I’m going to be watching this with interest - I’m in the minority, but I really enjoyed the overwatch league, and the city-based team aspect was what got me interested in the first place.
While it’s a shame to lose that aspect, I’m glad that OW as an e-sport isn’t completely dead and there’s going to be some place for a lot of the familiar faces from OWL.
It’s notable that China was (again) conspicuously absent - looks like Blizzard are still some way off from working through their existing woes there.
Edit: I also just found out that Australia isn’t included as part of the Asia-Pacific region, so Australian players will only be able to join as one of the two non-resident slots on a team. This seems absurd given the strong showings we’ve had at every World Cup (barring the disastrous meme team for the first year) and that we actually had a thriving Contenders scene with Maccas as an actual sponsor!
I’m going to be watching this with interest - I’m in the minority, but I really enjoyed the overwatch league, and the city-based team aspect was what got me interested in the first place.
While it’s a shame to lose that aspect, I’m glad that OW as an e-sport isn’t completely dead and there’s going to be some place for a lot of the familiar faces from OWL.
It’s notable that China was (again) conspicuously absent - looks like Blizzard are still some way off from working through their existing woes there.
Edit: I also just found out that Australia isn’t included as part of the Asia-Pacific region, so Australian players will only be able to join as one of the two non-resident slots on a team. This seems absurd given the strong showings we’ve had at every World Cup (barring the disastrous meme team for the first year) and that we actually had a thriving Contenders scene with Maccas as an actual sponsor!
And Blizzard/Microsoft just laid off most of their esports-related employees. Including those who just presented OWCS.
https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-blizzard-esports-layoffs/