Homestand weekends set to return to Overwatch League in 2022

Overwatch League’s fifth season is coming back and that may include homestand weekends.

According to reports, homestand weekends would be returning for Season 5. This would be big news for Overwatch League fans, who were frustrated with the dismantling of this model in 2020.

Homestand weekends are meant to be hosted by a certain team in the city they rep. Different OWL teams will fly out to the city to compete. The hosting team would have a chance to show off their hometown pride, like the Washington Justice having patriotic mascots. Overwatch League was meant to pivot entirely towards homestand events in 2020, but this was scrapped amid travel and gathering restrictions.

Will homestand weekends return to the Overwatch League?

In 2021, western teams traveled to Hawaii in order to face Asian teams, competing on online servers to avoid latency. Then-president of sports and entertainment at Activision Blizzard, Tony Petitti, told multiple esports publications last year that in-person competition would eventually return although the structure would be “less dependent on live events.”

This had the Overwatch community hopeful for a slight return to normalcy. The Overwatch League had lost a lot of viewership when the esport moved completely online. Many teams also struggled with the lack of travel, with some dropping entire rosters or moving to countries far away from their namesake cities.

Now, insiders have reportedly stated that western teams will be moving ahead with homestand events next season. Eastern teams will remain online. Season five will have a multi-stage format similar to the first two seasons, which means region-locked matches and cross-regional play. There will also be a last-chance qualifier.

When does Overwatch League season five begin?

Overwatch League season five will begin in April 2022. The 2022 season is supposed to take place within an early build of Overwatch 2 but teams currently have no access to a beta version that leakers recently discovered on Battle.net.