As promised, Blizzard has announced the "next chapter" of "Overwatch" pro esports: the Overwatch Champions Series, a multi-regional competition circuit culminating in two major tournaments at Dreamhack.

The Overwatch Champions Series will be run in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa by an esports company owned by the Savvy Games Group in Saudi Arabia.

Tournaments in Asia will be run by WDG, the organizer in South Korea. Each region will have its own open qualifiers and tournaments, and two international competitions will be held: the Dreamhack Dallas Major from May 31 to June 2, and the World Finals, which will be held at Dreamhack Stockholm from November 22 to 24.

"A thriving esports scene is important for a highly competitive game like 'Overwatch 2,' and we are very excited to be working with EFG on the next era of the franchise," said Overwatch 2 Executive Producer Jared Noyce said.

Blizzard stated when it ended the Overwatch League that it was "evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction," so it is not surprising that it is heading toward a more typical esports structure. The idea of establishing an esports league in a format similar to a traditional professional sports league, with city-based teams playing home-and-away matches on a set schedule, was bold but never caught on.

Live competitions, a central element of the Overwatch League plan, were shut down before the Covid-19 pandemic could really get going, and the cost of running teams and the Activision Blizzard workplace scandal (which drove away a major advertiser) dealt further blows Activision Blizzard was to close in May 2023. Activision first acknowledged that the Overwatch League was having problems in May 2023 and finally terminated it in November 2023, but promised to "revitalize the esports program in the near future."

Even with the move to a typical esports format, the Overwatch Champions League faces some major challenges. One is that Blizzard does not yet have a publishing partner for Overwatch in China: Chinese players lost access to this and other Blizzard games in January 2023 due to a disagreement with NetEase, a situation that has Not yet. The company did not comment on this situation in today's announcement of the new league, but in a statement provided to PC Gamer, Blizzard said that "OWCS competitions will only be offered in countries that currently have ongoing support for the Overwatch 2 Live Service," and that China currently has no such support.

Another issue is the current state of Overwatch 2, which Associate Editor Tyler Colp recently described as "tumultuous."

In early January, Blizzard announced major changes to the game, giving all players the ability to self-heal, support players, reducing their dependence on them, and changing what had been "a game that celebrates teamwork" to "a game where the fastest (or biggest) gun wins."

"By minimizing the opportunity for support to intervene," writes Korpp, "the distinction between the three roles blurs and the web that holds the team together dissolves together. Instead of being a balletic venue for teamwork, these changes flatten "Overwatch" into a cartoonish shooting gallery.

Simplifying the meta of "Overwatch 2" in this way may help Blizzard's stated goal of reducing casual player frustration in pick-up games. However, pushing complexity to make "Overwatch 2" more accessible to casual players may not bode well for the pro scene.

Blizzard later stated that the addition of self-healing is only "part of a larger set of changes that will be brought to the game" in Season 9. Perhaps this set of changes will add as much as it removes, but for now that uncertainty looms large. In his analysis, however, Korpp warns that "if Blizzard repeatedly over-corrects, players may begin to lose patience as they scramble to keep up with a game they can't seem to figure out themselves."

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