343 Industries Announces Halo Championship Series

343 Industries just announced its Halo Championship Series (HCS) which will be a franchised event featuring the likes of Cloud9, Fnatic, Sentinels, and more. The developers are trying to push Halo: Infinite’s esports ecosystem right from the start by building relationships with its Partnership Program. The franchised esports event has already signed nine teams and 343 is open to more partnerships ahead of the game’s launch and beyond. The publisher has made it clear that there will be no competitive advantages given to partners of the Halo Championship Series. More details about the event will be available after the game’s launch on 8th Dec 2021.

Halo Championship Series overview

Halo Championship Series will be an event featuring esports organizations that own franchises within the leagues. The nine teams that have partnered with the HCS include:

• Cloud9

• Eunited

• FaZe Clan

• Fnatic

• G2 Esports

• NAVI

• Sentinels

• Spacestation Gaming

• Team Envy

The partnered teams are investing significant funding into the Halo ecosystem and the developers will be giving back financially to them through its events. 343 revealed, “They’re going to be paying players, coach, manager salaries, creating entertaining content for fans to watch, and they’ll even have the opportunity of setting up booths at our events to spend time with the community. None of the investment funding is going to us, it’s all going to the community.”

Points System: HCS for Halo Infinite will feature a point system that will be used for seeding (and sometimes qualification) that ties the entire ecosystem together. Players will be able to accrue points in the scene from multiple sources including Official HCS tournaments both online and in-person, but also HCS Grassroots tournaments in the scene. To track of all of this, HCS will be leveraging the Esports Engine platform. Players will need to register an account on the platform to compete in any tournaments that award points. The EE platform will also manage official HCS events that they run with Esports Engine.

Input Devices: Halo Infinite esports will be cross play for all online tournaments. Players will be allowed to use mouse and keyboard, or controller, regardless of platform. Teams can have a mix of MNK and controller players and there are no restrictions in place with regards to platform or input devices.

Currently, the league will be limiting itself to North America and Europe. HCS has plans of expanding beyond the two regions and adding more teams to the event. There will be in-game esports items that fans will be able to purchase to support their favorite teams and show support. More details on the HCS will be available closer to launch. Halo: Infinite is scheduled for release on 8th Dec 2021.