The Halo Championship Series was supposed to be a celebration of the competitive eSports side of Halo that reached its peak with Halo 2. Unfortunately, the UGC tournament this weekend turned into a public display of the still broken status of The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One that left fans and competitors frustrated.

The UGC tournament began on Friday in St. Louis, Missouri and culminated with a grand finals match on Sunday night. It featured a $20,000 prize pool and a chance to earn 4,000 points toward the Halo Championship Series. Unfortunately, the Twitch stream of the event was full of delays, restarts, and crashes of The Master Chief Collection.

Instead of a focus on competition, the weekend’s matches featured matches where the screen would go black in the middle of a match, forcing a restart between the two teams. This happened in a match between Cloud9 and Optic Halo as well as the Grand Finals between Counter Logic Gaming and Denial eSports. There was also an incident between Cloud9 and Optic where one player’s screen went black for 10 seconds forcing another restart.

The delays, restarts, and other issues with Halo: The Master Chief Collection caused boos from spectators on-site and jeers from those watching the livestream.

@Halo @clgaming @DenialEsports So how was that game crash mid-game look for you since this is more important than fixing it? — Chris (@crysiszombie) January 5, 2015

The problems during the tournament forced Halo Community Manager Andy Dudynsky to apologize and acknowledge that some rule changes may be needed to handle these problems in the future.

@EDWSnip3down agreed that we should look at updating this for CTF scores. Going to grab team captains to discuss following the event. — Andy Dudynsky (@Brav) January 4, 2015

@EDWSnip3down yup, you got it. we can do better with rulings on unfortunate situations such as those. looking forward to discussing. — Andy Dudynsky (@Brav) January 4, 2015

This is the third major tournament since the Halo Championship Series launched on December 7. This was after the series was delayed due to the broken state that Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched with.

The last major update the Halo: MCC received was on December 22. Developer 343 Industries has taken a break with any additional updates to the game due to the holidays. However, Studio Head Bonnie Ross detailed some of the free extras that will be offered to Master Chief Collection owners as an apology for all the problems. This includes a free upgraded Halo 3: ODST campaign, a free new map, and a free month of Xbox LIVE Gold. Some owners of the game would probably just like to see it working without any issues, however.

Unfortunately, 343 Industries desire for Halo to be taken seriously as an eSport again is not being helped by frequent game freezes and restarts.

Did you watch any of the UGC Tournament this weekend? What did you think of the performance of Halo: The Master Chief Collection? Sound off in the comments below.

[Image via Halo Waypoint]