'Overwatch' news, updates: 3rd competitive season's major overhauls revealed; Genji's glowing sword forged in real life

The third competitive season of "Overwatch" begins this week and to prepare players planning for the early season grind, some of the major changes were revealed.

As reported by PVP Live, one of the game's features that received a major overhaul was the skills rating. The dev team discovered that more players were landing in Gold and Platinum tiers, despite their MMR showing that they should fall on the Silver or Bronze. This makes the game difficult for players to rank up by lowering winning rewards and taking away massive amounts of Skill Rating for every loss. This time around, initial placement for players will be closer to what it's supposed to be. For instance, a player who goes 5-5 will end up in Silver or Bronze instead of Gold.

With the introduction of season 3, a major overhaul for Symmetra will also go live. According to the developer update video from Jeff Kaplan, the character's main attack is longer and she's got more turrets which can be placed every 10 seconds (instead of 12). However, she has lost the ability to give others shields.

On another note, fans have been repeatedly asking weapon craftsmen Man At Arms to make Genji's weapon, and they recently abided. In a video post, the team revealed a hand-made version of the cyborg ninja's glowing, green katana sword along with Shuriken.They described Genji as a modern-day Robocop, so they used a combination of modern forging techniques and traditional Mantestsu katana construction methods. At the end of the clip, the craftsmen slashed several liquid receptacles of different densities and fruits using the sword. A light inside some plexiglass was used to give its glowing effect.

For the uninitiated, Man At Arms were also the team who made replicated weapons from "Kingdom Hearts," "Dark Souls" and "Bloodborne."

The third competitive season of "Overwatch" will start on Thursday, Dec. 1.