Overwatch 2 players logged on today to see a lower competitive rank

pcinvasion.com:

Overwatch 2 Season 4 started today and brought a number of quality-of-life changes to the game. This included the removal of rank decay, allowing players to theoretically properly receive their end-of-season ranked rewards for playing competitive mode. But in a twist of fate, when players logged onto the game this afternoon at the start of Season 4, many players found their rank had still fallen despite promises that rank decay would no longer apply to the end of the season.

Players sounded off on Reddit and the official forums, with numerous bug reports that their rank had either fallen or that they had received incorrect ranked rewards for the season. One player stated they had ended the season in Diamond, but ended up ranking Plat in all roles. While the lower rank for many players is disappointing, there are a number of players who ended the season at a higher rank, as well. The reason for the differing ranks actually has nothing to do with decay at all.

At the start of Season 4 of Overwatch 2, your rank will now more closely resemble what rank “the game thinks you are.” In other words, your rank will now display an equivalent to your MMR, rather than a hidden system. Unfortunately, for the purposes of end-of-season rewards, this seems to have been applied early. For some players, this meant their rank has inflated, but for a number of players, their rank went down.

Blizzard has released a statement on the official forums stating they are “investigating an issue where Season Three end-of-season final ranks were modified causing lower tier rewards issued for some players.” This could potentially mean some players received lower ranks than intended, or the end-of-season rewards should have still resembled your final