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On top of recent news, the development team blog has revealed how the new competitive mode will work in Overwatch 2. Some of the biggest news include the removal of SR, the focus on skill divisions, and a longer time to assess skill. While not a big chance from the original Overwatch, these changes incentivize more cooperation and less frustration for all players.

Rank changes in Overwatch 2

For players in the original Overwatch, SR was a four-digit number that showed your competitive rank. Overwatch 2 replaces SR with skill divisions, essentially removing the exact number from fans’ knowledge. Instead of having an exact number, the game now introduces divisions within skill tiers. So, with tiers like Bronze to Grand Master remaining the same, each tier will have five divisions. These divisions go from lowest (5) to highest (1), before the chance of ranking up exists.

For placement matches, the system is changing. Before, the standard was a five-game span as an unranked player, where your SR would be determined. This time around, the placement games are much wider, not ranking players until their first seven wins or first twenty losses. Players who played competitive before Overwatch 2 will have a modified rank, lower than their original Overwatch rank due to things like 5v5 and new metas.

Apart from that, the team is also looking to add skill decay depending on their time away from the game. After matching with lower-ranked players, it will adjust over time to whatever that player’s correct skill tier is.

Competitive UI changes, game reports and more

As mentioned in an earlier blog, profile borders are gone, alongside the game showing each player’s SR. Alongside that, the new scoreboard shows everyone’s information on both teams. This replaces the medal system, something that causes toxicity in ranked play. Along with giving players clearer information, the game also introduces updated post-game reports.

Much like the game replays you can access in your Career Profile, game reports are summaries of your recent matches. It will include things like what heroes you played, your statistics and how they compare to average statistics. In the future, the team aims to add things like having these reports stay after you log off, a timeline feature that allows you to see your best or worst plays, and so on. This gives players a better chance to look over recent matches instead of just moving on to the next game.

As for competitive cosmetics, like the top 500 career icons, those are changed to titles. Essentially, there now are competitive titles that you can only earn by hitting specific ranks. You can show those off in-game, but they only are available for the season after you earn them.

The Overwatch 2 team ended the blog post by saying that this is only the beginning of competitive changes.