The Halo Championship Series is set to officially begin the new year of competitive Halo Infinite with the Year Two Kickoff Charlotte Major this upcoming weekend, but it feels like a new era given the amount of organizational turnover during the offseason.
In no way is this better exemplified than by the new HCS Partnered Team bundles that will officially release on March 7 at the start of Halo Infinite’s third season, Echoes Within. The new HCS Partnered Team bundles will officially be revealed during the season three showcase at the Charlotte Major on Sunday, Feb. 26 at 11am CT.
The new wave of bundles will feature the first in-game items for the two organizations that joined HCS partnership for year two: Complexity and Quadrant. But it will be the first wave of HCS bundles that won’t feature three prominent organizations that are effectively done with competing in Halo, at least for the time being.
G2 Esports, Fnatic, and eUnited are all missing from the newest HCS partner bundles, signaling their departure from Halo. For both G2 and Fnatic, the organizations released their Halo rosters during this past offseason and did not pick up any new players. In their roster release announcement, G2 alluded to departing the scene altogether, writing “today we say goodbye to G2 Halo.”
EUnited, the organization that boasts the final Call of Duty world championship prior to the inception of the CDL, closed its doors back in January, with the exception of CEO and founder Adam Stein, who is reportedly the only sole remaining employee. The eUnited Twitter account has not seen any activity since December.
Six of the original HCS partners are included in the latest bundle, including Cloud9, an organization that many fans thought was on its way out. The organization released its championship-level roster in November and was radio silent regarding Halo until just two weeks ago when it announced a trio of signings in Kyle “Nemassist” Kubina, Nathan “Squallaye” Kostal, and James “TritoN” Bolling.
The new wave of HCS partner bundles will feature bundles for C9, Sentinels, OpTic, Spacestation, NAVI, FaZe Clan, Complexity, and Quadrant.
