All Overwatch 2 Competitive changes: New ranked skill tiers explained

Overwatch 2 represents a new era for the iconic hero shooter franchise, and alongside that new era is a collection of changes coming to the game’s foundational competitive move.

Competitive play has been a vital aspect of Overwatch since the game was released, so improving the competitive and ranked aspect of the game before the launch of Overwatch 2 has been a necessary undertaking for the dev team at Blizzard. Blizzard’s goal was to make a competitive mode that is both welcoming to new players and rewarding for returning players.

From the process of unlocking competitive mode to placement matches to skill tiers, there are a number of significant changes that have been made for Overwatch 2.

How to access competitive mode

Any player who has already unlocked competitive mode in Overwatch will have immediate access to competitive in Overwatch 2.

For new players who create an account on or after Oct. 4, they will have to play through a guided First-Time User Experience (FTUE) and then win 50 Quick Play matches before unlocking competitive. This is to give “new players time to prepare for the higher expectations that come with competitive.”

Goodbye Skill Rating, hello Skill Tier Divisions

The original Skill Rating system, which assigns a player a numerical number value that fits into one of several rank categories, is gone (to a degree). The same rank tiers exist, Bronze through Grand Masters, but each rank has five divisions, with five being the lowest and one being the highest. Each division has approximately a 100 SR range. The top 500 players will not have any rank divisions.

Players will receive changes to their skill division every seven wins or 20 losses, instead of after every single game. This is to give the ranking system a better overall understanding of your competitive performance while taking pressure off each individual match.

Placement matches

Instead of playing five placement matches without a rank, you’ll be unranked until your first competitive update after your first seven wins or 20 losses. Players who were ranked before Overwatch 2 will have their rank modified post-launch; most players will find their adjusted rank to be slightly lower when they first start playing.