Overwatch 2 has remained the same for a while now; apart from small changes here and there, the core of the competitive scene has remained unchanged. But the recent game-changing announcement about every hero getting the ability to self-heal set the community ablaze, and it seems the devs don’t entirely disagree with the fans. The director of Overwatch 2 admits that the way the new change was announced was terrible and that this is one of the many changes that season 9 will bring.
The developers want players to be less reliant on their teammates while making healers much less useful. Both Tanks and DPS heroes will benefit from this change in a major way, as players won’t need to run to their nearest healer to get back into the fight.
Overwatch 2 Self-Heal Change For Season 9
This change may not seem like much for casual players, but this will be a paradigm shift when it comes to how competitive Overwatch 2 is played. Players started the game and picked their preferred roles based on what they wanted to do in the game or what they believed they were best at. A support hero is best at healing the team, but if the reason for the support hero is no longer there, it clearly defeats the purpose of playing a healer.
Fans are mostly unhappy with the announcement of this change, regardless of what other changes accompany it in season 9. Aaron Keller posted on X (previously Twitter):
The Overwatch 2 community has been let down again and again, so the skepticism of the fanbase is understandable. The Overwatch League was recently canned, and the PvE content planned for the game was also trashed, which was part of the reason why Overwatch got a sequel in the first place.