infinite dev shuts down complaints that players were banned for teabagging: "Yeah, that's not a thing"

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There's something else at play here

Halo Infinite
(Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

A Halo Infinite dev has swiftly shut down claims that a group of players were temporarily banned from the game for teabagging their opponents.

In a tweet over the weekend, Twitch streamer Aztecross alleged that "the boys and I just got banned on Halo Infinite for bagging." That suggestion prompted certain members of the community to reach out to long-time Halo senior community manager John Junyszek. Unfortunately for the streamer, the dev was having none of it.

"Yeah, that's not a thing," Junyszek responds, clarifying that the length of ban the group received - a 30-minute timeout - is something that "only happens after quitting multiple games in a short amount of time." To make Aztecross' claim even more unlikely, the dev says that you can only get a 30-minute matchmaking ban if you're already given - and waited through - a 10-minute timeout beforehand, "so that means there was likely a lot of quitting leading up to it."

This feels like a case of having all the receipts, but Aztecross was adamant that no one quit. They claim that four players were playing splitscreen on a (suffering) Xbox Series S, "and we didn't get a ban until after one of the games someone bagged and we bagged back. I bagged again in the second game to test and got an even longer timeout."

A point in Aztecross' favor is that his timeout was for "unsporting play," which Junyszek acknowledged could have been for a number of other offences, like betrayals or AFK detection. "Those are less likely to occur," he acknowledges "but could pop if you're horsing around with friends in splitscreen."

The exact reason for the two timeouts remains a mystery, but it's interesting to see Halo's community manager set the record straight - you're not getting a ban for bagging, uncouth as it might be.

Infinite has had a tricky life, but what are the best Halo games of all time?

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Ali Jones
Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

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