The Halo Challenge

Master Chief, a weapons-toting super-enhanced human, is the only being who can save the earth. A video gamer from Texas is the world champion at helping him do just that � thousands of times over.

A A A Comments (1) By Paul Kix Thursday, Jan 6 2005

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The sickness “was coming out of everywhere,” MLG’s Erik Semmelhack says. In the morning, he took Leto to get a cup of coffee, then sat him down in the VIP section near the sound stage on West 12th Street where the tournament was about to begin.

He wore his winter jacket while he played. In the Free For All, the event where it’s every man for himself, every man trying to score as many kills as possible while getting killed the fewest times possible, where two, four, or ten gamers can gang up on one to take him out, where it makes sense to do that — especially to Zyos, ranked first for the year in the Free For All — Zyos nonetheless took the early lead. And never looked back.

When he was 17, Zyos told his parents he would one day make a living playing Halo.

Walter Day: "Leto may be the premier video game player in the world."

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To win the Free For All as Zyos won it, finishing some 20 kills better than the next gamer, “that’s just, like, unheard of in any tournament setting,” Adam Apicella, the vice president of operations for MLG, told MTV. “Let alone against seven of the best tournament players in the world. He just dominated the game, and I’ve never seen really a performance like that.”

The win meant a bye into the Final Four of the single-player tournament. Dreary-eyed — even when the MTV cameras were on him — he advanced to the championship match. And then won that 15-8.

“Yes!” he yelled, and pumped his fist a couple of times.

The weekend went well. An $8,000 check for his first-place finish in the single-player tournament. A $15,000 endorsement from Nokia for taking first. A $2,000 check for finishing the season ranked first overall. A $5,000 check to the Filthy Jackalopes for finishing second in the four-on-four tournament. (Fittingly, Zyos had a new team by December.)

And the money keeps coming. Erik Semmelhack says Zyos is looking at “mid-five figures” in endorsements alone this year. And with MLG’s tournament purse of $250,000 in 2005, Matt Leto, college dropout, professional Halo player, should be a six-figure 22-year-old by year’s end.