Blizzcon pushes Overwatch World Cup livestream offline, leaving the commentary to be live-tweeted to fans

Overwatch 2 blizzcon 2023 — (Image credit: Blizzard)

Overwatch 2 fans had to rely on someone live-tweeting the commentary of a World Cup game as Blizzcon took over the livestream.

As highlighted by @JakeSucky on Twitter, on November 3, the livestream for the Overwatch World Cup was cut short due to the Blizzcon 2023 opening ceremony taking priority. Instead of being able to watch the match play-by-play via livesteam, fans instead had to get the results from Overwatch pro and commentator @Reinforce via Twitter - which is far less exciting than seeing the action in real-time.

As you can see from the tweet thread below, by the time South Korea vs Canada's fourth match took place, Reinforce had to commentate (via Twitter) every major play that happened during the event. Even Reinforce didn't get to see much of the match, as they revealed in the thread, they "didn't see what happened cus tweeting from phone."

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The outcome was South Korea won the game 3 - 1, but it would have been much more fun to see this happen for yourself. This must have been frustrating for fans, especially for those who had been following the match up until the livestream was cut off.

I'll be live-tweeting the end of Canada - South Korea due to BlizzCon Opening Ceremony starting! Stay posted for match updates.🧵👇November 3, 2023

Canada playing:OrisaSoldier/MeiBap/IllariKorea playing: Sigma sojourn/SymmLucio/BapNovember 3, 2023

Understandably, Overwatch fans who wanted to see the match in full aren't happy with Blizzard. Many have still praised and thanked Reinforce for keeping the match going for those outside the venue, though. "This is just so sad - thanks tho," one Twitter user replied to Reinforce's Twitter coverage, "the hero we need but don't deserve," another said. "This actually sucks thanks for keeping us posted," another fan replied.

One positive for Overwatch fans is that Blizzard revealed Overwatch 2's new tank at Blizzcon 2023. The new Hero, Mauga, leaked prior to the event via the Nintendo eShop but has since been confirmed by the developer. We can expect to play as the new Tank when Overwatch 2 season 8 launches on December 8, 2023.

For a play-by-play of what happened during the event, take a look at our Blizzcon 2023 live coverage.

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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.