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Despite only being released a few weeks ago, Overwatch 2 has already begun its very first competitive season. Like every esports title with a ranked mode, Blizzard Entertainment's latest shooter game also has an elaborate ranking system that isn't very different from the first installment.
For most competitive games, rank distribution is a strong indicator of where the majority of the skill group lies in-game. This data is generally easy to access for titles that have been on the market for a while now. In the case of Overwatch 2, however, it's hard to determine the rank distribution since the title is comparatively new.
Which Overwatch 2 rank groups are heavily populated?
Overwatch 2 isn't that different from its predecessor. While there are newer heroes in the game, most of the older heroes have returned, albeit with the necessary buffs and nerfs. Given that the competitive scene isn't that different between the two titles, a similar skill grouping can be assumed for both of them.
That said, back in 2018, the developers released the stats for the skill groups. The groupings are as follows:
- Bronze – 8%
- Silver – 21%
- Gold – 32%
- Platinum – 25%
- Diamond – 10%
- Master – 3%
- Grandmaster – 1%
It would be wrong to consider these stats as absolute for two major reasons. The first one is that Overwatch 2 has opted for the free-to-play route, which means that many new players will be joining the game. Out of these newcomers, not everyone may be interested in joining the competitive circuit. Hence, it's unlikely that every new player will quickly rise to the Gold and Platinum ranks.
Despite being a shooter title, Overwatch 2 has a significant learning curve, so players will take time to learn and adjust to the game's mechanics.
Furthermore, each rank has sub-ranks as well. So, grouping them in such a general manner will not do justice to the overall ranking scene at the moment. Additionally, it's only the first season of Overwatch 2. To collate and process ranked statistics, the developers will need data from a few seasons to get an accurate representation of the game's skill brackets.
Truth be told, it would probably be wrong to expect accurate data for the first few seasons of Overwatch 2, at least for the rank distributions. Given that the game was problematic at launch and still has many bugs to resolve, a considerable amount of time will be spent on fixing them. Besides that, the hero balance issue exists as well, making the dataset skewed.
Nevertheless, as seen with most shooters in the market today, the majority of the community tends to lie within the Silver to Platinum brackets, with the numbers in other tiers tapering off. A similar distribution can be expected with Blizzard's latest game as well, but this is mere speculation for now. The community will have to wait until the developers release official data about this.
