Overwatch World Cup to return in 2023 after three-year hiatus

Overwatch developer Blizzard Entertainment announced on Monday (19 December) that the Overwatch World Cup will be making a return in 2023 after a three-year hiatus.

Blizzard said in its announcement that "the competition will be bigger than ever", as the upcoming Overwatch World Cup will be hosted in Overwatch 2 and feature new ways of spotlighting the competing countries and regions on a global scale.

The developer will announce the 36 countries and regions competing in the 2023 Overwatch World Cup in January, alongside opening applications for the competition committee.

Each competition committee will be responsible for organising tryouts for their respective countries and regions in accordance to Blizzard guidelines.

The tryouts will be held in March 2023 and will have a Competitive Rank requirement of Diamond and above.

New way for players to get a spot on Overwatch national teams

In addition, Blizzard will be introducing a new avenue for players to compete for a spot on their national team in the form of the open tournament format World Cup Trials.

The World Cup Trials will be held in February 2023 and will give winning players a direct spot in the tryouts for their team.

Once team rosters have been finalised, the Overwatch World Cup qualifiers will be held in June through regional online competitions that will narrow down the initial 36 teams down to 16.

Those 16 squads will then advance to the Overwatch World Cup main event, which will be a LAN tournament held in Fall 2023.

Blizzard said they will reveal additional details about the 2023 Overwatch World Cup, including the venue for the main event, once they are ready.

Challenges and rewards will also be given to Overwatch 2 players to celebrate the return of the Overwatch World Cup in 2023.

The first-ever Overwatch World Cup was held in the United States back in September 2016 to celebrate the release of Overwatch in May of that year.

The inaugural competition was won by South Korea, which then won the next two iterations of the event 2017 and 2018.

The last Overwatch World Cup in 2019 was won by the United States. The 2020 competition was among the many esports events cancelled by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It remained in hiatus as the likely result of Overwatch's decline in popularity from 2020 to 2022.

But with the release of Overwatch 2 in October of this year, Blizzard seems set on pushing its team-based character shooter back into the forefront of esports.

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