There's plenty going on in the "Overwatch" space right now - from developers' notes promising changes to Mercy to an increased focus on improving the game's competitive mode.
Continuing in this vein, Jeff Kaplan has announced further upcoming changes to the "Overwatch" esports scene. These changes are expected to be debuted during the "Overwatch World Cup," which will take place at BlizzCon 2017 next week. A brief run-down of what we can expect to see is outlined below.
Home and away team uniforms
To help spectators and casters alike more easily identify each team, each team taking part in the "Overwatch World Cup" will be given their own home and away uniforms.
The home uniform will always be in a darker shade, with the away uniform taking on a lighter tone.
This approach is something which is also expected to be mirrored in the "Overwatch League", which will debut in the next few months.
Further, Jeff confirmed that team color palettes will also be introduced, which will apply to heroes' actions to make them more easily identifiable to audiences.
Smarter maps
One of the other key announcements, aimed at helping both observers and broadcasters of "Overwatch" competitive matches, was the introduction of a top-down interactive map which can be shown during games. Put simply, there will be a 2D overlay over the 3D game map, which will provide critical information such as a hero's ultimate status and whether a hero is being crowd controlled.
Additionally, an option to replay a chosen moment from a kill feed will also be introduced.
These changes, combined with the introduction of a smart third person camera which will follow the action more seamlessly, will no doubt make casters' jobs easier when it comes to providing live updates on all the action.
Increased automation
Last but not least, Jeff confirmed in the announcement that an automated tournament interface will be introduced to minimize the chances of human error. One example of how this will work is that, if a player disconnects for whatever reason, then the game will automatically pause.
Overall, these changes feel like "Overwatch" is taking the right steps to improve the game's esports presence.
Increasing the game's popularity in this way is arguably essential if "Overwatch" wants to increase its appeal to audiences on a large scale and compete with more well-established esport games such as "League of Legends", which is currently in the middle of its own world championship series.
