Overwatch League Will Be Played Online And Cancels All Other Live Events

Around last week, the Overwatch League canceled all live events due to the coronavirus pandemic. Matches will be played, but no competitions will take place in-person. Instead, all matches will be played with online tournaments similar to multiple other games such as Rainbow Six Siege and League Of Legends.

“We are NOT canceling #OWL2020. Out of concern for fans, players, staff, and others we have just canceled upcoming Homestand events," the Overwatch League tweeted. "We WILL be playing matches with our teams this month, next month, and beyond – and these matches will be broadcast to fans. The ability to do this in the face of unforeseen challenges like COVID-19 is part of what makes our business so unique. More details to come.”

According to a blog post by from the Overwatch League, teams will compete in three regions. The Vancouver Titans and Dallas Fuel will join in with the four other West Coast teams for one region. The four teams in China will form the second region. The third region consists of the teams on the Atlantic coast, along with the Toronto Defiant, London Spitfire and Paris Eternal.

This set-up should eliminate any reason to have in-person comeptition. “In the course of playing this portion of the 2020 schedule, each team will play the amount of matches necessary to catch them up to the total amount of matches they had been scheduled to play through the midseason point of the original schedule," the post reads. "This means Pacific Conference teams will generally play more frequently than teams in the Atlantic Conference. The schedule was designed to maximize fairness between teams, factoring in the total amount of matches played each week."

This new schedule does throw away the planned approach for 2020. It seems Blizzard had all sorts of ways to keep each team's schedule balanced in terms of hosting games and travelling to compete. However, plans for the 2020 Overwatch League playoffs haven't been determined yet, so expect more announcements regarding the playoffs as they get nearer.

So, what are your thoughts on the changes Overwatch League for their tournament? Are you excited about watching all the matches online? Whatever your thoughts may be, let us know in the comments below.