Overwatch 2: all the news about the sequel to Blizzard’s hit hero shooter

A couple of years into the Overwatch 2 experience, player angst has reached a point where the people making the game are considering bringing the old 12-person matches back. Today’s blog post from the developers at Blizzard says that, finally, “we’re exploring how we can test different forms of 6v6 in the game to gauge the results.”

Game director Aaron Keller also notes that issues like hero balancing, game performance, and what might happen to queue times if players have a choice between the two formats are questions the team needs to answer but is at least ready to start considering.

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Overwatch 2 heroes will no longer need to be unlocked through Battle Pass or via purchase, taking some of the grind out of the now free-to-play team FPS. Starting in Season 10, players will be able to unlock all existing and future heroes for free. This will include Venture, the latest hero joining Overwatch’s roster next season.

New players to the game will still need to complete the first-time user experience. Only when novice players have unlocked the heroes from the first Overwatch roster will all Overwatch 2 heroes then be at their disposal, , as game director Aaron Keller explains in the latest Developer’s Update video.

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The day Overwatch League fans have braced for has finally come. Yesterday, OverActive Media, parent company for the Toronto Defiant, confirmed its exit from the Overwatch League. The company announced that as a part of its agreement with Activision Blizzard, it would receive a $6 million termination fee, thereby ending all its commitments to the League. This confirms that a majority of teams have met and voted to terminate their agreements with the League, with each team owner receiving a termination fee. The result is that the Overwatch League is finally ending after six seasons.

“We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction,” said John Nomis, associate PR manager for the Overwatch League, in a statement to The Verge. “We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program. We are excited to share details with you all in the near future.”

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Hours after the Florida Mayhem were crowned the 2023 Overwatch League Grand Champions, the Overwatch League itself has likely come to its end. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) this morning, Blizzard said that it’s working on “building our vision of a revitalized esports program.”

It is no secret that the league has been in dire straits. Over the last few years, there were numerous reports that the league was struggling financially. Advertisers had pulled out after stories of sexual harassment and abuse at Blizzard broke in 2021. Team organizations were struggling to pay franchising fees, strained by the depressed economic conditions facilitated by the covid-19 pandemic. One team, the Chengdu Hunters, disbanded entirely in the middle of the 2023 season. And finally, after failing to renegotiate a deal with its Chinese publishing partner, NetEase, some Blizzard games went offline in China — one of Overwatch’s biggest markets — and remain offline to this day.

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Overwatch 2’s Invasion event, which goes live today, is the game’s biggest update since penciling in the “2” in October of last year. The event, which coincides with season 6 of the battle pass, offers a new hero, a new game mode, and, perhaps most importantly, new story missions that, for the first time, advance Overwatch’s story. And while I appreciate and enjoy all the new coming to Overwatch 2, I can’t shake the feeling that this all feels too little and too late.

Flashpoint is Overwatch 2’s newest game mode. Teams fight to control one of five points spread out equally on maps that are the largest in the game. Each point unlocks sequentially, and once a team reaches 100 percent control, the next point unlocks. The first team to three points wins.

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From the first reveal of her character in a small thumbnail portrait in 2016 to her official debut in Overwatch 2 some six years later, Vivian Chase, call sign Sojourn, has been on a journey. Today, that long journey takes a new direction as Blizzard reveals her first animated short, bringing newfound depth to her character and to the Overwatch franchise overall.

In an exclusive interview with The Verge, Sojourn’s creators talk about her new cinematic and her place at the center of Overwatch 2’s story.

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You’re gonna have to pay to play Overwatch 2’s new story missions.

During Xbox’s Summer Game Fest presentation, we got a tease of Overwatch 2’s story missions. Though the content won’t be arriving until August 6th, a Game Informer story and a developer blog shared details about the new story missions, including one big, unexpected twist: that unlike any new game mode or seasonal event that’s launched after Overwatch 2 went free-to-play, these story missions would not be free.

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Overwatch 2 will celebrate its first-ever Pride event. Starting June 1st, the Midtown map will be festooned with Pride flags, the lesbian hero Tracer will have a picture of her and her partner added to the barracks in the Watchpoint: Gibraltar map, and players will get a host of icons and name cards reflect the breadth of queer identities and the Overwatch heroes who share them. The Verge had the opportunity to speak with the developers about this new event, gaining insight into what went into creating this event and what this means for Overwatch’s LGBTQ+ fans and characters.

“We want it to feel like the game is reflecting what’s happening in the real world. We do it for Halloween. We do it for Lunar New Year, too,” said game director Aaron Keller during the interview. “It’s important to carry this forward for Pride as well.”

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Overwatch 2’s long-awaited hero missions PvE mode is no more. In a developer livestream, game director Aaron Keller said that the team is canceling the game’s PvE-based hero missions in favor of continuing on with seasonal, story-focused events.

When Blizzard first announced Overwatch 2, the developers teased that the game would have two PvE campaign modes adjacent to its traditional competitive modes.

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I haven’t gotten emotional over an Overwatch trailer since the Overwatch 2 launch trailer. But the trailer for season 4 finally got me. Beyond teasing the season’s new skins, which feature a galactic space pirate theme, and the release of the newest hero Liveweaver, the season 4 trailer feels like it’s Overwatch returning to its narrative roots of hope, optimism, and inclusion.

Overwatch, since inception, has been about an idealistic set of cosmopolitan heroes coming together to save a world in crisis. That message is in the game’s DNA with its bright colors, futuristic aesthetic, and Tracer’s signature line, “Cheers, love, the cavalry’s here.” I wouldn’t say Overwatch 2 has gotten away from that message, but it’s been de-emphasized in favor of the necessities that come with being a product that’s meant to make money. We get the flashy skins, the balance updates, the events, and all the various and sundry things designed to keep players engaged and spending. And make no mistake, that’s present in today’s trailer and accompanying blog highlighting all the new stuff coming in season 4. (My favorite of which is the new PvP event that pits two space-faring factions against each other in a war for the fate of the galaxy.)

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Overwatch 2 has been releasing new heroes at a pretty good clip, and with the pending arrival of season 4 comes the latest hero: Lifeweaver. Lifeweaver’s addition to the game had been teased by the Overwatch developers in the last few weeks, with them calling the new hero “cute,” leading some in the Overwatch community to speculate that we’d be getting another animal-based hero like the much-desired “jetpack cat.”

But thanks to an unfortunate leak and the slow drip of information ahead of his official launch, we now know the developers should have used “sexy” instead of “cute” because Lifeweaver is a stone-cold fox.

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Other than a new map, a dating sim, and a tie-in with One Punch Man, Blizzard is also touching up practically every aspect of Overwatch 2 with the introduction of the game’s third season. A blog post provided an overview of the big changes players will see when the game is updated tomorrow, February 7th, but now the patch notes have all the details.

Major changes include a health reduction for tank characters during non-role queue modes, the return of the Workshop Editor, and an update to the game’s ping system so you can tell your allies if an ability like Immortality Field or Resurrection is on cooldown and for how long and allows players to choose any Ping to place on their Ping wheel menu. It’s a small change, but it should make it easier for folks to communicate even if they avoid the often-toxic voice chat.

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A long whispered prayer has finally been answered: Overwatch 2 is getting a dating sim. Stealthily announced as a part of Overwatch 2’s season 3 battle pass, starting on February 13th, players can go to https://www.Loverwatch.gg to play a text-based dating sim in which they can choose to pursue either Genji or Mercy with the help of a Cupid-ified Hanzo.

Check out the season 3 trailer below.

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