Earlier this week, Overwatch game director Aaron Keller, lead hero designer Geoff Goodman, associate art director Dion Rogers, and a handful of special guests came together to discuss changes coming to Overwatch 2. They discussed these changes during a Overwatch 2 PvP Livestream to show them in real-time.
The whole PvP livestream can be seen below, but here are some of the major changes coming to the sequel:
Keller announced one major change coming to Overwatch 2, that being the switch from 6v6 to 5v5. In the new game, teams will run two DPS, two healers, and one tank. In the past, tanks have always been a bit of a messy topic, and Keller hopes this change will keep that from happening in future meta compositions.
He said the following:
[we] always tried to make our combat easy to read and very understandable and … sometimes it’s just hard to track what 11 other players are doing on the battlefield. Removing two of those simplifies everything and it allows players to understand everything that’s happening around them and make better choices because of it.”
Because of this change, the developers discussed that a lot of the tanks are being reworked to help balance the game. For example, Reinhardt has a more manageable charge and access to dual Fire Strikes; Winston now has a chargeable long shot for more versatile play. Zarya also received an upgrade with dual-bubble management; they briefly mentioned that Orisa wasn’t being shown due to still working on her character.
During the Overwatch 2 PvP livestream, they showed off a handful of new maps, including New York City, Toronto, Rio, and more. They also put a new game type on display, Push, which involves two robots pushing barriers around the map.
As of this writing, Overwatch 2 still doesn’t have a release window. But the anniversary event is in full swing, and the next event in the Overwatch League is set to begin in June.
What do you think of the changes coming to Overwatch 2? What else are you hoping to see from the new game? Let us know in the comments below, and keep coming back to The Nerd Stash for all of your nerdy news and needs!
