Blizzard Entertainment has announced plans to “revitalise” Overwatch 2 with its upcoming ninth season, outlining a range of changes designed to improve the player experience. In a new blog post, the development team has reassured players that feedback is being heard, and that changes will be made with “greater transparency” going forward.
The flagship change set to arrive this season is the game’s new Competitive Play ranking system. Per Blizzard, this will now be more accurate and help to “convey the meaning behind the mathematical complexity of a modern matchmaker.” In simpler terms, players will now have greater understanding of their ranking, and how they’re matched with other players.
As part of this update, players will also be able to see changes to their ranking after every match, to understand how progress works, and why ranks go up or down. As revealed, this information will be presented as a complete breakdown, with analysis for win/loss streaks, and how the tide of battle turns.
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With this new ranking system, Blizzard has also announced a major reset to make the playing field fair for everyone.
“With both the changes to Competitive Play and the broader changes to gameplay starting this season, we feel this is a perfect opportunity for everyone to start fresh as they compete on the ranked leaderboards,” team announced. “To accomplish this, we’re reintroducing Placement Matches and resetting everyone’s competitive Skill Rank.”
All players will need to run through a new round of Placement Matches, with these providing “a high-stakes opportunity to make big gains in determining your new starting rank.” Each match counts for “a lot” so players will need to come in prepared, according to Blizzard. A new, higher rank – Champion – is also being introduced as part of these changes.
Beyond these tweaks for competition, Blizzard has also revealed a number of changes coming to core gameplay shortly, with these delivering “a more consistent feel to firing and landing your shots on your opponents” as well as tweaks for burst damage and in-game healing.
You can read more about the changes coming to Overwatch 2 on the Blizzard Entertainment website. The game’s next season launches on 13 February 2024.
