Overwatch season 1 ends in just over a week

Turns out all that Overwatching you were doing was part of a first season of competitive matches, and that season will end...on August 17, at exactly 5pm Pacific Time. Blizzard revealed as much yesterday, before announcing the date that Season 2 is scheduled to kick off: September 6.

If you competed in season 1 at all, you've probably earned yourself some free stuff. For just completing your placement matches you'll get a "special spray and player icon", while if you managed to break into the top 500 players list at any point you'll also get an "extra player icon and animated spray".

When the first season ends, your Skill Rating will be converted into Competitive Points. Players who managed to scrabble together a SR of 39 or under will be getting a handout of 10 CP, while those of 65 SR or over will be given 300 lovely CP to spend on golden weapon skins.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.

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