Overwatch League season 6 is bringing huge modifications

The sixth season of the Overwatch League can be its largest but, actually. With Overwatch 2 in its first full 12 months and eventually within the palms of gamers worldwide, the League is making sweeping modifications to accompany this new state of issues.

To begin, the Philadelphia Fusion and the Paris Everlasting aren’t any extra. Paris has “relocated” to Vegas to turn into the Vegas Everlasting, and the Philadelphia Fusion have undergone a whole rebrand, relocating to Seoul to turn into the Seoul Infernal. The Paris to Vegas pipeline had been within the playing cards (heh) for some time, because the Everlasting’s Name of Responsibility League sister group, the Paris Legion, had rebranded to the Vegas Legion on the finish of the 2022 season.

For the Fusion, whereas the franchise is owned by Comcast Spectacor, a lot of the day-to-day operations are managed by notable South Korean esports group T1. All of Fusion’s gamers are Korean, and the group had been primarily based out of South Korea ever because the covid-19 pandemic pressured the League to separate into East and West areas. Whereas it’s unhappy that Philly and Paris not have groups to name their very own, it is sensible that a minimum of South Korea — being considered one of Overwatch’s largest markets along with China and the US — has multiple group to symbolize it. Europe deserves multiple group, too, and it undoubtedly shouldn’t have misplaced considered one of its two for the sake of one other American group.

Nevertheless, the brand new format the League is proposing may be capable to deal with a few of this regional imbalance. Kicking off formally on March twenty third, the Overwatch League is opening as much as enable Contenders groups to compete towards Overwatch League groups. (In case you forgot or, extra seemingly, by no means knew as a result of Blizzard’s been abysmal about its Tier 2 promotion, Contenders is just like the baseball farm system however for Overwatch esports.)

Beginning in February, Contenders groups will play in tournaments to find out who could have the privilege to get their asses kic… pardon — play — towards Overwatch League groups. As soon as once more, the League can be divided into East and West areas, with each coming collectively for LAN tournaments in the summertime and on the finish of the season.

Within the West, the League will kick off with an expert / newbie match pitting Contenders groups towards OWL groups. After that match, common play will resume with OWL groups solely. Within the East, the League can be expanded to allow Contenders groups to play towards OWL groups all 12 months lengthy. This distinction is probably going as a result of the 4 Chinese language groups (Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Chengdu) can’t legally play Overwatch 2, or most different Blizzard video games within the nation, following an finish to an settlement with NetEase to function.

In an e-mail to The Verge, Overwatch League head Sean Miller stated of the scenario in China, “The League is working instantly with groups to make sure minimal disruption of their preparation for the season.”

What meaning is anyone’s guess, but when my Dragons don’t play, I can be very upset.

I’m at all times excited by the Overwatch League, doubly so now that Contenders gamers will get the publicity they’ve wanted for some time now. Hopefully, these season 6 modifications result in a extra equitable and sustainable League sooner or later.

Overwatch League play begins March twenty third.