Overwatch's Competitive mode will be back this month (updated)

Update: Blizzard corrected itself this morning, saying that competitive mode will be coming later this month, not July.

Previously, tweets from the official Overwatch account (spotted by Eurogamer) reveal that Competitive mode has slipped into mid-to-late July.
 

Original: The decision to cut competitive play from the Overwatch open beta, and the full release of the game, was about as last-minute as it gets. But it sounds like it won't be gone for long: Game Director Jeff Kaplan said in a Q&A video posted today on Facebook that he hopes to have to have the mode back next month. 

“Competitive mode is the current focus of the Overwatch team, and it's the most important thing for us to add to the game right now,” Kaplan says in the video, beginning at around the 9:00 mark.   

“Our first big content update for Overwatch will be Competitive mode. I don't want to promise an exact date, because I'm sure whatever date I say right now will be wrong," he continues. "My rough commitment, or 'not-commitment,' would be sometime toward the end of June—middle to end of June. We want to have Competitive mode in. We already have it in internally, in fact we were playing it this weekend and we're starting to get a feel for it.” 

Kaplan said changes to Competitive mode will include lengthened seasons, which will probably run for around three months instead of the one month originally planned, and a reduction in the frequency of Sudden Death. More information will be revealed as Competitive mode comes closer to re-launch; Overwatch, don't forget, will be live world-wide just over an hour from now.

Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Latest in FPS
Fragpunk FPS
Fragpunk review
Battlefield 1
The best Battlefield game of the last decade is 95% off until Thursday
Grab the brilliant Doom 2016 for its lowest price ever
Rainbow Six Siege year 9 season 2 key art - two Rainbow Six Siege operators facing each other
'Siege 2 was never on the table': Rainbow Six Siege X director explains why the 10-year-old FPS doesn't need a sequel
rainbow six siege sledge
After holding out for 10 years, Rainbow Six Siege is finally going free-to-play (kind of)
rainbow six siege x dual front mode
Rainbow Six Siege is getting its first permanent mode in 10 years, and it throws every Siege rule out the window
Latest in News
A woman with an arcane slingshot uses it to light a distant fire
Deconstructeam's next game is about training to shoot a single fireball at an impossible target
assassin's creed shadow naoe
We asked two parkour athletes to rate the realism of Assassin's Creed's acrobatics, and a surprising 'crime against parkour' might actually be one of the most realistic things they saw
Mechs fight on the outside of a spaceship
MechWarrior 5: Clans is getting DLC with playable Elementals and a fight on the outside of a spaceship
Aloy - Horizon
'I feel worried about this art form:' Unsurprisingly, the real Aloy from Horizon isn't a fan of AI Aloy
Crying laughing emoji with disturbing realistic elements for REPO
REPO's first update will add a new map and a 'duck bucket' so we can finally give that pesky quacker a time out
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'