With the hugely ambitious Overwatch League set to launch later this year, Blizzard is making some changes to the competitive side of their popular hero shooter. In a new video, which you can check out above, Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan lays out Blizzard’s plan to make Competitive Season 6 tighter, better balanced, and less discouraging for longtime players.
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Probably the most immediately obvious change is that Competitive seasons will now run for two months instead of three. There was a felling three-month seasons tended to fizzle out towards the end, but one month was too short, so Blizzard is playing it down the middle. The shorter seasons mean you’ll earn fewer rewards, but Blizzard will be able to pack more seasons into a year, so it should balance out.
Control maps will be undergoing changes – now they’ll only be best of three instead of best of five, as Blizzard noticed “an inordinate number of these matches are going into overtime, resulting in very long match times.” Blizzard is also promising high-tier matches will be better balanced – being paired with scrubs that barely give you any SR should become less common, although you may have to wait longer for matches.
Those are the main shakeups, although skill rating decay and placement matches are also being tweaked. Kaplan promises these aren’t the final changes coming to Overwatch Competitive Play:
“The Competitive Play mode is an ongoing process. We will never just let it stagnate. We will always keep trying changes and trying to make it better.”
For those unfamiliar, Overwatch Competitive Play gives more serious players a chance to earn points and increase their rank over the course of a limited season. It’s also the only place to earn Competitive Points, which can unlock certain special cosmetics.
Overwatch Competitive Season 5 ends on August 28, and Season 6 should kick off shortly after that. You can check out WWG’s latest Overwatch coverage here.
