Halo 5: Guardians continues the story of the Master Chief, and introduces a brand new central character to the Halo universe – Spartan Locke.  Peace is shattered when colony worlds are unexpectedly attacked.  And when humanity’s greatest hero goes missing, Spartan Locke is tasked with hunting the Master Chief and solving a mystery that threatens the entire galaxy.

Experience the most dramatic Halo story to date in a four-player cooperative epic that spans three worlds. Challenge friends and rivals in new multiplayer modes: Warzone, massive 24-player battles, and Arena, pure 4-versus-4 competitive combat.

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 Halo World Championship (HaloWC) on March 18 – March 20!

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).

Since Microsoft 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.

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.