Overwatch Free Trial Weekend on Consoles, Competitive Play Season 2, and New Map, Eichenwalde Now Live!
If you haven’t yet had a chance to join the fight for the future on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, then get ready. Assemble your friends and try out Blizzard’s team-based shooter during the Overwatch Free Weekend. Beginning at 4am AEST on September 10, and running until 9am AEST on September 13, we’re making Overwatch’s full roster of 22 heroes and every map available for play in a variety of modes, including Quick Play, Custom Games, and the latest Weekly Brawl. You’ll also be able to level up, earn Loot Boxes, and unlock different customisation options via the Hero Gallery—and, if you like what you play and decide to buy Overwatch: Origins Edition later, you’ll keep whatever progress you made during the weekend. For more details about the console free trial weekend, head to the Official Overwatch website here.
In other news, it’s time to put your Overwatch skills to the test with the second season of Competitive Play, which is NOW LIVE. We’ve also added new map, Eichenwalde, which is available on the PC and Xbox One! PS4 players will receive access to this content shortly.
Since the last season of Competitive Play, the Overwatch team has made some significant changes to the format to deliver an improved player experience. These changes include:
- Skill Rating Changes: Player ratings will be measured from 1 to 5000; this expanded scale should give players more detail about how their skill rating changes on a game-by-game basis. We’re also implementing skill rating decay; now, players with a skill rating above 3000 will need to stay active in order to maintain their status.
- Skill Tiers: We’re introducing seven discrete skill tiers. Depending on their skill rating, players will fall into one of these tiers, but climbing into the next tier is possible as they improve.
- Bronze: 1–1499
- Silver: 1500–1999
- Gold: 2000–2499
- Platinum: 2500–2999
- Diamond: 3000–3499
- Master: 3500–3999
- Grandmaster: 4000–5000
- Grouping Restrictions: Players will be unable to group if they have a skill rating difference of more than 1000 from their potential group mates. However, in the Master and Grandmaster tiers, the difference will need to be less than 500.
- Competitive Points: In season 2, players will now receive 10 points for winning a game. The cost of Golden Weapons will also be multiplied by 10, meaning that golden weapons will now cost 3,000 Competitive Points instead of 300.
- Leaver Penalties: A 10-minute penalty will apply to any players who leave an in-progress match, on top of the existing leaver penalties that applied in Season 1.
You can find an in-depth insight into the changes being implemented for Season 2 on the Official Overwatch Blog here.
