Two recent additions to Overwatch — the option to group up with other players based on a set of filters and the ability to endorse other players for good behavior — are helping to reduce toxicity in the game, according to Blizzard. In a post on the Overwatch forums, game director Jeff Kaplan said that incidences of abuse are down among players in the Americas and Korea. The number of daily players being abusive to others was also down: 28.8 percent in the Americas and 21.6 percent in Korea. Rela

The Overwatch League has a new broadcast partner and it’s one of the most recognizable brands in all of sports: ESPN. The sports network’s parent company, Disney, has signed a deal with Blizzard Entertainment that will bring the Overwatch League to the Disney family of networks starting with the Season 1 Playoffs, the two companies announced on Wednesday evening. The deal also mentions that games would extent to a variety of networks including, ESPN, ESPN 2, Disney XD, ABC and streaming services

The first week of the Overwatch League playoffs are underway. The playoffs started with a surprise announcement that the Gladiators would be benching their star player Chan-hyung “Fissure” Baek. The games kicked off with the Fusion against the Uprising, and Philadelphia got off to a strong start on Dorado. While the Uprising battled back on Oasis, the Philadelphia Fusion claimed Eichenwald after a back and forth brawl and sealed the deal with a clean Volskaya Industries capture. The matches are

Today’s art design stream was all about Overwatch’s next hero, Hammond AKA Wrecking Ball. We also learned a lot about the design process that led to Hammond, and how he became Hero 28. One of those concepts turned into “Ball Guy”, a ball who could turn into a guy and a guy who could turn into a ball. This is already pretty close to the Wrecking Ball of today, but the team really wanted the hero to be cute. This omnic Hammond was cool, but what’s cuter than a real life hamster you could cuddle?

The Overwatch League’s first MVP isn’t a DPS: It’s Seong-Hyun “Jjonak” Bang of the New York Excelsior. Jjonak received 31 first-place votes from a group of coaches, broadcasters, and media to secure his spot as the MVP. Chan-Hyung “Fissure” Baek of the Los Angeles Gladiators earned the second place spot, and the Philadelphia Fusion’s Jae-hyeok “Carpe” Lee came in third. Jjonak has established a legacy as the Zenyatta in the Overwatch League. While other players used the omnic monk to pump out he

The Overwatch hero release is pretty slow, and we haven’t even had the newest hero Wrecking Ball hit live servers yet. Hero 29 might already be right in front of us, and she would be a much-anticipated addition to the game. Here’s the thing: she shows up in the Wrecking Ball origins video. At 0:55, we get our first “in-universe” glimpse at the Queen of Junkertown, crowning Wrecking Ball as the champion of the Scrapyard. Junkrat and Roadhog are tied to the city and Wrecking Ball fought there and

The Overwatch League Playoffs are finally here and after a short break from the long and grueling season, the final six teams are ready to face off. While the league has had three champions over four stages so far, the playoffs will ultimately decide which single team can call themselves the first ever Overwatch League Champions. Each series during the Overwatch League Playoffs will be a best of three matches, with each match consisting of a best of five maps competition. Just like the regular s

Earlier this year, Blizzard released a new Overwatch skin designed specifically to help raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The skin was released on May 8, and was available for purchase through May 21. A selection of streamers ran charity streams which raised additional donations towards the total. Blizzard also partnered with a few streamers for a charity event stream which raised over $130,000 on its own. In celebration of these very successful charity events and the money

So, he escaped Horizon and then upgraded his escape pod to be an incredibly deadly weapon of war. Hammond’s escape pod landed in Junkertown, where he fought in the mech battle arenas… while keeping his whole ‘hamster’ identity a secret. We can expect Wrecking Ball to have interactions with Horizon and Junkertown, as well as Winston and the Junkers. Wrecking Ball is a total curveball as a hero release, but he fits in with a similar niche as Bastion and Mei: simple, idealistic heroes with base i

The Overwatch League’s first regular season has come to an end, and while playoffs are right around the corner, it isn’t too early to start looking at the next competition on the Overwatch calendar: the World Cup. Just like last year, the World Cup will feature 24 Overwatch National Teams facing off against one another to prove which nation can claim the top prize as the best Overwatch playing country in the world. During the group stage, these teams will be divided into four different groups of

The latest Overwatch patch is live, and it refreshes and updates a lot of the familiar content that Overwatch has to offer. The new Symmetra is live, changing her from a support to a damage hero. Add in new social features and a few balance changes, and Patch 1.25 aims to upgrade the Overwatch experience (and set the stage for a new hero and potentially a new meta). Social featuresEndorsements are now here, allowing players to give each other a little award for exceptional teamwork, sportsmanshi

In recognition of that, the Overwatch League is hosting its first ever All Star Weekend and the starting rosters for both teams have just been announced. The four players that are taking a trip to the All Star game help form the backbone of NYXL, far and away the first season’s best team. From the most recent stage winners, the Valiant, to the perennially under-performing Seoul Dynasty, all the way down to the Shanghai Dragons the Pacific found its All Star team from quite a few different places

A new teaser from the official Overwatch twitter hints at … well, we’re not sure yet. This could be a hint as to Hammond, who has been speculated as a hero since the release of… Horizon Lunar Colony. While that teaser made its way to Brigitte eventually, at first fans speculated that the new character Emre Sarioglu would be Hero 27. We’re about due for Hero 28, and time will tell whether we’re about to meet them… and whether they’re linked to Horizon Lunar Colony.

It’s a fair bet that no other team has had as strange an inaugural season as the Boston Uprising. Boston’s bright spotsRight now, the Boston Uprising are in a pretty good place. The Uprising’s traditional sports approach and ties to the Kraft Group have been a massive success. In addition to watch parties at local bars, the Boston Uprising returned home to a crowd hungry to meet their heroes. In stages one and two, the Boston Uprising seemed to be a solidly middle of the pack team.

The first official regular season of the Overwatch League has come to an end. The top six teams are looking ahead to their opponents in the first round of the playoffs, while the other teams in the league look back at what went right and what went wrong in their first Overwatch League season. But, one team has a much longer road to travel toward Season 2 than the rest: The Shanghai Dragons. The Shanghai Dragons lost 40 straight games in the first season of the Overwatch League. But, as the weeks

The team originally known as Immortals were the champions of Blizzards first Overwatch team based competition, Contenders Season 0, but struggled to compete in Contenders Season 1. After failing to make the playoffs in both Stage 1 and 2, the Los Angeles Valiant finally made its way to the playoffs and earned third place in Stage 3. This is NYXL’s fourth trip to a stage Finals in the Overwatch League, but the team’s first loss since Stage 1 when the Spitfire took them down 3-2. Stage 4 was a hig

Overwatch League’s first season is coming to a close, but the folks behind the scene are already getting ready for season 2. This includes two-way players, who will also count towards the 8-player Contenders roster limit. Two-way players can’t play in OWL if they play in more than two Contenders matches. Only two players from an OWL roster can compete in a Contenders match at once. As season one comes to a close, we will likely hear more about season 2, changes, and expansions in the coming week

The Shanghai Dragons and the Florida Mayhem are both on the bottom of the standings, with the Mayhem having a total record of 7-30 and the Dragons sitting at 0-37. Every time the Dragons took a point or won a team fight, the crowd went wild. The Mayhem took Blizzard World, but the Dragons fought back to claim Horizon and Lijang Tower. The Mayhem took Watchpoint and Nepal, but for the rest of the match, the sweet taste of hope was upon every fan’s tongue. Despite the crushing end to the match, th

Two years in, Blizzard has established the bar for writing an effective bad guy, and that’s Moira O’Deorain. We’re shown, not told, just how dangerous Moira’s work is through Overwatch’s gameplay. Spoken aloud by Moira, that’s a completely deniable, sly jab. When Soldier: 76 calls Moira out for her role in Blackwatch and the fall of Overwatch, Moira isn’t hurt, and she replies with a cool, hard truth. Moira isn’t as involved with the deep emotional feuds, conflicts, and traumas as the rest of th

While rumors about Overwatch League expansion have been flying for some time, we finally have some tangible details on what that will look like. In an interview with Handelsbratt, a German business newspaper, Major League Gaming CEO and President Pete Vlastelica spoke about upcoming plans for the Overwatch League’s second season. The news, verified by translators at Overwatch Wire, suggests that Overwatch esports are going quite swimmingly so far. The original Overwatch League teams were sold at