HCS has revealed the roadmap for 2023 and it’s quite different than last year’s.
Last year, each region had an online Super and Regional LAN event. As shown in the graphic, all of the LAN events will be held in the United States with half of them taking place in Texas. Global Invitationals will take place of the Supers and Regionals, allowing players and teams from around the world to compete rather than be restricted to one region. There will be 16 teams invited to each Invitational: 10 from NA, 4 from EU, 1 from MX and 1 from ANZ.
In 2022 there were online Open Series and Pro Series tournaments. Online tournaments will continue in 2023 for each region, but the Pro Series has been cut. New, “4k” tournaments have made their way into the calendar, awarding twice as many HCS Points as the Open Series (2,000 HCS Points). Weekly FFA tournaments have also been cut, but will remain at Majors with $25,000 prize pools.
The OpTic Invitational that was scheduled to take place after the 2022 Halo World Championship but was postponed has now been incorporated into one of the Majors and will take place in Arlington, TX at Esports Stadium.
The format at LAN events has also changed a little. Only the top four teams from the Open Bracket will find their way into Pool Play and the team in last place from each pool will be eliminated from the tournament while the rest are placed into the Championship Bracket. In the past, the bottom four from the Open Bracket were placed directly into the Elimination portion of the Championship Bracket along with the last place team from each pool.
Many were upset after the announcement of no additional prize money from crowdfunding will be added to the 2022 HWC and HCS has stated the for 2023, there will be no crowdfunding. The HCS team and 343 are working on making it more transparent as to where the money is going and crowdfunding will be brought back when it’s been figured out.
You can find more details on the 2023 roadmap over at Waypoint.
