An “early build” of Overwatch 2 is the title that will be unveiled at the beginning of the Overwatch League’s 2022 season, a league spokesman confirmed to The Dallas Morning News on Friday.
Overwatch League vice president Jon Spector also announced in a tweet that OWL will have a start date in April 2022, contradicting rumors that OWL would have a one-year delay between seasons.
I’ve seen a lot of speculation about a 2022 launch date for OWL. We can confirm that our plan is to start the next season in April 2022. We’ll be releasing more details about the 2022 roster setup schedules and general information about our 2022 season shortly as April approaches.
– Jon Spector (@Spex_J) September 3, 2021
That the game is an early build suggests that not all of the components would be ready for a full release, but that the gameplay, mechanics, heroes, and maps would be mature enough for a professional game – that would mean the early build is okay shape.
While this answers a huge question about the future of the league, which started in 2018 and ran its first four seasons at Overwatch in 2016, there are a few other unknowns about the 2022 version of OWL as a playoff approach (the Dallas Fuel play their first game on September 21 at 9 p.m. CST).
That also means there will be a six-month offseason.
A new game could mark the first domino of a crucial off-season for all Activision Blizzard sports. The pandemic forced both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League to move away from live events while the 2020 games and most of 2021 stayed online.
A lawsuit against the giant game developer alleging a toxic work environment is affecting its esports titles, with some OWL and CDL sponsorships being removed from live streams while brands investigate their relationships. The league’s success could be fueled by the success of the sequel to the 2016 hit. In order to get more viewers for the professional games, casual gamers would have to invest more in the game and the scene.
The current version of the game has had limited content added over the past 16 months, with Echo being the last hero added (April 14th). Hero pools helped keep the gameplay interesting as they forced teams to get creative with compositions throughout the season, but Overwatch 2 has to land in more than one way.
That means at least that the league format changes from 6-on-6 to 5-on-5, with only one tank being played in compositions. The Fuel would be well placed for that as they only have Lee “Fearless” Eui-seok and Choi “Hanbin” Han-been on their roster, but other teams with reserve tanks would be forced to make tough decisions.
The Dallas Fuel finished the regular season with the most league points in the west (17) and are positioned for their best result in franchise history. How the league and its teams react to a new game and format in the off-season will determine the future of esports.
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More esports coverage from The Dallas Morning News can be found here.
For more information on fuel, see the Dallas Morning News here.
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