Blizzard Kick Off Overwatch Competitive Play Beta

Competitive play is one of the features of Overwatch that many fans of the game have been waiting for, as it offers the chance for them to take the game a little more seriously and find out just how good they are. After the competitive play mode was removed from Overwatch during its beta phase based on player feedback, Blizzard wants to make sure the mode is just right when they finally reintroduce it to the game. To this end, Blizzard has opened up a Public Test Region in North America, which allows PC players to test out the competitive play mode right now.

PC Players all over the world are eligible to take part in the PTR, although there are some restrictions. Firstly, the PTR servers are all hosted in the North American region, meaning that players from Europe and Asia may not have an optimal experience playing them on thanks to latency. Also, as with most beta tests, any progress or rankings you earn playing competitive mode on the PTR won’t carry over to the standard game.

The Competitive Play mode adds a number of new features to the game for players over level 25. Upon starting Competitive Mode, players will participate in 10 placement matches, where their initial ranking will be determined based on their performance. There are a few changes to the match format for competitive players to get used to as well, including a points system, tweaks to ensure certain maps and modes don’t favour a single team and a sudden death mode in the event of a tie.

If you’re a PC player clamouring to get into competitive play, you can jump in now, however if you want to wait for the full patch, it is due out later this month, so there isn’t long to wait. Currently, the beta is unavailable for players on the PS4 and Xbox One and it is expected that Blizzard will announce the release date of the update in the next week.