Season 31 is here! Steps to get comp stats to show are in our blog.
Strike
- The strike that was called last week continues, demanding that Activision Blizzard rehire the people fired from Raven Software. You can see pictures of protesters and strikers on the “A Better ABK” Twitter feed.
Overwatch
- Winter Wonderland came out this week with a bunch of new stuff as always. I adore the Orisa Reindeer skin and the upcoming Brigitte skin. Numbani and Gibraltar maps are back after being pulled due to exploits, and Competitive No Limits Season 2 was added to the Arcade. No heroes received changes, but there were a handful of bug fixes. (Patch notes)
Overwatch 2
- This week Blizzard invited a number of content creators to attend an online meeting about future plans around Overwatch 2. Invitees are being held to an NDA and are therefore are not allowed to discuss what was talked about at the meeting. They were, however, allowed to mention they attended the meeting and most expressed a lot of excitement over the future of the game.
- Community reaction to the creators talking about the existence of the meeting has been all over the place, but a few have incorrectly assumed that the attendees were paid by Blizzard directly to say good news about the game, and some are even harassing these creators. DO NOT HARASS CREATORS, OR ANYONE.
- My speculation on what was covered? Less about the game itself, and more about Blizzard’s plans at supporting content creators when it comes to Overwatch 2.
Esports
- The Overwatch Path to Pro team announced on Reddit that they are going to be active in 2022 but will begin later in the year than previous seasons. Due to the transition between Overwatch and Overwatch 2, the framework is causing some weirdness for the team. Formats, dates, tournament qualifications, and prizing are still pending.
- Contenders will be active in the same regions as 2021: Australia, China, Europe, Korea, North America.
- Contenders will have about the same amount of activity and content as 2021 between events, matches, broadcasts, and LAN events.
- Kraft Sports Group announced that they are acquiring a spot in the Call of Duty League (CDL) and are partnering with Oxygen Esports to operate both the CDL team and the Boston Uprising, its Overwatch League team. The Uprising said on Twitter that this changes a lot behind the scenes, but management, staff, and existing roster are not being changed.