Rakattack at OWCS World Finals 2025: How DreamHack Stockholm unites family and community

The Overwatch Champions Series (OWCS) World Finals returned to DreamHack Stockholm for the epic conclusion of its 2025 run, which also meant the return of Kyle "Rakattack" Rakauskas and his family! This time around, Rakattack co-streamed the event. Esports.gg sat down with him, his mother Kim, and his sister Niki for an interview. We discussed everything OWCS 2025 at DreamHack Stockholm, the Overwatch 2 community, and more.

In his interview with esports.gg, Rakattack described this year's DreamHack Stockholm experience as quite different compared to 2024. Instead of being in a high-pressure environment as a player, he attended as a co-streamer commentating on the matches.

He observed how Europe played really well and how their brawl style with Symmetra was especially exciting. "I really like the Sym brawl," Rakattack said. It's really fun to watch. It's really high skill and there would just be the most random stuff happening. I was like, 'I didn't know you could do that!'"

Although co-streaming gave him more freedom in a way, it was a bit harder to interact with the Overwatch community since he was seated for long stretches. Thankfully, he was able to do one meetup alongside his mother and sister.

"I was able to do a meetup," Rakattack said. "It's super nice to be able to see people I saw last year."

Rakattack's mother chimed in, adding that knowing what to expect in terms of the venue's layout helped them all get settled in more easily this year. She acknowledged that while her son used to have little downtime as a player, his co-streaming role made him more accessible for fans. Even his short breaks, Niki added, became chances to meet others and kept him connected to the community.

One of these breaks allowed Rakattack to check out artist alley -- something he wasn't able to do last year. "One of the girls was super nice," he said. "I was walking around with Infekted and UltraV1iolet and Wheats, and she was like, 'I watched you guys play, I'm so sorry you lost, here's some free stuff.'"

Another short break allowed for the meet-and-greet event. During it, Rakattack’s mother handed out customized wristbands to attendees. She also wore pins featuring commissioned artwork on her lanyard. This heartfelt tribute showed her support for her son and reflected the care and dedication of her son’s biggest supporters outside of immediate family.

Details included Rakattack holding support hero Lifeweaver's lotus flower, references to Rakattack's previous teams, and even his favorite restaurant back home known as Dragon Express.

When we asked about what this support means to them all, Rakattack's mother recalled the time when she watched an Overwatch esports with her family back in 2019. The event even made her husband, a traditional sports fan, realize that esports was legitimate. A packed arena of cheering fans further cemented this.

"As a mom, it's amazing to see," she continued. "It's been great to go as the mom thinking, 'Oh, it's like going to a football game and seeing the pros.' And then however many years later, my kids becomes one of the players for real. It's surreal."

"It's cool meeting everyone in real life, too," Niki added, describing the feeling of putting a face to a community member's Discord icon. "It's really cool that all these people show up for him. We've been involved in this for so long. He's been working at this for so long. It's really cool to see it all pay off and see everyone so excited to hang out and see him."

Niki also shared how she unexpectedly reunited with someone she’d known from a Boston Uprising Discord server almost eight years ago. The user traveled from Europe for the meet-and-greet event. Back then, Niki also cheered for her brother.

"Niki was the biggest supporter before me," Rakattack's mother said. "She's got like a year over me, at least!"

As for competitive Overwatch 2 beyond the OWCS World Finals, Rakattack said that he recently spoke with Blizzard Entrainment about Overwatch 2's systems, and the team was receptive and supportive. He explained that he wanted to see clear progression beyond the Champion rank. A visible leaderboard that indicating player growth, for example, can really motivate young talent to push further.

He also revealed that he's excited about the new competitive features coming next season, which look promising based on the published developer blogs.

In terms of his thoughts on Vendetta, he said that her gameplay fit his aggressive DPS playstyle from the past. To him, the hero feels strong but not broken, and any bugs will be addressed before her official release date.

"I really like her. I playtested her a long time ago, but I've only played her a few times so far this playtest. She's super fun because I used to play DPS Doomfist back in the day," Rakattack said. "I really like the style of getting in there, getting dirty, but it's not like a one-shot. She seems powerful, but not broken from what I see. There's bugs, but that's why they playtested, so they'll get it all out."

As for parting words, Rakattack gave a shoutout to the generosity of the Overwatch 2 community.

"We went out to the pub last night, and it's just like so many people [who] just all like Overwatch. And they all came up and we were just talking for hour," he said, adding that folks offered to buy him another round. "Everyone's super nice. And in the venue, people were giving pins, gifts. They were offering snacks. They were like, 'Do you need a snack? I know you've been streaming for a while. Do you want food?' I'm like, 'No, it's okay.' Everyone's been super, super nice."

Rakattack's mother, meanwhile, called for more LANs like DreamHack Stockholm.

That's all for now. Did you enjoy the OWCS World Finals 2025 tournament at DreamHack Stockholm? Stick around on esports.gg for more Overwatch 2 news, interviews, and updates!