Halo 5: Guardians will be part of this year’s X Games Aspen from January 28-31 via the Halo World Championship Tour. Halo’s X Games debut comes courtesy of a team-up between parent companies Microsoft and ESPN only a few months after its launch.
Click here to watch the Invitationals and see the schedule
Video games at the X Games aren’t an altogether new thing. In years past, whether you were at the event or even watching on TV you could sometimes see athletes playing different video games for fun in different parts of the village and behind the scenes. Many of the athletes themselves, especially the skateboarders, have even been featured characters in various titles. eSports though is a relatively new entity in the world of X games.
Halo 5 isn’t the first eSport to make its way into the world of extreme sports though. Both Call of Duty and CS:GO have been played at the X Games in the last two years. The first ever X Games gold medal for gaming went to OpTic Gaming for winning an MLG Call of Duty: Ghosts tournament at 2014’s X Games Austin. It was the first time that competitive eSports made its way onto the X Games stage and it came with plenty of controversies. Predictably, there was an ample supply of naysayers who believed that eSports didn’t deserve a place at the event alongside BMX, skateboarding, and other extreme sports.
The doubters were somewhat suppressed by the outpouring of support that the event received although plenty of detractors still persist. Even the Vice President of the X Games admits that eSports and extreme sports are largely different entities, saying that they’re “just different elements we’re promoting.” Though he does see many ways that they compliment each other, especially when it comes to their demographics.
Despite what many thought, at X Games eSports events, people have waited in lines for hours to see the match-ups, which is good news for Halo. The previous events paved the way for this year’s competition to have a smoother road. Support for eSports has never been higher and ESPN has given it the platform it needs to take its popularity to the next level.
After the group play stage, the X Games three-day Halo competition will be a single-elimination tournament with the winners taking home $30,000 and an X Games gold medal. Six teams from North America will be participating as well as one team each from Germany and the UK. Aside from being shown in part on ESPN itself, the games will be featured on Twitch and MLG as well.
Despite being part of the Halo World Championship Tour, the Aspen competition will not actually contribute to the point totals or standings of any of the teams in the ongoing series. The Halo World Championships began back in December and the Finals aren’t scheduled until the end of March. However, the Regional Finals are less than a month away, so this competition will be a nice warm-up for some of North America’s top teams.
For ESPN and X Games part, they are certainly going about eSports in the best way possible. Call of Duty and Halo are two of the most recognizable franchises out there, especially when it comes to the broad American audience. They might not be the biggest titles in the world of esports, but that isn’t the important part. One of the most exciting parts about sports is that you’re seeing what you do on an amateur level, being played out by professionals.
Featuring DotA 2, Smite or League of Legends isn’t pandering to the right audience for ESPN. Instead of featuring games that many outside of the eSports world wouldn’t recognize, they’re building the competitive gaming brand through games that are recognizable to the masses. Which in the long run, is in the best interest of eSports. As X Games Vice President Tim Reed put it “gaming plays a big role in the youth culture and the Halo World Championship Tour: X Games Aspen Invitational nicely complements the world-class action sports competition and musical elements at the X Games.”