14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer 343 Industries and publisher Microsoft are announcing that the list of 16 teams that will take part in the World Championship finals for Halo 5: Guardians is finalized after the North American Regionals and that the prize pool for the event has managed to reach 2.5 million dollars (2.2 million Euro).
All the action will take place between March 18 and March 20, and gamers will be able to see every match via streaming services, with the real world venue that will showcase the matches set to be announced at the start of next month.
The teams to be featured in the Halo 5: Guardians World Championship are: North America - Team Allegiance, Counter Logic Gaming, Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid, Noble eSports, Renegades, Triggers Pound, Denial eSports, Europe and the Middle East - Epsilon eSports, FabE, exceL, Team Infused, Australia - Team Immunity, Team Exile5 (AU), Skyfire from Asia and Chosen Squad from Latin America.
The match-ups for the first round of engagements at the event will be announced in the near future.
The official announcement also explains that fans of the shooter have been willing to spend real world money to get access to REQ packs, which in turns allows the prize pool to increase.
According to 343 Industries, "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."
Halo 5: Guardians features Arena for competitive action
The World Championship will use the mode when it starts on March 18, but the organizers have not yet talked about the maps that they are planning to use and whether there are plans to make any specific tweaks before the matches start.
Before the end of February fans of Halo 5: Guardians are set to get access to a new Hammer Storm update, which will be delivered for free to all those who are interested in getting more multiplayer content.
The Torque map arrives for the Arena mode, and there's a wide range of new REQ content that players will be able to pick up, with three new modes also added, the most interesting of which is Grifball.
343 Industries has also added a new social playlist to Halo 5: Guardians and says that it is continuously monitoring feedback about matchmaking to further improve it in the coming months.
All the downloadable content for the shooter for its first year of life will be offered for free to keep gamers engaged, and it will be interesting to see how the REQ system evolves once the World Championships are over.
Microsoft has suggested that a new Halo video game might be launched in 2017 and until then it is working with other companies to create more toys and other media content associated with the series.