Overwatch’s professional esports league has been a bit quiet of recent in terms of its presumed 2022 season. Readers will recall that there were rumors of the league taking a year off that OWL quashed, followed by plans for a start window of April 2022, to say nothing of sponsors dropping the league due to Activision Blizzard’s ongoing scandal. Now, a league update post confirms that the fifth season of OWL competition will indeed be going on regardless, beginning on Thursday, May 5th.
This year sees the East Region with 7 teams and the West Region with 13 teams. Each team will play a minimum of 24 regular-season matches, including six seeding matches per tournament cycle, with an extra day and week per cycle to “achieve a more balanced strength of schedule.” The regional tournament format will be expanded this year, adding a Midseason Madness tournament, while midseason and postseason tournaments will both feature a hefty prize pool of at least $1M. There’s also been some tweaks to how teams earn points with an eye on rewarding top performing teams yet keeping the field close.
A schedule for the opening matches of the 2022 season has already been shared online, while the video below offers some more details and attempts at comedy.
