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Halo Master Chief Tournament Axed Due to Online Problems

"Party joinability issues" to blame for cancellation, but no problems with the game's matchmaking system reported.

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New connection issues for Xbox One's Halo: The Master Chief Collection have forced Microsoft to cancel its own Halo tournament.

The company's official Twitter account explains how it was unable to fix unspecified "party joinability issues," so it made the decision to cancel Halo Championship Series Cup 1.

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"We're aware of and investigating party joinability issues," the company said. "As a result, we'll be canceling HCS Cup #1, and apologize for the inconvenience."

This Halo 2: Anniversary tournament, which was run by Microsoft and eSports gaming company ESL as part of their wider competitive gaming plans, was supposed to be held on Saturday, April 25. It would have featured a $3,000 prize pool.

The Halo Championship Series Cup 1 was not an in-person tournament, but rather it was to be held across Xbox Live. Thus, when players were not able to join parties, it couldn't go on.

It's also worth noting that, although Halo: The Master Chief Collection got off to a brutal start at release in November--some players were not able to connect to servers; and if they could, matches were often unbalanced--those problems have been largely fixed by way of new patches.

The issues that led to the cancellation of the recent Halo tournament were related to parties, and not the game's matchmaking servers. (Ed. Note: I played all weekend and experienced no problems).

As a means to make it up to fans affected by The Master Chief Collection's launch woes, Microsoft handed out free Xbox Live Gold codes earlier this year. The company is also giving affected players a free copy of Halo 3: ODST HD for Xbox One and a new Halo 2: Anniversary multiplayer map, both of which are due to arrive in May.

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