Matthew “Formal” Piper announced on stream that he plans to come out of retirement to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 professionally, thereby ending his revived Halo career.
Since 2011, Formal has played CoD and Halo professionally and is a multi-FPS World Champion. He retired from CoD at the end of 2021, joined Halo’s Sentinels team as a stand-in, and then re-signed with OpTic Gaming in 2022, where he currently plays.
Formal revealed his desire to return to CoD on July 13 after a viewer asked if he would be playing Black Ops 6.
Formal says he’s playing Black Ops 6 professionally pic.twitter.com/BMlopWXsns
— CDL Scrim Intel (@CdlScrimintel) July 13, 2024
“I am planning on it,” said Formal. “I’m planning on playing that f****** s*** professional, to be honest. Only the 272 of you guys know that, for now.”
OpTic Gaming has been Formal’s home for most of his career and has become synonymous with the organization. He won his first World Championship in CoD with OpTic Gaming in 2017 and then secured another World Championship for the organization in 2022 with Halo.
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When Formal retired from CoD with the dream of returning to Halo, OpTic Gaming seemed like his only option. However, if he is serious about coming out of retirement for Black Ops 6, which team would sign him remains uncertain.
OpTic Gaming, currently known as OpTic Texas for CoD, signed two of the hottest free agents at the end of 2023 to complete its championship-caliber roster. This feat was already achieved when they lifted a trophy in Toronto, Canada, for Major 3.
With OpTic Texas’ current roster, there may be no room for Formal to usurp his throne, meaning he would be playing for a different team than OpTic Gaming.
The last time Formal played for a team other than OpTic Gaming in CoD was before franchising when he was the lead AR player for Luminosity during Black Ops 4.