The sixth season of the Overwatch League shall be its greatest but, actually. With Overwatch 2 in its first full 12 months and at last within the fingers of gamers worldwide, the League is making sweeping modifications to accompany this new state of issues.

To start out, the Philadelphia Fusion and the Paris Everlasting aren’t any extra. Paris has “relocated” to Vegas to grow to be the Vegas Everlasting, and the Philadelphia Fusion have undergone an entire rebrand, relocating to Seoul to grow to be 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, many 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 based mostly out of South Korea ever because the covid-19 pandemic compelled the League to separate into East and West areas. Whereas it’s unhappy that Philly and Paris now not have groups to name their very own, it is smart that no less than South Korea — being one in every of Overwatch’s greatest markets along with China and the US — has multiple group to symbolize it. Europe deserves multiple group, too, and it positively shouldn’t have misplaced one in every of its two for the sake of one other American group.

Nevertheless, the brand new format the League is proposing may be capable to handle 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 in opposition to Overwatch League groups. (In case you forgot or, extra probably, 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 can have the privilege to get their asses kic… pardon — play — in opposition to Overwatch League groups. As soon as once more, the League shall 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 knowledgeable / novice match pitting Contenders groups in opposition to OWL groups. After that match, common play will resume with OWL groups solely. Within the East, the League shall be expanded to allow Contenders groups to play in opposition to 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 not 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 mentioned of the state of affairs in China, “The League is working immediately 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 shall be very upset.

I’m all the time 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.