Orisa Held Out of Competitive Play For One Week

The newest character to the Overwatch lineup is on the bench from competitive play for her initial week.

Orisa, the 24^th character to be included in the Overwatch lineup, is finally live today included with patch 1.9 after a significant stint on the Public Test Region. While the release of a new character is always a big event, this launch comes with a caveat announced yesterday by Scott Mercer, the Overwatch team’s Principle Designer:

When patch 1.9 releases tomorrow, Orisa will not initially be available for Competitive Play. We want to give players some time to learn about and play Orisa before she’s placed into the crucible of Competitive Play.

She’ll still be immediately available in Quick Play, the Arcade (including custom games with competitive ruleset), and Play vs. AI.”

This is a first for a character release from the Overwatch team. In the past, characters were made available from day one in all formats. This new method will give the development team time to quickly address any major issues before she sees the ranked ladder and it gives time for players to become familiar with her playstyle before turning her loose onto the competitive scene.

A recent tweet from Andrew "ZP" Rush, however, has just announced that Orisa will, in fact, be playable starting this very night in the Overwatch Carbon Series.

Full patch notes are available at the usual place posted by Blizzard.

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