- OpTic’s Invitational was supposed to be the last big event in this year’s competitive Halo
- The organization recently announced it’s postponing the event to early 2023
- “For us to sort of force an event to happen is just not the OpTic way,” the org said
Many teams have been leaving the HCS recently, which has prompted OpTic to postpone its planned Invitational.
OpTic Postpones Its Event
Halo esports seems to be going through some troubles at the moment. Most recently, questions have arisen about the status of the upcoming 2023 Halo Championship Series because the OpTic Halo Invitational planned for this month has “been postponed due to challenges with getting enough Halo teams to commit to the tournament.”
The news first spread thanks to a Reddit post on the competitive Halo page where the OP was complaining after receiving an email saying his tickets for the event were refunded. No other information had been given until a few days later, when the OP received another email, stating the OpTic Invitational has been canceled.
The event’s organizers apologized to the affected fans but said the Invitational will be rescheduled for 2023. Additionally, OpTic stated in these emails that repurchasers will also receive a “free, unique upgrade”.
Soon after this series of emails was sent out, OpTic released an official statement confirming the postponement of the Invitational. In the short video posted on Twitter, H3CZ explained that there were too many moving parts that led to the cancelation. As said in the email, the organizers simply could not get enough teams on board to have the event proceed.
Why Was the Invitational Postponed?
“We were left in a position where we could have made it work by inviting, you know, X amount of teams and doing a mixture salad of teams. Would that have been fun for you guys? No,” said H3CZ in the video. “For us to sort of force an event to happen is just not the OpTic way. We try to simplify everything because it just makes it more fun, more organic, and it works better than just trying to force something down someone’s throat,” H3CZ explained.
The OpTic Halo Invitational was originally billed as an invite-only LAN event “in the heart of OpTic Nation”. There was promotional material circulating even on the primary HCS Twitter account as recently as two weeks ago, so the postponement comes as a surprise to many.
But considering the current state of competitive Halo, perhaps the move from OpTic shouldn’t be such a shock. Not one Halo team has recently left the HSC, with H3CZ noting that even big names like Cloud9 have released their Halo rosters.
Considering the OpTic Invitational is postponed, the first HCS event will now be the online Spacestation Spartan Snowdown beginning January 13.
