Halo Championship Series

Series Information

Organizers:

343 Industries
Esports Engine

Location:

World

Cumulative Prize Pool:

$7,387,050 USD

Links

About[edit]

The Halo Championship Series is a professional esports series for Halo, hosted and organized by ESL (later changed to Esports Engine in 2020 and is returned to ESL again in 2021 onwards) in association with 343 Industries.^[1] The HCS was announced in November 2014 following the launch of Master Chief Collection, using Halo 2: Anniversary as the played version.

During the first two seasons, the HCS featured multiple online cups and LAN events for teams to earned HCS Points which determined the qualification for the Season Finale. In 2016, HCS has replaced the system with the introduction of HCS Pro League, HCS Open Circuit alongside moving to Halo 5: Guardians. The series then changed again in 2018 with the removal of Pro League and returning to a system similar to S1-2, also the last year of the original HCS. From 2019 onwards HCS has launched the Grassroots^[2] program to support creators and third-party tournaments. In August 2021 the HCS has been revived^[3] with the launch of Halo Infinite and the introduction of Cross-Play and Cross-Input for the first time in the franchise.

Format[edit]

Season 1[edit]

The season consisted of Europe & North America, Teams played in various online cups and 4 LAN events to collect HCS Points. 10 Teams then qualified for the S1 Championship.

Season 2[edit]

Europe has been removed in this season, LAN events are also down to only two events (Atlana & Indy), Similar to Season 1 teams are also played in various online cups to collect HCS Points. 8 Teams then qualified for the S2 Championship. This marks the final HCS under Halo 2: Anniversary, from 2016-2018 the series moved to Halo 5: Guardians.

2016[edit]

At the beginning of the year, Pro League has been announced alongside the returning of Europe Region. Both regions hosted two splits, each including a regular season and Pro League finals for their respective region/split. The worst performed team in each split then proceed to relegation stage against the teams from the newly added Open Circuit.

Open Circuit is an amateur ladder similar to Season 1-2, where teams earned Open Circuit Points in order to qualify for the Open Circuit Championship where top 2 granted a shot to face the relegated teams.

2017[edit]

Regional Finals has been scrapped in favor of the Global Combined finals, Europe Pro League also discontinued in the Fall season, with the Fall Global Finals marks the end of the HCS Pro League

2018[edit]

2018 saw a drastic change as the final year for HCS, only three LAN Events in this year: New Orleans, London and the World Finals in Atlanta.
After the end of the 2018 HCS Finals, HCS has stopped operating the full in 2019/20 with the series returning starting from 2021-22.

2021-22[edit]

In 2020 HCS has partnered with Esports Engine as their new co-organizer, starting from the returning season onwards ESL, Gaming Partners, DreamHack and FACEIT has also joined as the co-organizer in the new HCS.

This season features various 2 Splits each including Online Cups, Regional Championships both as a LAN and Online, culminating in a HCS Global Major which also represents the end of each split. Eventually the HCS will lead up to the world championship. Beside from EU/NA, Oceania and Mexico has returned to the series. Europe however will not contain CIS in this season, same to the rest of South America in the Mexico region.

2022-23[edit]

The 2022-23 season is named Year 2 and is to begin the 24th of Frebuary with the Kickoff Major in Charlotte.

Events[edit]

[1]

[2]

[3]

General

Specific