Blizzard has officially announced that its esports league for Overwatch, the Overwatch League, is being shut down. The studio made released a statement, according to IGN, stating that it will be “transitioning from the Overwatch League”.
“We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction,” said an Activision Blizzard spokesperson in a statement. “We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program. We are excited to share details with you all in the near future.”
The Overwatch League has seemingly faced quite a few problems since its original launch back in 2017, especially once lockdown restrictions came about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in 2020, Blizzard had to cancel quite a few of its Overwatch League live events because of the lockdowns at the time.
Overwatch 2 has been going quite strong, despite a few criticisms here and there by the player base. More recently, Blizzard unveiled a new Hero, Mauga, slated for release on December 5. The studio also announced that the game will be getting a new PvP mode, as well as two new Heroes and a map in 2024.
