Overwatch's Game Director Jeff Kaplan recently discussed the team's plans for the competitive mode, and most interestingly, how they aim to award those that participate. As of right now, the primary reward behind the ranked mode is a whole pile of swanky new golden weapon skins, all of which will be available to even the average player, but will be more easily acquired by those truly skilled.

He unfortunately didn't share any images at that time, but the recent Public Test Realm brought with it a sneaky little surprise - the golden skins themselves! If you're wondering what all of them look in-game, here's a video from Overpwn demonstrating just that:

To be perfectly honest, I am not a fan. Gold highlights on otherwise well-painted skins is something I can appreciate, but simply coating the entire thing in gold just seems incredibly gaudy. This issue is especially apparent on both D.VA and Bastion who not only get their weapons turned into gold, but also a part of their character model. While this might not seem like a big deal now, it essentially limits which skins those two can wear, unless they are OK with looking like a rapper's Christmas tree that caught fire.

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, because let's face it, if it wasn't popular it wouldn't be a reward, so I guess I'll just have to buckle down and accept it. At the very least there are a couple of skins that do genuinely look good in gold, so even if I don't plan to collect them all there's still a couple I can strive for, and I suppose that's still a pretty damn good incentive. If you're wondering which ones I'm a fan of, here's the relatively short list (sourced from MasterOverwatch), though it is missing Zarya's cannon from above: