Blizzard has just announced that this year’s Overwatch World Cup will commence starting today. The official website for Overwatch revealed that the game would begin monitoring the average skill rating of the top 150 players from each country until the end of Competitive Season 9, which will last until April 28. 

For this year, France, South Korea, Thailand and the United States will serve as the four Group Stage host countries, which will automatically qualify them for the tournament alongside the top 20 countries. 

Qualified countries will be able to form their own National Competition Committees that will include a General Manager chosen by Blizzard and a Community lead, who will also be selected by votes. 

The full National Competitions Committees will be announced on May 31, and these committees will hold tryouts from June 1 up until July 5. Players who are interested in participating can compete to earn a spot on the team of their country of citizenship. The committees will then select a roster of players, which will consist up to 12 players and will submit the list to Blizzard.

Blizzard will work with the players and the committees to select the seven players from each roster who will get the chance to travel to the live events. The group stages will happen from August to October, with the finals commencing in November in Southern California.