Halo World Championship Logo

Final 16 Teams for Halo World Championship Set; Prize Pool Now $2.5 Million

After several months of grueling practice, intense competition and many hard-fought battles in Halo 5: Guardians on Xbox One, it’s finally come down to this: 16 teams from around the world will compete in the biggest Halo esports competition in franchise history – the Halo World Championship (HaloWC). In case you missed the news from this weekend, we’ve got you covered and ready to begin the countdown to the grand finals on March 18 – March 20!

Final 16 Teams Set for the Halo World Championship

At the Halo World Championship: North American Regionals, the top 16 teams from the U.S. and Canada engaged in a pool play series to determine who would get to go to the world championship next month. With only eight qualifying slots available, the tournament would see half the teams continue their march to the finals while the other half would see their dreams end in Columbus. Several storylines played out during the tournament: OpTic Gaming’s valiant efforts to beat hundreds of teams in the Last Chance Qualifier would be for naught as the still freshly minted team lost to rivals Triggers Pound and Team Allegiance. Meanwhile, Team Liquid got its revenge on Renegades after a disappointing showing at X Games Aspen and EnVy was eliminated, leaving behind long-time veterans “iGotUrPistola,” “OGRE2,” “Mikwen” and “Arkanum.” However, the biggest story of them all would be the rise of Denial eSports, a team consisting of almost entirely new pros “Huke,” “Bubudubu,” “ContrA” and “PreDevoNator.” Seeded at number 11, Denial would go on to defeat Team Liquid and top seeded Allegiance before pushing Counter Logic Gaming (CLG) to a six game series, with CLG coming out as winners of the North American Regionals.

With the conclusion of the last regional tournaments, the final 16 Halo World Championship teams are now set to compete in March. These teams are: Team Allegiance (NA), Counter Logic Gaming (NA), Evil Geniuses (NA), Team Liquid (NA), Noble eSports (NA), Renegades (NA), Triggers Pound (NA), Denial eSports (NA), Epsilon eSports (EMEA), FabE (EMEA), exceL (EMEA), Team Infused (EMEA), Team Immunity (AU), Team Exile5 (AU), Skyfire (Asia) and Chosen Squad (LATAM).

HaloWC Final 16 Teams

Halo World Championship Prize Pool Lands at $2.5 Million

Since we first announced a starting prize pool of $1 million at gamescom 2015, the winnings for the Halo World Championship has grown immensely due to community crowd-funding via the Halo 5: Guardians REQ System. The final prize pool is now locked and players will compete to win their slice of $2.5 million at the Halo World Championship. And if being the best Halo team in the world wasn’t enough of an incentive, this might be: the first place team will take home a total of $1 million – the biggest individual prize pool in console esports history.

The Road to the Finals Ends in Hollywood, CA

For anyone who has been eagerly awaiting to watch the Halo World Championship in person, look no further! The Halo World Championship will be hosted at in Hollywood, California, with the exact venue to be announced on March 4. Be sure to follow Halo and HCS on Twitter (and tweet #HaloWC!) or head over to Halo.gg for more information about the Halo World Championship.