Overwatch

No Overwatch League Team Signed The Game’s Most Notable Female Pro To Their Roster

LOS ANGELES, Calif.—During yesterday’s Overwatch League media day in Los Angeles, one of the most mentioned names belonged to a player who’s not even on an OWL team. Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon, a top-level Zarya player who overcame a rash of cheating accusations and threats in 2016, was on the tip of everybody’s tongues, but nowhere…

No One Knows How To Run An Overwatch League Team Yet

When it launches tonight, Overwatch League will become the biggest undertaking in the history of esports. Backed by massive investments from sports billionaires and tech companies, esports, if you choose to believe the hype, has finally grown up. And yet, despite the fact that Overwatch League is ostensibly a global undertaking with teams “based” on…

Report: Twitch Signs Two-Year Deal With Overwatch League Worth At Least $90 Million 

Overwatch League’s two-year deal to stream its matches on Twitch is the biggest such contract in esports history, worth at least $90 million, according to a new report from Sports Business Journal Twitch will stream all regular season and postseason contests and serve as the sole broadcaster for half of the league’s 12 weekly matches,…

A Viewer’s Guide To Overwatch League

Overwatch League kicks off tomorrow in the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, CA with a trio of matches starting at 7 pm Eastern. Blizzard will broadcast the league’s games via both Twitch and Major League Gaming. Preseason matches only broadcasted on MLG, which had the dubious benefit of no available viewership statistics. Now that the debut…

Fan Creates New Overwatch Maps That Look Like The Real Deal

It would be easy to look at this video, listen to the music, check the quality of the design and lighting and models and think hey, these are our first looks at some new maps for Overwatch. But nope, they’re all the work of 3D artist Joshua Llorente. NOTE: I published this post in error…

There’s an official Overwatch League app now. It gives you quick access to match streams, VODs, a season schedule, team standings, results (with or without spoilers), alerts that matches are happening, and a few other odds and ends. Seems useful! You can grab it for free on the App Store or Google Play

Genji On The Roof

Liam “Mangachu” Campbell is a Canadian Overwatch player who’s quite good, as shown in his use of Eichenwalde’s rooftops to strike with Genji’s ultimate. Campbell is still a free agent, if any teams are still looking to fill out their roster.

Overwatch APEX Tournament Series Is Over

Ahead of the kickoff week of Blizzard’s Overwatch League, South Korean cable network OGN announced that its long-running Overwatch APEX league is over. A statement from OGN went into the specifics: We did our best and agreed to most of Blizzard’s conditions on continuing the competition, but we were notified that Blizzard was preparing a…

Blizzard Can’t Leave Mercy Alone

All of the support players in Overwatch League will have a tough time during the first competitive season, slated to start next Wednesday night, and it’s all because of the character Mercy. The angelic healer has undergone multiple makeovers in the past few months, all with the intent to balance her most controversial ability: the…

How Not To Stop Your Nerdy Child From Becoming A Pro Gamer

Pro gaming has yet to become normalized enough for the parents of America to feel proud of their offspring for pursuing it professionally. At least, not until those children defy all expectations and start making hundreds of thousands of dollars in tournament winnings. Parents of pro gamers told the Wall Street Journal all the tactics…

Overwatch Fan’s Cairo Map Looks Good Enough To Be In The Game

Overwatch already has one map set in Egypt, but fan Joshua llorente has made a very good case for the addition of another. llorente spent two months creating his own Cairo map from scratch in Epic’s Unreal Engine. “All assets including textures and models are created by me,” he said on Reddit. “No downloaded content.” It’s…

I Just Got A Bunch Of Overwatch Gift Cards, And I’m Terrified To Use Them

Before we went out for Christmas dinner, my mom handed me a small bag stuffed with wrapping paper. I dug into it, expecting to find candy, money, or some mix of the two. I did find those things, but also Overwatch loot box gift cards. I was ecstatic. A day later, however, I’ve realized that…

Junkrat Thinks Overwatch Is A Stealth Game

Watch your back, Solid Snake. Seriously. Junkrat is about as far from a stealth character as you can get in Overwatch, or video games in general, for that matter. He makes things go boom. Also, himself. But there is a certain subtle art to deploying his ult, the explosive riptire. I’ve just never seen anybody…

Overwatch League Players Keep Getting In Trouble

Overwatch is still young as far as sports go, but if you’re a professional player of anything, whether that means basketball or Russian knight fighting, you’re gonna be held to a higher standard than most. Overwatch League’s players are having trouble with that. There’s still about a month left until Blizzard kicks off the first…

Overwatch‘s Top 500 Has An Alternate Account Problem

During a recent stream, professional Overwatch streamer aimbotcalvin pointed out four different accounts in the game’s top 20 competitive ranking list that he said belonged to him. Viewers got angry and said he was hogging slots that other deserving players could occupy. “Earn it,” he replied, laughing. Aimbotcalvin isn’t the only Overwatch player with multiple…

Overwatch Players Are Actually Embracing Moira

It takes Overwatch fans mere minutes to churn out fanart for each newly-released character, but a few long weeks or months to welcome them into their competitive mode teams. But for maybe the first time ever, Overwatch’s newest hero, the mad scientist Moira, has been immediately accepted into the game’s competitive community with wide open…

Overwatch‘s Zarya Got Me To Start Lifting Weights

Overwatch features characters with body types and backgrounds that are not often seen in pop culture, let alone first person shooters. For many of us who rarely see ourselves reflected in media, this cast can seem radical and even life-changing—especially in my case. Zarya, Overwatch’s Russian strong-woman tank, inspired me to start weightlifting. This piece…

The Internet Reacts To Hanzo’s New Skin

Overwatch fandom is split on Hanzo’s new skin. Love it or hate it, they can’t stop drawing it and talking about it. Hanzo’s new skin for the Overwatch winter event was inspired by a single panel in last year’s holiday comic, “Reflections.” Some fans were hoping it’d be closer to that illustration, or at least…

Top Symmetra Player’s Overwatch Bans Won’t Stop Him From Picking His Favorite Hero

“Report him,” an Overwatch playersaid over team chat last week, referencing a Twitch streamer who goes by Stevooo. It was right after Stevooo hastily locked down the hero Symmetra. In text, the player then politely asked all 12 of the match’s players to report Stevooo “for poor teamwork.” Another player responded: “I did 5 times…

Orisa Gets Puppy

The new Overwatch holiday event, Winter Wonderland, has begun. ‘Tis the season for new skins and emotes, now with puppies (!!!). This event’s smorgasbord of skins sees everybody ready to frolic about in the wintery weather… except Junkrat, who looks like he just got back from an excruciatingly long day at the beach, or a…