In a recent community update, the head of Overwatch League Sean Miller confirmed the 2022 season will have global tournaments in Hawaii.
Much like the past two years, Hawaii is the area where the western teams go to compete on a more level playing field against the eastern teams. Yet, 2022 brings new expectations, as Miller also confirmed the league’s focus to play a future global tournament as a true LAN, with all teams together in the same place.
Project Aloha 2022 is officially a go and we're excited to see East and West clash at Midseason Madness! 🏖️
I can also confirm we're still targeting a live, LAN global postseason and will share more on that as we firm up details.#OWL2022 https://t.co/mn2gLp0UBv
— Sean Miller (@sean_mmills) May 26, 2022
Overwatch League talks more about patches, skins
With the 2022 Overwatch League season playing out on Overwatch 2, fans have been asking about how balance patches will apply for this season. Minor ones like small buffs/nerfs and user interface changes went through from the first to the second week of competition already, for example, with little to no mention.
But now, with the next update, the team confirmed major balance patches will only happen between tournaments. For example, if a big patch happens during the Kickoff Clash, the patch will not go live until after the tournament wraps up.
With that news, the team confirmed the most recent beta patch will not go live until the Midseason Madness qualifiers begin. This patch is the one that includes the Zenyatta kick’s boosted knockback, the Mercy super jump changes and more.
As for skins, the Kickoff Clash skin of Luchador Reaper dropped recently. In this update, Miller also confirmed that the winners of the season’s four tournaments will get their own skins in the game. However, the Kickoff Clash will have two winners’ skins because the Hawaii tournaments will start from the Midseason Madness onward. As a result, one eastern and western team will get their own team skin in the Kickoff Clash.
One big change, from a design standpoint, is the victors will get a team-specific version of the tournament skin. For example, if Shanghai win the East in the Kickoff Clash, they will get a Shanghai-themed Luchador Reaper skin.
