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Blizzard Details Everything You Need To Know About Overwatch's New Competitive Play Mode
With Overwatch's new ranked mode out in the wild (on PC at least), Blizzard has compiled a primer to get competition-hungry players up to speed.
In a post on the official Overwatch website, Blizzard gives a full rundown of what Overwatch's new competitive mode entails, starting with news that PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners will have to wait a little while longer for the update (Blizzard is currently targeting next week). Once available on your platform of choice, you'll have to reach level 25 to enter competitive mode, then play a series of 10 placement matches to earn your skill rating, which lies somewhere between 1 (i.e., Bastion exploiter) and 100 (i.e., Tracer phenom).
The post also provides information on season length (the inaugural summer season will be slightly abbreviated due to the late start, so get cracking!), as well as some format changes to specific game modes: Control maps will now be best-of-five affairs, and the scoring systems for Escort, Hybrid, and Assault maps will be slightly more complicated (click the link below for full details).
Last but not least, Blizzard details what kind of rewards players can expect. Just finishing the placement matches will net you a new spray and player icon every season, but you'll also earn Competitive Points throughout the season (plus bonus points based on your final standing) that can be used to buy some nifty looking golden guns:
Blizzard also outlines some revisions to penalties should you be prone to rage quitting, so be sure to check out the post in full for all the info.
[Source: Overwatch Official Website]
Our Take
I'm super interested to
see how Overwatch's competitive seasons play out, and how climbing the ranks
works in conjunction with matchmaking. Many have questioned Overwatch's staying
power given Blizzard's cosmetics-only approach to progression. As someone who is firmly in the
"play because it's fun" camp, I still won't mind having a extra little bit
of motivation to keep coming back.
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