How to Unlock Overwatch in CSGO

Overwatch is an in-game replay review system that lets the CS:GO community manage itself. How? Well, it allows qualified and experienced members of the community to review reports of disruptive behavior, determine whether those reports are valid, and apply bans if appropriate. However, if you want to unlock this feature and become what they call an investigator, then you'll have to do quite a lot of things.

The most important thing to unlock the Overwatch feature in CSGO is ensuring your account is trustworthy and reliable. This means it can't have any previous bans/suspensions. Additionally, you need to have reached the required rank, played the required amount of matches, and spent the required time in the game. With everything done, you'll have to cross your fingers and hope you get the invitation.

We will be going through everything you need to know if you want to unlock Overwatch in CSGO.

Step #1: Reach the Required Rank

Achieving the necessary rank in CS:GO is the first essential step towards unlocking Overwatch. Valve implemented this requirement to ensure that only experienced and knowledgeable players participate in the review process, contributing to the effectiveness and accuracy of the system.

While the requirement might change eventually, currently, players need to be at least "Gold Nova I" rank or higher if they want a chance of unlocking Overwatch in CSGO. Reaching the required rank demands dedication, skill, and persistence in competitive play. Well, that is unless you hire a professional CSGO player from Eloking, in which case it'll be as easy as 1 2 3.

Step #2: Play the Required Number of Matches

Now, to ensure that players don't use methods like creating a smurf account to get to Gold Nova 1 unfairly, there are two more requirements as well. The first is playing the required number of matches, without which it's impossible to get the Overwatch invitation. To be more specific, you don't have to just play a high number of matches, you also have to get a high number of wins.

With that being said, only players with over 150 wins are liable to get the invite to join Overwatch. While you'll most likely get more than half of the wins simply by playing the game naturally, 150 is still a pretty high number to achieve. Therefore, it's a given that you'll have quite a lot of playtime gathered up from your time playing so many matches.

Step #3: Acquire the Required Play Time

Speaking of playtime, the third requirement for unlocking Overwatch in CSGO is racking up a rather high play time. No, it isn't as high as a thousand hours playing CSGO or anything, but it's still pretty high, and even winning 150 matches likely won't be enough to even come close to the number.

So, how many hours do you need to play CSGO if you want to unlock Overwatch? Well, while the exact number is unknown, it's very likely that you have to play the game for around 350 hours to even be considered for the Overwatch position. To put this into perspective, this means you have to play CSGO for over 14 days straight if you want to reach 350 hours. This Overwatch stuff better be worth it if you're putting in this amount of dedication.

Step #4: Ensure Your Account is Trustworthy

Up next, the final requirement for unlocking Overwatch in CSGO is ensuring your account is trustworthy. Now, yes, the trust factor feature does play a pretty big role in this and therefore you should know how to improve your trust factor in CSGO 2023. However, that isn't all.

You see, if you want to become a member of Overwatch in CSGO then the cleaner your account is the higher the chances of you making the cut will be. This means that any previous account bans or suspensions might potentially get in the way of you becoming an inspector for CSGO's Overwatch team.

Naturally, the best thing to do if you want to ensure you decrease the chances of your account getting struck as untrustworthy is, well, to not do anything bad. Don't argue with people, don't be toxic, don't throw or grief on purpose, and don't go AFK. If you want to increase your chances even more then you can add some friends on CSGO and primarily play with them.

What to Do After Completing These Steps

So, you've completed all the aforementioned steps and now want to join Overwatch in CSGO? Well, unfortunately, there's no way to apply for the position of inspector or anything. Therefore, you'll just have to wait for someone from Valve to notice that your account more than checks out for the position of inspector.

To make the processes quicker, it's recommended that you start being an active member of the community. Not only do we mean by playing the game almost every day, but also by participating in threads and forums and just being as helpful as possible to get on Valve's radar.