‘Overwatch’ Competitive Mode Goes Live For PC Tonight, PS4 And Xbox One Next Week

Blizzard Entertainment provided an update on Overwatch‘s planned Competitive mode release Tuesday. The new ranked play option with seasons will arrive Tuesday evening for the PC while PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners will have to wait until the week of July 4 to test their skill level.

The Overwatch patch 1.0.5.1 enable Competitive mode is live now on the PC with full patch notes available on Battle.net. Blizzard did take the time to explain why there is a delay between the release of the PC version and the Xbox One and PS4 versions, however.

“We know this isn’t an ideal way to deliver new content, so we’re going to continue to refine our patching processes over the next few months in an effort to sync up our release dates across platforms as closely possible. Although our Battle.net client will always allow us to be more agile on PC, we hope to reach a point where we can release major updates on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 simultaneously,” a Blizzard community manager wrote.

This type of gap between PC and console patch releases is not uncommon. This frequently happens with multi-platform games of all stripes from SMITE to ARK: Survival Evolved to Rainbow Six: Siege. It will actually be impressive for Blizzard to launch on all three platforms at the same time.

The launch of the new Competitive mode does come with another caveat. The first season will be shortened from the planned two-and-a-half-month season to a month and a half. Blizzard will end the first season of ranked multiplayer play on August 18 across the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The seasons will then take a two-week break before starting the Fall 2016 season.

Blizzard will continue the cadence of two and half month seasons followed by a two-week break afterwards. This is to allow the studio time to make any changes based on the previous season before the start of the next.

“We’re super excited to release Competitive Play, and we made the decision to move ahead with a shorter season for two key reasons. One, we want players to be able to start working towards their Competitive Play rewards as soon as possible,” Blizzard explained. “And two, we believe this first season will teach us a lot of about what works well, what doesn’t, and what players are really looking for from a competitive system in Overwatch. Competitive Play is definitely one of those features that will take us a few iterations to get right, and by getting the system out there sooner, we can start making improvements based on your feedback sooner too.”

For those that aren’t sure what Competitive mode entails, Overwatch is adding a new ranked play multiplayer hopper for those that reach level 25 in-game. Players will go through 10 placement matches and will receive a skill rating once complete. This skill rating will then be used to match the player up with another of a similar skill.

All participants in the Overwatch Competitive mode will be able to see each other’s skill rating and should expect their personal rating to go up and down based on their performance. Also, it won’t be a perfect match every time, as players will sometimes be matched up against those less skilled or more skilled than themselves. The good news is if you are overmatched, you’ll gain more skill rating if your side wins and will lose only a little of your skill rating if you lose.

Expect plenty of changes to Competitive mode based on the first season. Blizzard already has many ideas in mind for the Fall 2016 season.

What do you think of Overwatch‘s Competitive mode and the wait for the PS4 and Xbox One to receive it next week? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Image via Overwatch]

[Update: Modified second paragraph now that the patch is live.]