2022 Overwatch League begins on May 5
The Overwatch League is returning for its fifth season on May 5, 2022, confirmed in the Overwatch League’s community update.
Overwatch League or OWL is a professional esports league for Overwatch, an online FPS team-based video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment.
The Overwatch League has been going through many issues and fans have been questioning whether or not the fifth season will happen.
According to a report by The Verge, the League has been busy dealing with talent layoffs and departures, the COVID-19 pandemic, the uncertainty of Overwatch 2 release date, flagging interest in sponsorship problems, and even Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has affected the League management.
However, fans will no longer have to worry about it since the Overwatch League is set for May 5.
Other than the confirmed date, the League has released more details about the fifth season, an outline of the structure, midseason global tournament, prize pool, and a revamp to the postseason-shaping League Points system.
The League has also confirmed in a press release that some parts of Overwatch 2 will be part of the Overwatch League this year. The League will feature the sequel’s five-vs-five system and is set to be a key part of the fifth season. In addition to that, Overwatch 2’s mode called Push will replace the Assault game mode.
Region, structure
The structure of the fifth season released an outline of the season’s major tournaments and milestones. Regions remain mostly the same as in the fourth season of Overwatch League. An exception is made for the New York Excelsior as they are set to compete in their home city in the West Region. This led the East Region with only seven teams remaining and 13 teams for the West Region.
The League has set up each team to at least play 24 regular-season games compared to last year’s low count of only 16 games.
The fifth season of Overwatch League will apply a slightly similar method from the fourth season which takes on four tournaments referred to as “stages” in a year.
It is set to host the first and third tournaments of the year namely KickOff Clash and Summer Showdown only limited on regional and no cross-region competitions involved.
While for the global competition is not scrapped of the board for the fifth season. Fans will have a taste of this competition through the Midseason Madness tournament which features four teams from the East and eight teams from the West region competing in a six-day double-elimination bracket and a prize pool of over $1 million.
While the final tournament is the Countdown Cup is set to have a double “wild card” play-ins for the postseason and a chance will be given for two teams to enter the bracket should they are not qualified through league points.
Additionally, the Head of Overwatch League Sean Miller has confirmed in a community update video that live events will return in the fifth season of the Overwatch League. However, Miller has not provided many details about live events yet.
