Cloud9 set to return to Halo for DreamHack Birmingham

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 30/01/2026

North American esports organisation Cloud9 could be headed to Birmingham, England, next month as they want to return to Halo.

Cloud9 has a rich history in Halo esports, having competed since 2014. They then won multiple consecutive titles after returning in 2020.

Now Halo coach Trevor ‘SenscR’ Frees has revealed Cloud9 wants to return to Halo esports and compete at DreamHack Birmingham.

Gaming and esports festival DreamHack Birmingham is set to take place at the NEC Arena between March 27th and 29th.

Qualification for the Halo event begins soon, with registrations for teams opening up on February 5th.

There will be various Halo tournaments at DreamHack, but the main event will be the Halo Infinite 4v4 tournament.

DreamHack has promised a total prize pool of $100,000 (£73k) for Halo events, with $86k (£62k) for the Infinite 4v4 event.

The top 10 out of 32 finalists will all receive prize money, with the team that eventually wins the 4v4 Halo Infinite event taking home $35k (£25k).

Last year, Cloud9 competed and finished sixth at the 2025 Halo World Championship, the last Halo Championship Series (HCS) event on Infinite.

Then HCS-partenered Cloud9, along with a lot of other organisations, parted ways with their Halo roster back in October.

DreamHack Birmingham esports events

The Midlands is seeing plenty of esports action in 2026, with various other events outside of the Halo Infinite tournament during that long weekend in March.

As part of DreamHack, Birmingham will also host the ESL One Dota 2 event.

There, 16 of the world’s strongest Dota 2 esports teams will compete with a the $1m (£730k) prize pool,

DreamHack Birmingham will also host the second 2026 major of the Call of Duty League (CDL).

The $365k (£266k) tournament will feature a unique format different to the other CDL Majors in the 2026 calendar.

The CDL Major II in Birmingham will see a Round-Robin, Group Stage qualifier, with only the top 10 teams advancing to the Birmingham LAN.

There, DreamHack will feature a four-team play-in, resulting in an eight-team, double-elimination playoff bracket.

And DreamHack Birmingham will also feature in the $1.2m (£876k) Call of Duty Warzone Resurgence Series esports circuit.

The $100k (£73k) DreamHack Birmingham tournament will directly feed into the COD: WRS Championship at the Esports World Cup.

The top four Warzone teams in Birmingham will qualify for the $1m (£730k) EWC tournament set to take place in July.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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