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Overwatch Beta
The game's public beta began on October 27, 2015, shortly after 5pm UT. The beta started simultaneously in the Americas and Europe regions, with Asia to be added later. Upon the start of the beta, Overwatch swiftly became top game on Twitch.tv, quickly reaching more than 200,000 viewers in total. -
Overwatch Released
The original Overwatch game was released by Blizzard on May 24, 2016, for PC platforms, as well as eighth generation console platforms PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. -
Competitive Play Season 1
Had a 1-100 Skill Rating scale and a Sudden Death system if both teams reached their objective in the initial attack and defense rotation. During Sudden Death, one additional round was played where the attacking team was chosen by a coin flip. The attackers had to capture or escort the payload to the first point within 1 minute and 45 seconds. If they succeeded, the attacking team won the match. If they failed, the defending team won. -
Competitive Play Season 2
1-100 Skill Rating scale expanded to a 1-5000 scale.
Sudden Death system replaced by the Time Bank system. -
Competitive Play Season 3
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 4
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 4
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 5
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 5
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 6
Control map rounds reduced from a best-of-five to a best-of-three.
Duration of each competitive season reduced from three months to two months. -
Competitive Play Season 7
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 8
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 9
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 10
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 11
No Changes -
Competitive Season 12
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 13
Off-season duration reduced from three days to two hours. -
Competitive Play Season 14
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 15
Off-season removed. Henceforth the following season will begin immediately after the previous season ends. -
Competitive Play Season 16
No Changes -
Competitive Play Season 17
Ended two weeks early to implement a special three week season of Competitive Play that introduced the Role Queue system. Referred to as "Role Queue Beta" in player profiles to those that participated. -
Competitive Play Season 18
Role Queue system implemented with players having independent Skill Ratings for each of the three roles. Number of placement matches required decreased from 10 to 5. -
Overwatch Iron Galaxy Version for the Nintendo Switch
A version of the game developed by Iron Galaxy for the Nintendo Switch was later released on October 15, 2019. -
Competitive Play Season 19
Map pool system introduced. Each season had a specific selection of maps and only those maps were available for the entirety of the season.
Map pool: Assault: Hanamura, Temple of Anubis, Volskaya Industries
Escort: Dorado, Havana, Watchpoint: Gibraltar
Hybrid: Eichenwalde, Hollywood, King's Row
Control: Busan, Lijiang Tower, Nepal