Overwatch 2: OWL 2022 season to begin in April with full 32 Hero roster
The Overwatch League 2021 season came to a thrilling end this weekend. The Shanghai Dragons defeated the Atlanta Reign with a 4-0 sweep to claim the $1.5 million in prize money while becoming the first team from the Asia-Pacific region to win the title. They’ll also get their own themed Overwatch skin next year in honor of their victory.
With the 2021 Season having drawn to a close, we can now look forward to OWL’s 2022 season, which will reportedly run an early build of Overwatch 2. This presents somewhat of an interesting wrinkle to the competition since there’s no confirmed release date for the highly anticipated sequel.
Earlier this month, Jon Spector, Overwatch League VP at Blizzard, confirmed:
"We can confirm that our plan is to begin next season in April 2022. We will share more details about 2022 roster construction timelines soon and more info generally on our 2022 season as we get closer to April."
Blizzard has been playing it coy when it comes to the release of Overwatch 2, which is almost certain to release in 2022. Blizzard is reportedly targeting a Q2 launch for the game, which would put it around the time the next OWL season starts.
We got to see our first pro exhibition match played in Overwatch 2 over the weekend, which gave us a first look at how they’ll adapt to the many changes coming in the sequel — the most notable being the reduction in team size from 6v6 to 5v5. We also got to see the new reworks to Bastion and Sombra.
Next. How Overwatch 2 is changing the Tank role. dark
It was confirmed that the plan is for all 32 Overwatch heroes to be playable at the start of OWL 2022, with potentially a few more included. Blizzard hasn’t really spent much time revealing new heroes for the game, mostly focusing on reworks and glow ups for the current roster. We do know Sojourn is one of the new heroes in Overwatch 2, but it’s unclear if she will be available to play during the next season of Overwatch League.