It’s been three years since we’ve had the Overwatch World Cup, and for those who’ve been waiting, good news for it’s coming back in 2023. Not only that, but this is also going to be bigger than ever with a new game and new players. It goes without saying that the tournament offers new ways of spotlighting the players’ country and region on a global scale.
Stage 1
The upcoming World Cup is divided into three stages. The first one happens in January with Blizzard announcing the 36 countries and regions competing. It’s also the month when the competition committee applications will open. Each competition committee is going to be responsible for organizing tryouts for their country and region, while making sure that it follows the guidelines set by Blizzard.
Stage 2
Stage 2 spans from February to June. In February, Blizzard is going to introduce a new way for players to try and compete for a spot on their team through the World Cup Trials. This is an open tournament where winners earn a direct spot in the tryouts for their teams.
By March, those interested to join the World Cup 2023 can sign up for regular tryouts. Regular tryouts require a Competitive Rank of Diamond and above. If you're interested in playing, it's time to start climbing the ladder now.
In June, it's going to be the World Cup Qualifiers. A total of 36 country and regional teams will compete in six regional qualifiers. A total of 16 teams will move forward to the Overwatch World Cup Group Stage.
Stage 3
This is scheduled sometime in fall 2023. The 16 teams compete in a LAN round-robin group stage with the top eight teams advancing to the Finals. The Finals follow a single-elimination bracket with the World Champion declared.
The first-person shooter game Overwatch 2 was released in October 2022 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. The game introduces a shared environment for PvP modes along with persistent cooperative modes. Aside from some of the major characters being reworked, one big change was reducing the team size in PvP modes from six members to five members.
