Overwatch is one of Blizzard’s most popular games, and has experienced an unprecedented rise among e-Sports fans. This was cemented by the creation of the Overwatch League, which broke expectations with its successful launch in 2018. But with the rumors of Overwatch 2 in the works, how will Overwatch League adapt?
There have been whispers about an Overwatch sequel for some time now, but now Blizzard has confirmed that Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV are in the works, unfortunately at the expense of a cancelled upcoming StarCraft game. Both upcoming games are expected to be Blizzard’s headlining announcements at this year’s BlizzCon. Other than that, not a whole lot is known about Overwatch 2.
Yet, lots of people aren’t done with the first Overwatch, especially on the professional level. Overwatch League is more popular than ever, even in the second season of the competition. There are more teams for fans to root for, which means more fan-favorite players. The Overwatch League is even switching to a home-and-away system, modelling themselves more after professional sports leagues. This would require a lot more infrastructure on the part of the teams and Blizzard itself, which is a huge investment. It’s safe to say, Overwatch League doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon.
That begs the question: how will Overwatch League transition over to Overwatch 2? If Overwatch 2 is announced at this year’s BlizzCon, that means it will likely be released sometime next year. It is unclear whether Overwatch League will transition to Overwatch 2 soon after release or not. It is possible that the League will transition slowly, maybe even waiting for the end of next year’s season to make the switch. On the other hand, perhaps Overwatch League players will get early access to Overwatch 2, similar to how competitive players in the Fighting Game Community sometimes gets early access to games.
This wouldn't be the first time that Blizzard has updated its eSports scene when they released a sequel. It’s tempting to compare the upcoming Overwatch 2 release to Blizzard’s disastrous transition to StarCraft II, when they sued the Korea e-Sports Players Association, who hosted major StarCraft tournaments and were responsible for much of the popularity of the game’s competitive scene. However, given the fact that Blizzard runs Overwatch League, and has invested a lot of money in its success, it is unlikely that we’ll see a repetition of that debacle.
With how much Blizzard has riding on Overwatch League, it’s more likely that we’ll see something like Valve’s transition from DotA to DotA 2. Valve invited sixteen accomplished DotA e-Sports teams to a special tournament at Gamescom in 2011, ensuring that the new game would get the attention of a new audience. Blizzard might put on a special tournament to promote Overwatch 2 in the same way.
Then again, the entire point might be moot. It isn’t confirmed whether Overwatch 2 will be the same type of game as Overwatch. There’s plenty of speculation that it might be predominantly PvE, similar to Overwatch's special Archives Events like Storm Rising, which would obviously not be very e-Sports-friendly. If Overwatch 2 is a story-based game set in the Overwatch universe, it is very likely that Overwatch League will continue as it always has, never transitioning to the sequel.