Cloud9 departs Halo esports, leaving HCS’s future in doubt

Cloud9 becomes the latest organsition to leave the Halo esports scene, joining the mass exodus initiated by Fnatic and eUnited.

Halo Infinite’s esports circuit has definitely been a huge success for its creator 343 Industries, but the game has experienced significant delays and is not even close to being as popular as other top shooters like CS:GO, Apex Legends, Valorant, or Call of Duty. A few days before this year’s world championship, Halo announced that it wouldn’t be offering prize money to the participants raised through crowdfunding. As 343 Industries chose to invest the crowdfunded money for the circuit in 2023, the prize pool for the competition was reduced.

 

Consequently, many of the popular organizations have left the scene, leading to fears that the partnership program may not be able to retain the large organizations it brought in at launch. Fnatic and eUnited were the first two partnered organizations to leave the Halo Championship Series (HCS) circuit, and Cloud9 become the third today. The two teams, EUnited and C9, who arguably had the finest players, are no longer on their respective squads. The organizations have not revealed any further information about their future Halo plans.

Spacestation Gaming pick up a legendary Halo roster

While the ambitions of many organizations for the Halo Championship Series are still unknown, Spacestation has made it obvious that they want to stay in the Halo circuit a little longer. For the forthcoming season, Spacestation Gaming has acquired the former Cloud9 lineup, which previously gained notoriety for its accomplishments in the 2021 HCS. The move was made a day after C9 dropped the players amid a mass exodus of organizations from the Halo esports scene.

With the acquisition, one of the greatest rosters in Halo esports is the new Spacestation squad, which features Adam “Bound” Gray, Kevin “Eco” Smith, Zane “Penguin” Hearon, Braedon “StelluR” Boettcher, and coach Emanuel “Hoaxer” Lovejoy. The team dominated the North American scene and secured a first palace finish at HCS 2022: North America Regionals. The team went on to secure a second-place finish at HCS Orlando Major and Kansas City Major before dominating the international stage and coming second at the world championship.

Will Halo esports survive the mass exodus?

Time is running out for the partnered HCS organizations to reveal their new or returning rosters with the OpTic Invitational coming up quickly next month and the first official Major of the 2023 season set to kick off in February. OpTic and Spacestation are confirmed to be a part of the season; but, it is still unclear how the partnership program will be structured and who else will be engaged in Halo Infinite’s 2023 season. Although Complexity Gaming and Quadrant will step in to replace the absent teams, the current status of Halo esports appears far from ideal.

Header: 343 Industries