Shocking news comes from one of the Overwatch teams that are members of the Overwatch League (OWL) franchise, Chengdu Hunters. The team was officially disbanded and resigned from all activities in the esports industry.

Chengdu Hunters is well-known as a Chinese Overwatch esports team owned and operated by game livestreaming platform HUYA. Chengdu Hunters joined the Overwatch League in 2019 when the franchise was significantly expanded. Since then, the team has become very popular and proved to be quite successful in its region.

However, the team's fate was in jeopardy when a notice came out regarding the closure of Overwatch 2 in China after a lengthy issue between Blizzard and the distributors from the country, which has not been resolved as of this news written.

Since then, Chengdu Hunters has been inactive on Twitter and Weibo, where they have not uploaded anything since December 2022. However, Maruko, who is one of the Chengdu Hunters players, wrote on his personal Weibo in March 2023:

"It's time to say goodbye and I hope everyone from Chengdu Hunters - players and staff - can have a bright future," Maruko wrote.

Although there have been many signs that the team has been disbanded, there has been no official statement from the Chengdu Hunters regarding the status of the team. Until finally the head moderator of the official Chengdu Hunters Discord server uploaded a post on the announcement channel that, "Chengdu Hunters is dead until further notice."

On another hand, Blizzard as the organizer of the OWL has also confirmed that the Chengdu Hunters are not included in the Overwatch League Season 6 participants which will be held in 2023. This is a first for the league, where a team withdrew from the competition before the season started.

Without the Chengdu Hunters, the OWL's East Region will be reduced to six teams, with six Contenders teams to be promoted through qualifiers. The East Region and West Region have started simultaneously on April 27.