Competitive Halo: What Happened?

When most people heard the term "MLG", the game Halo would generally come to mind. This mindset is slowly disappearing  however, with the most recent Halo installment, Halo 4, being dropped from the MLG Pro Circuit. What has happened since the glory days of Halo, and what can be changed?

Halo CE revolutionized multiplayer, and Halo 2 built upon that success with Xbox Live. Both these games introduced the concept of competitive gaming, and molded what is now MLG. Halo 2 is where MLG really took off, with major tournaments held every year. Teams like Final Boss and Str8 Rippin kept the game interesting and exciting, with stunning game play and teamwork.

Most MLG tournaments featured a packed live crowd, along with many live-stream viewers watching from the internet. What made Halo so exciting to watch was the personal skill and devote team work featured at each tournament. Halo always had a perfect mix of skill and luck that would bring viewers, along with players, back for more.

So what has happened? As you know, Halo 4 has been dropped by the MLG Pro Circuit, and has an embarrassingly low amount of players online. Many pros have retired from professional gaming, feeling that the glory days of competitive gaming are gone. A great example is pro player Walshy, who stopped competing after Halo Reach, refusing to play Halo 4. Many other pros have showed their anger towards newer Halo games, including former Str8 Rippin player SnipeDown, who, after being out DMR'ed, yelled "this game f****** sucks!", referring to Halo Reach. Other pro players that found their prime in Halo 3 have since disappeared off the radar. Many blame this drop in competitive drive too the absence of ranking systems since Halo 3, and to the "noob friendly" approach that newer Halo games have had. 

The ranking system in Halo 3 made for a competitive drive for every Halo player. The 1-50 system constantly kept players coming back to achieve the rank of 50. This ranking system would also match players with similar skill levels, rather than Halo Reach and Halo 4, which just ranks you up with random players. This made for exciting, intense games, for you were truly being challenged each game you played.

The next main factor is the "noob friendly" approach Halo 4 has had. Halo Reach at least had MLG, but Halo 4 has shown little interest in competitive gameplay. They have begun to listen, however, and too their credit, they've released Team Throwdown, which is a replacement to MLG. They've also announced a new 1-50 ranking system, which has yet to be implemented. But is it too little too late? There are still tournaments for Halo 4, but they don't have the viewers and support the Halo 2-3 MLG tournaments had. Halo 4 was built to accommodate new players, which left competitive players in the dark. 

The only real chance Halo 4 has in my opinion of coming back into the competitive spectrum is re-engineering a deal with MLG. MLG was vital for Halo 2-3, and Halo 4 needs to be featured in next years Pro Circuit to have a chance of making a comeback. Hopefully they can work out a deal, but for the time being, we will have to wait and see what the future holds.

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