Overwatch 2 Competitive explained, including how to unlock Competitive, rank up, and get Competitive Points

Overwatch 2 Completing the Competitive Play Challenge explained

When attempting to join a friend’s party, or perhaps even from your own menu, you may receive a message asking you to complete the competitive play challenge first. If you were an original Overwatch player and successfully merged your account, this should not happen and is most likely one of the many errors and glitches that still exist due to the game launch issues.

Unfortunately, if you’re an Overwatch original player, you’ll either have to wait for a fix to play competitively or follow the same steps as a new player to complete this challenge.

So what is the Competitive Play Challenge? If you are a new Overwatch 2 player, in order to unlock competitive play and its ranking system, it is a task that you must complete, as we detail below…

How to unlock competitive play in Overwatch 2

You should have access to Overwatch 2’s competitive play mode as an original Overwatch player who successfully merged their account, but as mentioned above, as well as long wait times due to multiple DDoS attacks, the sequel suffers from many bugs and glitches at launch .

If this is happening to you, or you are a new Overwatch 2 player, then you need to do it Win 50 matches in Quick Play to unlock Competitive Play. You can check your progress in the Challenges menu under the Competitive tab.

Since there were so many issues at launch, we strongly recommend it only play unranked Quick Play matches if you are working towards unlocking Competitive as there are some reports from players that starting a Skirmish, Practice or Deathmatch during matchmaking has reset the challenges.

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Getting to 50 wins is a tough challenge, but we have a leaderboard to help you decide which hero is best for you as you progress towards ranked gameplay.

Overwatch 2 competitive ranking and skill levels explained

There are eight rated skill levels in Overwatch 2:

• bronze
• Silver
• gold
• platinum
• diamond
• master
• grandmaster
• Top 500 (your region)

Each skill level has five divisions where division 5 is the lowest and division 1 is the highest. This does not apply to the top 500 as they have their own ranking system.

Out of Bronze to Diamond level, you can play competitively with friends two skill levels away from you. So a Gold ranked player can play with a friend in Diamond, or a Bronze ranked player can play with a friend in Gold – although we don’t really recommend it unless you’re confident in your team’s abilities.

As for master level Players can only play with those one tier away from them, and even then only with the first three divisions of the grandmaster.

the in grandmaster level can only queue up with people within 3 divisions, so they can play with friends at the top end of Master level. Also keep in mind that those in Grandmaster can only compete alone or with a group of a maximum of two people.

According to Blizzard top 500 has no divisions and remains largely the same as in the first Overwatch, separated by input pools. You still have to complete 25 games for each role in the role queue or 50 games in the open queue. For the combined reel queue leaderboard you need to play at least 25 games. The top 500 leaderboards unlock two weeks after the start of each new season, and cross-platform players can view the separate leaderboards by input pool.

Which brings us to another important thing to keep in mind: Where you rank in the competition is different for each role. So your tank could be Platinum, Damage Gold and Support Silver at the same time.

So how is your rank calculated for each role in Overwatch 2? We have a full explanation below!

How to level up in Overwatch 2

The biggest difference from the original Overwatch ranking system is how long it takes to adjust your tier or division. It used to be every match, but in Overwatch 2’s competitive play Your rank is recalculated every seven wins or every 20 losses or ties with each role – which milestone you reach first.

For example, if you won six matches but lost the next 19, your next match would determine whether you were promoted or relegated. Remember that each role has a separate calculation. So six wins as a tank doesn’t mean you move up a division if your next win would be as support. This win would count towards your support wins instead. The same applies to losses.

These win and lose milestones then reset when you win or lose a tier or division rank.

Also keep in mind that the number of losses or wins you make before reaching the seven wins or twenty losses milestone will affect how your ranking is calculated. For example, seven wins and no losses could send you up a few divisions, while 20 losses with no wins could see you drop a few divisions instead. Even if it doesn’t seem like it at first glance, every match you play in Competitive affects how long it takes to climb the ranks.

How to get competitive points in Overwatch 2

There are two ways to earn Competitive Points in Overwatch 2:

• Win or draw matches in Competitive Play
• Complete a ranked season at Bronze level or higher

Where you finish in a Season determines how many Competitive Points you end up with. For example, if you reach the platinum level, you will receive 500 competition points.

Previously, these points could be used to get golden weapons for your hero of choice, and this carries over into Overwatch 2 3,000 competition points to unlock each golden weapon.

You also get match points for winning or drawing a match in a match. It’s 15 points per win and five per draw.

Here’s exactly how many Competitive Points you’ll get at the end of each season for completing each rated skill level:

Good luck climbing those leaderboards in Overwatch 2!

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