After Blizzard revealed the Overwatch World Cup 2023 last year, we finally have more news about it, which includes the teams competing in it, as well as the format.

From their announcement last year, we already knew that there will be 36 countries competing in six regions. In their recent post, they announced which countries would be competing, as well as their respective regions. This will happen in June. The breakdown of the 36 teams and six regions for the online qualifiers is as follows:

  • Americas Conference (AMER)
    • AMER A (Organizer: LigaACE)
      • Canada
      • Costa Rica
      • Guatemala
      • Mexico
      • Puerto Rico
      • United States
    • AMER B (Organizer: GamersClub)
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Chile
      • Colombia
      • Ecuador
      • Peru
  • Europe and Middle East Conference (EMEC)
    • EMEC A (Organizer: GameBattles)
      • Belgium
      • France
      • Great Britain
      • Italy
      • Netherlands
      • Spain
    • EMEC B (Organizer: GameBattles)
      • Germany
      • Norway
      • Poland
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Sweden
      • Turkey
  • Asia-Pacific Conference (APAC)
    • APAC A (Organizer: WOG)
      • Chinese Taipei
      • Hong Kong
      • Indonesia
      • Japan
      • Philippines
      • South Korea
    • APAC B (Organizer: Let's Play Live and Roof Esports)
      • Australia
      • India
      • Malaysia
      • New Zealand
      • Singapore
      • Thailand

The 36 countries will therefore be competing for one of 15 spots on the Group Stage. Those under the A regions will fight for 3 slots each, while those under the B regions will fight for 2 slots each. Each of the countries mentioned above will hold World Cup Trials in February over three weekends:

  • February 10-12
  • February 17-19
  • February 24-26

Blizzard recently uploaded more details about the upcoming World Cup Trials. Registration for the Open Trials is already open, so if you are interested, make sure to sign up before the trials in your country. Winning the Open Trials in each country gives the team $2,000, as well as a spot on the team tryouts. The Competition committees will also hold sait team tryouts in March, before finalizing a team of seven players by April.

You will no doubt notice that China is not part of the Online Qualifiers. This is because Blizzard said that because of China's performance in the last two Overwatch World Cups, the Chinese team will immediately enter the Group Stage. Blizzard mentioned that they will be releasing more details about how they will choose China's team in the future.

Other than the teams above, the Overwatch World  Cup will also have a wild card challenge. This wild card challenge will award four additional spots for teams to compete. There are no details yet as to what this challenge entails. However, we can expect more details this February.

That's all the information we have about the upcoming Overwatch World Cup 2023, its format, and the teams competing in it. For more gaming news from us, you can check out our gaming news articles.