Overwatch Competitive Play available on PC today, PS4 and Xbox One next week
Blizzard have announced that their competitive play patch for Overwatch is now live on PC, and will arrive on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sometime next week.
Competitive Play “offers a more serious experience than our Quick Play or Weekly Brawl” according to Blizzard, and is only available to those over level 25. The game mode works in seasons, with season one launching when the patch does. Players will have to take part in ten placement matches in order to obtain their initial “skill level”, receiving a number between 1 and 100. These skill ratings will be visible to all players at the start of each match, and will increase or decrease following it depending on a number of factors — primarily your own performance and the skill of the other players in the match.
Competitive Play will be available for four seasons, with each season lasting two and a half months. Stats are reset every season, and at the end of the 2.5 month period, there will a be a two week off-season before the new season begins. Players will have to participate in the ten placement matches every season. There are a few changes to the game modes which can be read about on Blizzard’s website — mainly lengthening game time to ensure a definitive winner is producer, as well as introducing sudden deaths during ties.
Competitive Mode is now live on PC and will arrive on PS4 and Xbox One next week, once Sony and Microsoft approve the patches. Blizzard also notified players that the first summer season of Overwatch’s competitive play will be shorting — clocking in at one and a half months instead of two and a half. “This is because our Competitive Play patch is launching in the middle of the Summer 2016 season, which technically began on June 1 (a minor side-effect of our real-world season system),” Blizzard explained. “As a result, our inaugural season will include approximately 1.5 months of play rather than the full 2.5 months, ending on August 18 across all platforms. The Fall 2016 season will then begin as scheduled following our standard two-week off-season break.”
