343 Industries and Microsoft announced plans for the 2023 season of the Halo Championship Series (HCS) including prize pools, formats, and locations for events. One of the things that might be disheartening to partnered teams is that “there won’t be crowdfunding in 2023,” but it will be brought back at an undetermined time in the future once it is refined. Teams in the Partner Teams Program will get an undisclosed portion of sales from in-game items such as skins, according to what we know at this moment in time…
First, 343 Industries said that one of the most frequent questions it received in 2022 was “when will HCS be coming to Texas?” In 2023, three stops are planned for Texas, with the help of partnered teams OpTic Gaming and Complexity.
2023 will also see a new event type and format called the “Global Invitational,” which will be utilized for two events: one at DreamHack Dallas, and in Salt Lake City with partnered team Spacestation Gaming. Sixteen (16) teams will come to these events to fight for a share of a $125K USD prize pool. Those teams for the Global Invitationals will break down as follows: 10 teams from North America, four from Europe, one team from Australia/New Zealand, and one team from Mexico.
The team partnership program will expand in 2023 to bring more opportunities for teams to generate revenue including hosting smaller online tournaments where teams are in charge of broadcasts, to large in-person tournaments such as OpTic hosting a Major and Spacestation Gaming hosting a Global Invitational (343 says that these bigger events will be hosted by teams but managed by the HCS to “to avoid any conflict of interest and maintain competitive integrity”).
FACEIT will once again manage weekly online competitions, with both upcoming Quadrant and FaZe Clan Online events this Spring being hosted by the tournament organizer.
Majors in 2023 will feature a prize pool of $250K (4v4 format), and a $5K FFA open to all players. Majors will also feature an open bracket allowing any teams to fight share of the prize.
Global Invitationals will feature a prize pool of $125K, while the Halo World Championship will offer a $1M prize pool. Free-For-All (FFA) events will remain a regular part of the HCS roadmap, with an open FFA at each major with a prize pool of $5K, and one at Halo World Championship with a prize pool of $25K.
Finally, HCS competitions will be broadcast on YouTube and Twitch through official HCS and Halo channels.
While partnered teams might be delighted with plans for the 2023 season, not everyone is happy; Australian esports organization The Chiefs Esports Club announced that it will not be participating in the HCS in 2023. A statement was published on social media by The Chiefs Esports Club Managing Director Nick Bobir, Friday. It reads, in part:
For those wondering – yes we have stepped away from Halo. This is no reflection of the boys but a decision we need to make as a business.
We are extremely proud of everything the boys achieved last year and getting to watch them win a hip live was special for all of us. To say we were disappointed in how the title was run is an understatement. There’s no point in diving into everything there, there was plenty said online by pro players and organizations globally.
It was heavily implied we would be successful for making a partner program (given the desire to give coverage to all regions). The team won everything domestically and we put resources into marketing the team and the title successfully.
We made the decision to continue supporting after this when many others dipped internationally. It’s disappointing after such a strong and amazing launch/roadmap that it’s in the state that [it] is.
Here is the 20023 season schedule:
- Feb 11-12: Charlotte Online Open (Feb 12 for rest of world)
- Feb 13-14: Charlotte Qualifier (Feb 14 for rest of world)
- Feb 24-26: HCS Kickoff Major Charlotte:
- Mar 12: Open Series 2k
- Mar 16: NA Open Series 2k Finals
- Mar 19: Open Series 2k
- Mar 23: NA Open Series 2k Finals
- Mar 26: Open Series 4k Qualifier
- April 1-2: NA Open Series 4k (Apr 2 rest of world)
- April 16: EU Quadrant 4k Qualifier, Open Series 4k Qualifiers (rest of world)
- April 22-23: EU Quadrant Open Series 4k, NA Open Series 4k (April 23 rest of world)
- April 30: Open Series 2k
- May 4: NA Open Series 2k Finals
- May 7: NA FaZe Clan 4k Qualifier, Open Series 4k Qualifier (rest of world)
- May 12-13: NA FaZe Clan Open Series 4k, Open Series 4k (May 13 rest of world)
- May 20-21: HCS Global Invitational Qualifier
- June 2-4: HCS Global Invitational @ DreamHack Dallas
- June 30 – July 1: HCS Arlington Major hosted by OpTic
- July 16: Open Series 2k
- July 20: NA Open Series 2k Finals
- July 22-23: HCS Global Invitational Qualifier
- August 4-6: HCS Global Invitational hosted by Spacestation Gaming
- Sept 1-3: HCS Ft Worth Major
- October 12-15: Halo World Championship 2023 (Seattle, Washington)
Editor’s note: We apparently went into a time machine with our title, which said “2003” instead of “2023.” We have returned to the present and corrected the title.