Halo Infinite: Professional cheating in tournament, delaying queue for everyone by over 4 hours

The very first official Halo Infinite eSports tournament is overshadowed by a cheating scandal. A top player forces the best servers for himself. In doing so, he not only harmed his opponents – his teammates and spectators also suffered. MeinMMO tells you more.

With the launch and great popularity of Halo Infinite, professional competitions are also starting. The Halo Championship Series 2021 (HCS 2021) is the first official tournament in Halo Infinite. It’s also the first eSports tournament in a Halo game since 2018.

The last 3 tournaments of the HCS were won by the player Mathew “Royal2” Fiorante with 3 different teams. This year he’s playing for Sentinels. Now the top professional is embroiled in a cheating scandal.

Cheater even harmed their own team for success

What happened? The player Royal2 operated so-called “geofiltering” in the qualifying rounds of the Halo Championship Series from December 1st to 2nd, 2021. With this technique, players can block certain servers. This forces the game to find optimal servers for the player. Players who use this technology guarantee the best connection for themselves – and force other players into bad servers.

Royal2 forced Seattle servers like this because it lives in Canada itself. Most of the other Halo professionals in North America are from the Texas area. Due to Royal2’s geofilter, they all had to play on Seattle servers. This only had advantages for the cheating player.

Thanks to the cheat, players and spectators had to wait over 4 hours

The cheat harmed opponents and fellow players: While geofiltering players can play under optimal server conditions, the rest suffers: Both the opponents and the Royal2 teammates had bad pings in the games.

With a bad ping, players in shooters have some drawbacks. The worse the connection, the more difficult it is to react to and hit opponents. ‘Desync’ problems also occur like this: The players on the server see different things because they are each displayed with a delay. For example, players can be killed even though they have long been safe on their screen – but not on the opponent’s screen.

The cheating player Royal2 had the best connection on the server. So he didn’t have any of these problems. His opponents and even teammates had to accept the unsportsmanlike difficulties.

The cheat also harmed viewers: Because many servers were blocked by the geofilter, there was also an abnormal number of server connection errors. The whole tournament went on for over 4 hours longer thanks to these connection problems. Thus the player has also damaged the audience and the whole tournament with his cheats.

Player won prize money of over € 1.4 million in 3 years

Who is the cheater? Royal2 is one of the most recognizable names in the professional halo scene. He won the Halo Championship Series three years in a row. Thus, between 2016 and 2018, he won over € 1.4 million in prize money for himself and his teams.

How was the cheater caught? Several Royal2 opponents have complained to the tournament organizers. They suspected that a Sentinel player was using a geofilter. These included specific complaints about Royal2 itself. Royal2 deleted the recordings from its stream shortly after the allegations.

The organizers of the Halo tournament then investigated the facts. They discovered that the Sentinels only played games on a single server – only Royal2 had a good connection to it.

What are the consequences for the cheater? The organizers of the tournament were able to prove that Royal2 used this geofilter cheat. The player was then suspended from all competitions until January 28th.

His team was also punished: The Sentinels had to accept a point deduction. In addition, they have lost their seeded position in the tournament and have to play for the place again. Your perhaps best player Royal2 will not be allowed to play.

Did the cheater speak up himself? This is how the player explained himself on social media:

During the Halo Infinite launch, I had extremely high pings on US Central servers. So I changed my settings so that I only got West Coast servers, but I missed turning it off for the American qualifying rounds. Although that was corrected prior to the Esports Arena tournament last night, I understand the problems I caused with this qualification error. I really didn’t understand the implications of this decision and I’m really sorry about that. I want to wish the best in Raleigh to the fans and my teammates.

Mathew “Royal2” Fiorante up TwitLonger

The 2021-2022 season of the Halo Championsship Series runs through October 2022. The HCS Kickoff Major runs December 17-19. The total prize money amounts to almost € 2.7 million (via halowaypoint.com). How far Sentinels will get after this scandal is questionable. With Royal2 you lose one of your most important players.

If you look at the professional games in Halo Infinite, you will quickly notice that the controller is the input method of choice there. You can find out which controller settings the professionals use and which controller is best in our article:

Halo Infinite: The Best Controller Settings – This is how you improve your gameplay