The Overwatch team has been preparing to conclude Season 2 as we gear up to Season 3, and we’re incredibly thankful for all the player feedback we’ve seen over the past months. We’d like to take some time to reflect on this past season and give you a sense of where we’re going in the future.

Here’s more info about what we’re doing now and how we’re thinking about longer-term changes.

Ramattra stormed the hero lineup

We watched Ramattra closely when he first released, including community gameplay and conversations. We started asking ourselves some challenging questions about his kit’s performance based on your feedback—What was the community’s first impressions of his kit? Is his kit approachable? Which abilities and moments are resonating with our community? What are the sore spots?

The next set of questions focused more on his viability—How’s he performing as players learn how to play him? What compositions is he fitting into? Are there early dom...

Welcome back, heroes, for part 2 of our matchmaking series! In part 1, we talked about how matchmaking works: It’s an incredibly complex system that needs to consider many different inputs to make every single game as fair as possible. For part 2, we’re going to address some community concerns regarding the matchmaker from the perspective of the competitive game mode. Let’s get into it! 

TL/DR

• Your ranked games are formed based on your internal matchmaking rating (MMR), regardless of your displayed skill tier. MMR changes based on the result of each match, with the amount of MMR you ...

Hi everyone!

This piece is aimed at looking at some of the topics that have come up in the community over the course of Season 2. This won‘t be comprehensive enough to look at everything that players are talking about, but our intent is to do this every few weeks, so we will be able to start diving into smaller topics as we go. Also, the goal here is to keep you up to date on what we’re thinking and planning, but not necessarily to be the source for all the reasoning and detail behind those decisions.

So let’s get to it!

The new Ranked mode suffered from poor comprehension. There was confusion around players’ real rank and how that translated to their skill level, difficulty forming groups with friends, and a negative impression of the matchmaker when players of different ranks were put in the same match (even if their skill levels were similar). We will be implementing some changes in S3 and quite a few more in S4 all aimed at creating more clarit...

In 2023, the fifth Overwatch World Cup competition will crown the first World Cup champion since 2019. Reigning champion United States and three-time winner South Korea will try to build on their legacy with another gold medal, but the launch of Overwatch 2 brings new competitors to the scene! Will a new champion be crowned this year? It is time to meet your competing countries and regions.

World Cup Trials and Online Qualifier Competing Countries and Regions

The program will consist of three conferences, each with two separate groups of six countries and regions. These countries and regions have been selected based on Overwatch 2 player population data. In February, competition committee applications begin. Additionally, each participating country and region will host World Cup Trials over three weekends in February (Feb. 10–12, Feb. 17–19, and Feb. 24–26). Competition committees will be responsible for organizing additional team tryou...