Halo eSports is Finally a Big Deal Again

Halo has always been a big deal for many and personally something I've played my entire life. When it comes to eSports Halo used to be a really big deal often front and center with MLG though after Halo 3 and a bit of Halo Reach has disappeared from the spotlight. It's mainly just been Call of Duty that's become the big time game to watch for competitive gaming so it's nice that Xbox has decided to take a more aggressive approach of putting its core titles at the forefront. This is mainly just for Halo and Gears of War at the moment, but I can see more games getting this push especially since they recently announced easier ways to host tournaments on Xbox One. Back to the main point of the article, Halo eSports is finally a big deal again which is exciting as a Halo fan that was disappointed with how quiet the scene has become. It was great watching Halo 3 back in the day being played at competitive levels and you could see the excitement once more during the Halo World Championship 2016 this last weekend.





Not only did they have a fancy stage setup with special industry guests and Halo representatives they also had a huge broadcast spectrum on Twitch. Halo 5: Guardians even reached the number two spot on Twitch this weekend at times where it hit nearly 100,000 concurrent viewers which is spectacular and also shows that there's a desire to see competitive Halo. The event which drew in large crowds there was also available to watch via the Xbox Live Viewer and watching at either place on the console granted players access to a Halo 5 REQ pack that was special to the tournament though anyone could download it from a certain link for an unspecified amount of time. The prize pool for the event was 2.5 million with 1 million going to the winning team of the tournament which is right up there with the top tier of eSports games. The large pool was mostly founded through the use of the REQ crowdfunding system they set up through the card transaction system built into Halo 5: Guardians that everyone goes crazy for to unlock new items. The tournament also awarded a special trophy for winning as pictured below which looks stellar and the event itself felt like a big deal. Eventually Counter Logic Gaming won the final game sweeping the other team and going away with the big Halo World Championship 2016 victory. There was also a MVP trophy to be won which was a sick massive Mega Blocks BR that was awarded to Naded during the tournament as well by popular vote of the viewers during the event. It really was great to see some hype around the event and a Halo title once more at the top of the eSports viewing. Hopefully we'll get to see more action in the coming years and that this Halo World Championship only continues to grow in size and display on the gaming eSport scene.

Click here to see the Tournament Bracket
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