Major Halo tournaments struggle to attract viewers, and the events themselves are few and far between. So what happened? Competitive Halo fans will point to the Halo: Reach and Halo 4 as the cause of the decline of Halo esports. But is it really? Or is there something else they aren't seeing?

Halo 5: Guardians
Halo 5: Guardians is a first-person shooter developed by 343 Industries and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox One. It is the direct sequel to Halo 4 and replaced Halo 2 Anniversary as the competitive Halo game, and was succeeded by Halo Infinite. The game was released on October 27, 2015.
In response to the presence of Activision's Call of Duty series in console esports, Microsoft announced the Halo World Championship with $1 million in cash prizes. With the emphasis on Halo 5's Arena multiplayer mode, Microsoft is hoping to attract the best Halo players and more interest in the competitive Halo scene, but the game itself isn't without it's problems. On March 13, 2016, a Halo charity tournament run by Gamers for Giving had been cancelled due to the game's inability to create custom games reliably in a tournament environment.
The 2016 Halo World Championship prize pool was raised to $2.5 million via REQ packs, similar to the Compendiums sold to raise the prize pool of Valve's Dota 2 tournament, "The International". It became the first tournament in the history of Halo esports to surpass $1 million, and saw Counter Logic Gaming crowned the champions, with a roster of Frosty, Lethul, Royal 2 and SnakeBite. Next year, in the 2017 Halo World Championship, Optic Gaming (formerly known as CLG) repeated and won again.
Largest Prize Pools
Top Players
Player ID | Player Name | Total (Game) | |
---|---|---|---|
1. | ![]() | Tony Campbell | $583,850.00 |
2. | ![]() | Bradley Bergstrom | $582,850.00 |
3. | ![]() | Mathew Fiorante | $581,250.00 |
4. | ![]() | Paul Duarte | $581,250.00 |
5. | ![]() | Kevin Smith | $259,825.00 |
6. | ![]() | Braedon Boettcher | $258,425.00 |
7. | ![]() | Jonathan Willette | $225,125.00 |
8. | ![]() | Anthony Cuevas-Castro | $214,000.00 |
9. | ![]() | Cuyler Garland | $179,625.00 |
10. | ![]() | Eric Wrona | $170,375.00 |
11. | ![]() | Visal Mohanan | $167,225.00 |
12. | ![]() | Justin Deese | $164,000.00 |
13. | ![]() | Zane Hearon | $161,800.00 |
14. | ![]() | Jesse Moeller | $154,650.00 |
15. | ![]() | Carlos Ayala | $153,175.00 |
16. | ![]() | Ayden Hill | $149,700.00 |
17. | ![]() | Austin McCleary | $144,750.00 |
18. | ![]() | Brett Leonard | $137,050.00 |
19. | ![]() | Timothy Tinkler | $132,725.00 |
20. | ![]() | Bradley Laws | $82,300.00 |
21. | ![]() | Aaron Elam | $75,075.00 |
22. | ![]() | Cody Szczodrowski | $74,025.00 |
23. | ![]() | Devon Layton | $70,100.00 |
24. | ![]() | Tyler Ganza | $69,775.00 |
25. | ![]() | Justin Mozingo | $63,875.00 |
Online/LAN Breakdown
Location | Prize Money | % of Total |
---|---|---|
Online Only | $377,800.00 | 5.28% |
Offline/LAN | $6,783,930.97 | 94.72% |
Comparisons
» Call of Duty: Black Ops III | +$3,221,947.68 |
» Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare | +$4,549,922.04 |
» Halo 3 | +$4,843,651.57 |
» Halo 2 | +$5,534,968.50 |
» Halo: Reach | +$6,389,641.00 |
» Halo 2 Anniversary | +$6,693,025.92 |
» Halo 4 | +$6,730,982.21 |
Top Countries
Country Name | Prize Money | |
---|---|---|
1. | ![]() | $5,492,812.22 |
2. | ![]() | $607,384.38 |
3. | ![]() | $402,910.84 |
4. | ![]() | $179,625.00 |
5. | ![]() | $92,333.33 |
6. | ![]() | $89,687.50 |
7. | ![]() | $63,255.56 |
8. | ![]() | $53,687.50 |
9. | ![]() | $41,063.33 |
10. | ![]() | $24,041.67 |
Other Notable Players
The following players may not have necessarily competed in this game, but have contributed to the competitive scene in other ways.
![]() | Eric Hewitt | Analyst |
![]() | David Walsh | Analyst, Commentator |