Sean Miller announced details of the 2025 Overwatch Champions Series format today at DreamHack Stockholm. Blizzard is “doubling down on what makes OWCS so captivating.”
The season will begin with Open Qualifiers across all regions in January. Unlike 2024, 2025 will feature 3 stages with consistent formats across all regions, each feeding into a live event.
The initial open qualifiers will decide the majority of the teams for the remainder of the year.
Promotion and Relegation
The remaining slots for each subsequent stage will be filled through a promotion and relegation system. After each stage, the bottom 2 teams from the OWCS Regular Season will face off against the top 2 teams from FACEIT League Masters Division, with the winners securing a spot in the subsequent stage. Rather than being parallel to OWCS, FACEIT League will serve as a proper Tier 2 and Tier 3 system. In Asia, open qualifiers will continue to be hosted on WARA.GG.
Team Skins
Miller additionally announced the OWCS Team Partner Program. The Overwatch 2 team will work with up to 9 teams across North America, EMEA, and Asia to develop team skins, sprays, icons, and more. Teams can express interest to be part of the Team Partner Program using a Google Form. Teams will receive a portion of revenue from team branded bundles which will go on sale in the second half of 2025. Spacestation Gaming and NTMR have both indicated they will be participating in Overwatch esports in 2025, and are likely to be among the pilot class of OWCS Team Partners.
International Events
No details were provided on the location of 2025’s 3 international LAN events. Additionally, no information was provided about the integration of China into the OWCS.
Header image Copyright ESL FACEIT Group.
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