Blizzard Entertainment is prepping to roll out Competitive Play for Overwatch and the first step is the launch of the Public Test Region for Western players. Despite servers being located in America, the PTR is open for players worldwide and can support 10,000 players concurrently for Competitive Play.
The PTR will essentially serve as a means to test out various features before they go live for the rest of the world and Competitive Play is the first big example. It can be accessed by those at level 25 though you have to play 10 placement games in order to receive a skill rating and be assigned to those with similar rank.
PTR is currently accessible only for PC players (find out how to join here) and Competitive Play progress won’t transfer from the PTR to the full game’s version. You can expect Competitive Play near the end of this month for PC along with Xbox One and PS4.