Overwatch 2 Removing Seasonal Ranked Resets in Season 4

Overwatch 2's Competitive systems are under the microscope once more ahead of Season 4 with Blizzard announcing this week a number of changes it plans to make in the game's ranked mode. One of those planned changes will see the removal of the game's partial ranked resets that occur at the start of every season where players' ranks are bumped down slightly. That doesn't mean that ranked resets are never coming back, however, with Blizzard adding that it's still debating internally whether or not a rank reset system like this can have a place in Overwatch 2.

The partial rank resets only move players down a few rungs on the ranked ladder at the start of a season -- that's something we see elsewhere in other games' competitive modes, too, and is something that gives players something to grind for in the next season while also providing some leeway for someone who possibly played ranked for only a while in a season and comes back out of practice in the next season. Some players, however, don't like the system very much and feel that it takes away their rank they grinded for in-season.

Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller acknowledged these frustrations within the community in the game's latest dev blog and said things are changing in Season 4.

"One of the biggest issues that players bring up is how their experience has been affected by a partial rating reset at the beginning of each Competitive season," Keller said. "This (along with some matchmaking issues) has caused a lot of confusion in matches. Starting with Season 4 we'll be removing this reset, and players should have a much clearer picture of their rating, season-to-season."

So, what's the plan beyond Season 4? It doesn't sound like Blizzard has a definite answer yet since the ranked reset dilemma is still being looked into. Instead of partially resetting players' ranks every season, Keller said the Overwatch 2 team is currently exploring ideas like partially resetting ranks at "a much greater time interval" such as yearly as opposed to each season. These less frequent reset would, in theory, be accompanied by a "greater set of changes to the game or to the Ranked system."

These dev blogs have been releasing more frequently as of late, so expect to see more news on Season 4's competitive scene and beyond before the next season gets underway.