Blizzard Reveals Next Overwatch Competitive Season Will Be the Game’s Last

gamerant.com:

Blizzard is moving to sunset Overwatch in preparation for the release of its sequel. A company representative confirmed that the 36th and final season of Overwatch will start later today, although there's still a lot of confusion about what exactly this period of ranked play will entail due to scheduling challenges.

Originally released in mid-2016, Overwatch was initially intended to co-exist with its sequel, with Blizzard saying as much in late 2019. Earlier this year, however, the company announced a change in plans, stating that Overwatch 2 will outright replace Overwatch. Following two open betas, the free-to-play sequel is scheduled to release on October 4th. All cosmetics and currency from the original game will automatically carry over, with the business model switch meaning that Overwatch 2 battle passes are replacing loot boxes.

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According to a community manager post over on Blizzard Forums, Overwatch season 36 is schedule to start in a couple of hours, at 11 AM PDT, with more details being said to follow once it officially begins. Based on the company's previously announced plans to shut down Overwatch once the sequel is out, it seems like this is going to be the shortest season yet by a significant margin. Since there's no time for one last 10-week run of ranked play, some fans are speculating that season 36 will revolve around another experimental patch that implements some Overwatch 2 gameplay changes using only assets from the original game. One such minor update was already released back in June, introducing active and passive ability changes to characters like Zenyatta and Reinhardt, among other things.

Another major difference