Overwatch's Competitive Mode goes Live

If there was one much-needed feature missing from Overwatch, other than a community-wide mute button (which I'll admit is an ironic complaint, coming from a League of Legends scrub), it's been a competitive mode. While all of Blizzard's games have a e-sports/professional angle, Overwatch's competitive matches have been largely informal as Blizzard had yet to launch a proper ranked mode.

Well, guess what launched just yesterday?

Exclusively for PC for the time being (console versions will be rolling out later), the competitive mode works strikingly similar to the rest of Blizzard's competitive fare--you'll play ten placement matches which will rank you anywhere between 1 and 100. From there, your rank will go up and down as you win and lose games, until you're the best player in your region and you qualify to get demolished by a Korean middle-schooler.

In addition to ranks and general feelings of superiority, playing competitively will net you competitive tokens, which you can spend on special golden guns, which will show the world how dedicated you are to maintaining your 14 rating.

One more thing to note: this competitive season would be shorter than most, only spanning a month and a half compared to the two-and-a-half months normally enjoyed, so if you want to get to the top 100 better start playing more Overwatch or, the exact same amount of Overwatch. Or maybe even less Overwatch, you're, uh, starting to look a little pale.

Seriously, at least open a window or something.