Halo Infinite Trumps CDL With Ranked Play And Esports Skins Upon Launch
After stalling the release of Halo Infinite, 343 Industries launched their brand-new multiplayer experience with a surprise drop during the Xbox birthday celebrations, and esports fanatics have already praised the title for its mass amount of competitive content.
The Halo franchise has never quite eclipsed its main competitor in Call of Duty, with the futuristic sci-fi shooter being slightly too far-fetched to grasp the casual fan bases in the masses, compared to the standard boots-on-the-ground warfare genre.
Which Esports Teams Have Got Halo Infinite Skins?
However, faithfuls of the latter have been mesmerised by the Halo Infinite launch, as the title was ready-made for the Championships Series the second it came out, and a clear pathway to esports was evident. With a ranked mode available from the get-go and nine incredible skins for the organisations competing the HCS being the only purchasable customisations available.
The partnered teams, such as FaZe Clan, Sentinels, Cloud9, and Fnatic were all given their own exo-suit skin that the public can purchase and represent in-game, showcasing to the old-school Call of Duty developers that the fans want to see an instant connection to the elite level of competition.
Following the announcement from Halo, Call of Duty fans were left livid, considering the launch of Sledgehammer Games' Vanguard has yet to be littered with any esports-related content, most notably no public playlist emulating the 4v4 game modes seen at the professional standard.
What Have Fans Said About The CDL Following The Halo Infinite Launch?
Taking to social media platforms such as Reddit and Twitter, fans instantly criticised the CDL for their lack of integration into the game.
One Reddit user said, "Do people defending Activision not realize that we've had iterations of some sort of a ranked mode since Black Ops 2 in 2012? A ranked matchmaking system should basically be a copy/paste job at this point. There are zero reasons that a franchise as old as COD, with as many dev teams as COD and as much money invested into a competitive league as COD, should launch without ranked."
Whilst a ranked playlist may not be entirely feasible from the start, especially with Halo players being banned for matchmaking because of a leaving penalty that is enforced even if the game crashes, other Call of Duty fanatics have pointed out that a basic 4v4 playlist would be sufficient, at least replicating the esports gameplay.
Halo's esports scene has started off with a bang and will continue to progress as the nine partnered teams will be joined by a further seven qualified squads in the Kickoff Major, live from LAN setting in America throughout December.
Call of Duty fans may now look towards the Halo Major to support their favourite org, especially with the announcement that Envy's spot will be rebranded to OpTic Gaming following their merger, and CDL veteran Matthew "FormaL" Piper admitted to Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag that he will be competing in the HCS.