$2.5m Halo World Championship prize pot is biggest for an eSports first-person shooter yet

Microsoft has announced that the prize pool for its Halo World Championship now stands at a cool $2.5 million.

The platform holder revealed this via Xbox Wire, and also named the 16 US and Canadian teams set for the final.

Venture Beat – citing tracking site eSports Earnings – reports that this $2.5m is in fact the largest amount of prize money for an eSports first-person shooter. In addition, it’s the seventh-largest eSports prize pot in history.

The prize pot for the Halo World Championships was announced at Gamescom 2015, and was originally set at $1m.

Since it has more-than doubled in size thanks to micro-transactions within the game.

In November, Microsoft announced the prize purse had increased to $1.5m then $1.7m. And in December, that amount increased to $2m.