Ladies, Gentlemen and Omnics - the time has come to grind! A hefty 1GB patch is delivering Blizzard's vision for competitive play to Battle.net clients around the world as we speak.

You could read the full patch notes below, but then I'd already be another rank ahead of you.

PATCH FEATURES

New Feature: Competitive Play

Overwatch is raising the bar for competitive players, giving them the perfect arena to sharpen their skills and hone their strategies. Introducing Competitive Play.

Competitive Play is designed for players who truly want to put their skills to the test, and offers a more serious experience than our Quick Play or Weekly Brawl! modes. To make sure everyone playing the mode has a solid understanding of the game’s mechanics, maps, and heroes, Competitive Play will be locked until you hit level 25.

Once you reach level 25, the mode will become available under the “Play” button in the main menu. Simply select "Competitive Play" from the submenu, and you’re ready to enter a match. You can join on your own or in a group, and Overwatch’s matchmaking system will automatically find the best game possible for your (or your group's) skill level.

Competitive Play is live right now! To learn more about this new feature, click here.

GENERAL UPDATES

Gamepad Controls

  • Players can now swap the left and right sticks on a control pad
  • "Legacy" controls option has been added:
    • Left stick up/down moves forward/backward
    • Left stick left/right turns left/right
    • Right stick up/down aims up/down (these can be inverted)
    • Right stick left/right strafes left/right
    • Sticks can also be switched
  • Improved dead-zone controls, giving players increased accuracy during off-center and diagonal stick movement

Miscellaneous

  • When activating Widowmaker's Ultimate ability, Infra-Sight, her voice line will now be audible map-wide
  • "Weapons" section added to the Hero Gallery
  • Added McCree as an AI hero in Practice vs. AI, Play vs. AI, and Custom Game modes
  • Added a variety of a social options to the hero selection and end of match screens
  • Removed "Avoid This Player" option from the game UI

BUG FIXES

General

  • Fixed a bug that would cause players’ weapons to auto-snap straight up or down when the crosshair was aimed between 85 and 90 degrees
  • Fixed a bug that caused players who backfilled and then completed a game to sometimes receive a loss on their Career Profile and not receive their XP bonus for backfilling
  • Fixed a bug that would move players toward the source of a knockback rather than away from it
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to spam objective-based voice lines
  • Fixed a bug that caused Hearthstone-themed sprays to ignore localization
  • Fixed several framerate issues that could occur when cycling through the hero selection menu
  • Fixed a variety of issues with and made several improvements to ambient lighting
  • Made some improvements to how AI heroes respond to one another
  • Made a variety of performance and optimization improvements across the game
  • Unicode keys for non-English keyboards are now displayed properly in the keybinding interface

Maps

  • Players can no longer be resurrected in out-of-play areas on Ilios

Heroes

  • Fixed a bug with the "Junkrat RIP-Tire Kills—Average" lifetime statistic
  • Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause projectiles to hit Reinhardt instead of his Barrier Field
    • Note: We fixed this issue in an earlier patch for "High Bandwidth" Custom Games; this fix now applies it to all games
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Torbjörn to pick up Scrap while dead