Overwatch open beta won't have competitive play

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Blizzard has suspended competitive play so it can "rework" the system.

If you're into the early access portion of the Overwatch open beta, you've likely noticed that competitive play is not currently available. The reason, Game Director Jeff Kaplan revealed in the Overwatch forum, is that Blizzard has decided to overhaul it entirely—and it won't be back until sometime after the game launches.  

“We worked extremely hard to get Competitive Play in the game for Closed Beta. We've been reading feedback from the community and taking it all to heart. As a result, we've temporarily disabled Competitive Play for Open Beta so that we can rework the system and make it better,” Kaplan wrote. “Our plan is to bring back a newly re-designed version of Competitive Play sometime after Overwatch launches.”  

Ranked competitive play was only rolled out about a month ago, so there hasn't been a huge opportunity to see it in action, and as far as testing the basics of the game mechanics, infrastructure, and all that sort of good stuff goes, its absence probably won't make any difference. Even so, suspending such a central component of the game this late in the process is a bit unusual, isn't it?  

The Overwatch open beta early access period runs until 7 pm EDT on May 4, after which the doors will be flung open to everyone until May 9. The full deployment schedule is available at playoverwatch.com.  

Thanks, VG247.

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.