Overwatch League 2022 opening week fixtures confirmed, London Spitfire to face San Francisco Shock

Activision Blizzard has announced the Overwatch League 2022 opening week esports fixtures, including London Spitfire’s.

The Spitfire will face San Francisco Shock on Friday May 6th 2022 and the Vancouver Titans on Sunday May 8th.

London Spitfire reacted to the opening week schedule on Twitter with the following post:

The London Spitfire will be looking for a season of improvement after a very rough time in the Overwatch League last year. They finished with 15 concecutive losses and managed to pick up a single win over the Vancover Titans.

Back in November 2021, London Spitfire announced new player signings ahead of the 2022 Overwatch League season.

The UK players on the roster include Jamie ‘Backbone’ O’Neill (DPS) and Owen ‘provide’ Warner (support).

As well as the Spitfire, Overwatch as a game has also had a rough year, with declining esports viewership and developmental challenges for Overwatch 2. The 2022 Overwatch League is said to be played on an early build of Overwatch 2.

The 2022 Overwatch League season will also feature a new 5v5 format and hopes to have some live global events for the first time in nearly two years. Back in early 2020, the London Spitfire homestand event was cancelled in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year’s Overwatch League will feature the following 20 teams split into two regions:

• East region: Chengdu Hunters, Guangzhou Charge, Hangzhou Spark, Los Angeles Valiant, Philadelphia Fusion, Seoul Dynasty and the Shanghai Dragons
• West region: Atlanta Reign, Boston Uprising, Dallas Fuel, Florida Mayhem, Houston Outlaws, London Spitfire, Los Angeles Gladiators, New York Excelsior, Paris Eternal, San Francisco Shock, Toronto Defiant, Vancouver Titans and Washington Justice

The first and third tournaments of the season will be regional competitions. And the second and fourth tournaments of the year are planned to be global live events.

Activision Blizzard is introducing a new midseason event – the Midseason Madness Global Tournament – which will feature 12 teams (four from the East and eight from the West) competing in a double-elimination bracket over six days.

The mid-season and post-season tournaments will both feature a prize pool of at least $1m.

There’s more info on the Overwatch League 2022 format on the Overwatch League website.

Related article: Is Microsoft’s shock $68bn buyout of Activision Blizzard good news for esports and gamers, or a match made in hell?

Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.