Halo: The Master Chief Collection problems force official tournament cancellation

Developer 343 Industries was forced to cancel one of its official Halo tournaments after Xbox One shooter Master Chief Collection ran into connectivity problems.

In a tweet issued from the official Halo account last night, 343 said it was looking into party joinability issues and as a result cancelled Cup #1 of Season 2 of the Halo Championship Series.

The HCS is the official Halo eSports league, and has been running for a number of months now in partnership with the ESL.

This weekend was set to be the first regular season online cup for Season 2 of the Halo Championship Series. The plan was to see the cup span two days with two separate brackets, and while matches took place on Saturday, 25th April, as planned, Halo: The Master Chief encountered issues that prevented the tournament's conclusion from taking place on the Sunday.

The situation got so bad 343 and ESL took the decision to cancel the Cup.

The cancellation is the latest in a long line of Halo-related embarrassments for 343 and Microsoft, who continue to release patches following The Master Chief Collection's disastrous launch in November 2014.

Earlier this year 343 cancelled a planned beta for one of its Master Chief Collection updates, and before that Microsoft announced it would offer a free month of Xbox Live and the Halo 3: ODST campaign as a free download as an apology for the Master Chief Collection's launch issues.

Only last week 343 released yet another patch for the game, which focused on ranking, matchmaking penalties, stability, as well as game-specific improvements for each title in the collection.

343 plans to release the Relic multiplayer map remake and the campaign for Halo 3: ODST in May as part of the game's next content update.