Is Blizzard adding a new tournament mode to Overwatch 2? Dev acknowledges ‘plans’ for new competitive content

It’s what we’ve all been waiting for.
Ana shoots a healing dart toward Zarya.
Screengrab via Blizzard Entertainment

Shortly after VALORANT announced that it will have a new tournament-style game mode called Premier, Blizzard systems designer Gavin Winters teased a new competitive mode that could be coming to Overwatch 2 soon.

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When Riot Games unveiled the VALORANT game mode, top Overwatch players were clamoring for Blizzard to make a similar tournament-style game mode. And while nothing is confirmed yet, Winters acknowledged that OW2 developers are working on some type of new competitive piece of content.

While it wasn’t framed around a tournament mode, he certainly left the door open for interpretation. In a discussion about how frustrating it is for Grandmaster players who want to queue up with friends, Winters said Blizzard isn’t going to change its rule about having GM players queue up with too many other players.

But the developer is looking into alternative options that would allow high-level gamers to play competitively without it affecting the normal ranked ladder.

“We acknowledge how badly it sucks not to be able to play with your friends,” Winters said. “Right now we don’t have a plan to change this rule, but we do have plans, we are thinking about ways, that let GM players play together in a competitive setting that isn’t necessarily our competitive role queue.”

Related: Blizzard dev confirms you were right about your Overwatch 2 rank being lower than it should

Winters didn’t confirm any other details regarding Blizzard’s “plans,” but considering the developer’s willingness to spin off successful ideas from other games, like when Overwatch moved to free-to-play with a battle pass system in Overwatch 2, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that a tournament system could be on the horizon.


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Author
Max Miceli
Senior Staff Writer. Max graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a journalism and political science degree in 2015. He previously worked for The Esports Observer covering the streaming industry before joining Dot where he now helps with Overwatch 2 coverage.