Overwatch 2 had a problem. It’s a problem a lot of live service games have, to be fair. It wasn’t particularly exciting any more. It had a chance at launch a few years ago to excite people, to create a wave of momentum to surf thereafter, but it floundered, beset as it was with identity problems and a misguided obsession with PvE, which sounded lovely on paper but never really worked in practice. Plenty of good work was done since on the game but most people outside of Overwatch 2 don’t care — or don’t know, because they’re not looking anymore. They’ve moved on, they’re playing other things. Incremental updates weren’t enough to turn their heads. As far as many people were concerned, Overwatch 2 was yesterday’s news, been and gone. How, then, does Blizzard make people care again?
That was the question at the forefront of my mind when I travelled to Blizzard’s head offices recently. And I was delighted to discover, as a lapsed Overwatch player, that it does have an answer — and a convincing one. Blizzard is sort of relaunching the game. Specifically, Overwatch 2 is getting an enormous release this month akin to an expansion, which will contain five new heroes — far more than we’ve ever had in an update before. Even Overwatch 2 itself, a whole new game, only launched with three new heroes. On top of that, there are plans for further five new heroes to be released over the course of the year. That’s 10 new heroes in 2026, which for Overwatch is unprecedented.
That’s not all: there’s a top-to-bottom user interface overhaul and a huge story push I’d go as far as to call Story 2.0, as well as the many game alterations and new skins we’d expect from a regular seasonal release. Perhaps most significantly of all, though, Blizzard is renaming the game, erasing the «2» from the title to make it, simply, «Overwatch» again.
It’s symbolic; there’s more going on here than new heroes. This is a series that’s been bruised and battered in recent years, first when the ambitious Overwatch League esports dream didn’t work out, then when the sequel floundered, and then when Marvel Rivals used a barely disguised Overwatch formula to find huge success last year. Overwatch has been on the ropes. But this Overwatch rethink, and with it a pledge to do huge expansion-like releases every year, represents Blizzard fighting back.
The seriousness of the company’s intentions were made clear by who attended the press conference I watched. There wasn’t only the Overwatch trio of Aaron Keller, game director, Dion Rogers, art director, and new executive producer Ben Bell on the stage. There was Walter Kong, the head of live service development at Blizzard, and Blizzard’s president herself, Johanna Faries. Here, in this article, I’ve assembled their thoughts from the press conference, as well as what I learned in a one-on-one interview with Aaron Keller and in a series of group interviews about different aspects of the game. I’ve also included my thoughts on the new heroes, which I had a chance to play.
Is this a turnaround moment for the game? Will Overwatch be a part of the conversation again? Could a comeback be on?
No, Overwatch 2 being renamed is not an admission of any previous errors or guilt, Blizzard says
The «2» in the name was tainted. To begin with, there was the controversy that Overwatch 2 would replace Overwatch 1 rather than live alongside it — a forced migration plenty of people didn’t want. Then there were the things Overwatch 2 did that people didn’t like, such as locking new heroes behind Battle Pass progression or moving to 5v5 matches from 6v6 — decisions Blizzard has since revised. The «2» represented a PvE dream which never properly materialised, too. It represented all of that; it came to symbolise Overwatch losing its way. But now the «2» is being dropped.
«What would I change if we could go back?» says Blizzard live service head Walter Kong during the press conference. «Probably not call it Overwatch 2.» He smiles. «But when I look back at that period, I do think that it was a positive period for us, because we made an important transition. We made a transition to an ongoing live game, and that wasn’t easy. It was really, really hard.
«It was a necessary period of challenge that we had to get through to get to where we are today. I don’t think we could jump straight here. Just thinking back to what we experienced during those years makes me feel a bit exhausted, but it is what’s allowed us to take Overwatch into the future.»
«It was a necessary period of challenge that we had to get through to get to where we are today» -Walter Kong
«It’s a tricky question,» game director Aaron Keller says when we talk one-on-one, and I ask whether dropping the «2» was an admission of error in any way. «From our player’s point of view, they’ll tell us, ‘Hey, Overwatch is in the best state it’s ever been in.’ And a lot of times we even hear like, ‘Overwatch has finally earned the two.’ So I don’t think this is us trying to admit there was a failure here, especially when we start hearing from the community that we’ve earned it.
«But for us what this is saying is that because Overwatch is this forever game, we don’t want our players worrying about when it’s going to get replaced by Overwatch 3.»
There was once a broad trilogy idea for Overwatch, if you didn’t know. The first game was to be quite contained and focus on competitive multiplayer, which it did. The second game would then expand to include a PvE experience, which it tried to do. Then the third game would expand again to be a full blown do-everything persistent online world — an MMO, in other words, just like the cancelled Titan MMO Overwatch was once salvaged from. This information comes from Jason Schreier’s Blizzard book, Play Nice, by the way, which is well worth a read.
But as several Overwatch-related people reiterated during the course of the day, Overwatch is refocused on being entirely a competitive PvP game. Those old plans are no more, and there may well never be an Overwatch 3. «Never is a big word to say,» Keller says in our interview, «but our intention is to continue supporting this game, this competitive hero-based, team-based shooter, for as far into the future as our players will continue playing.»
Does that mean PvE is absolutely definitely out for good? «I think when you you talk about the PvE missions by themselves: as we developed them, and especially as we released a few of them, we didn’t see a lot of excitement from players for those missions,» Keller says, «and we realised that where we ought to be putting our resources in this game is on that core competitive PvP experience, and that is what we’ve been doing for the last few years. I don’t think I could say that PvE is forever off the table for Overwatch, but it is definitely not something that we’re focusing on right now or looking to get back to anytime soon.»
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These five new heroes will shake things up
The thinking behind introducing five new heroes at once is there will be something for everybody. The characters are spread across all roles — there’s a tank, two supports, and two damage dealers. And what I find particularly impressive about them is how they bring never before seen ideas to the game.
Jetpack Cat is the most blatant of them. Superficially, she’s ridiculous — a cat with a jetpack — but she plays brilliantly, being the game’s only permanently flying hero, which means she has incredible manoeuvrability and impressive speed. That, plus her few healing abilities, makes her a great pairing for D.Vas or other dive/flanking characters that are usually hard to keep up with.
But Jetpack Cat also brings arguably the most exciting new tactical possibility to the game it’s had in a long time, in the form of her tow rope — or beam — which she dangles for other heroes to use for a lift somewhere. This means you can do things like fly back to base to collect slow characters who’ve respawned there, or airlift characters to places they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. Or you could, say, airlift Bastion in chaingun form for a devastating aerial assault; or you could carry Junkrat around for him to drop grenades on teams from above. You can tow enemies too, although only as a consequence of using your Ultimate, which limits it. Still, it’s an enormously powerful way to remove an obstinate tank from the battlefield as you dump them over a ledge somewhere.
My favourite hero of the day, though, was probably Anran, a damage dealer who’s the older sister of support character Wuyang, if you’re interested in lore. I don’t normally go for damage types because I lack the precise skill to use them, but Anran is forgiving in that regard, which is what I really liked.
Anran’s theme is setting people on fire with flaming fan strikes and abilities, and then literally fanning the flames to deal more damage to them. And because fanning the flames doesn’t require great accuracy, just close proximity, it’s much easier to reliably do. Couple that with her flaming dash and dash-around flame strike and she’s got manoeuvrability and a bit of survivability. But Anran’s most attention-grabbing ability is one of her two Ultimates, which brings her back from the dead when you use it, in a fiery explosion.
Mizuki, the other new support, will take a bit of getting used to, but he seems to already be the favourite of a few developers at Blizzard, which bodes well. I struggled with him. He’s themed around a large circular hat he throws to heal people, a bit like Kung Lao does in Mortal Kombat, although with less slicing people apart. Throw the hat and it automatically bounces around allies in a loose line in front of you, and sometimes off of scenery, and then it returns to you, which feels cool. He also has a healing aura like Lucio, and a remember-where-you-were teleport to get out of trouble.
The new Overwatch heroes — Anran, Emre, Domina, Mizuki and Jetpack Cat.
But Mizuki’s potential I think lies in his chain grapple, which he fires out at people to bind them, again like a Mortal Kombat character but this time Scorpion — although he doesn’t pull enemies to him, he binds them in place. This can stop enemies in their tracks so it’s super-useful for holding quick flankers, but it will also ground flying characters, so if you spot a Pharah or a Jetpack Cat hovering over a cliff-edge somewhere: Binding Chain them and they’ll fall to their death. Plenty of potential if you have the accuracy to land it.
Domina, the new tank, is an imposing presence, power-dressed for corporate success with two floating robot arms to accompany her. She’s all about barrier shields, but her barriers are a kind we haven’t seen before. Hers are made up of hexagonal segments that can be individually blown away, so the whole thing doesn’t go down at once, like Reinhardt’s, for instance — only parts of it do. Her Ultimate also traps individual enemies inside their own personal shield, then explodes.
The key to getting the most out of Domina will be getting to grips with her laser rifle, which is like a delayed blast railgun. As you shoot it, it charges up to release a final, more powerful blast, meaning you have to stay on your target for a second or so. Some of my opponents during the playtest showed me how devastating this can be when handled well.
«The strategy that we would like to go forward with is to find a way to start every year off for Overwatch with a really big, ambitious moment like this» -Aaron Keller
The last of the heroes, Emre, doesn’t seem exciting on paper. He’s very similar to Soldier 76, the run-and-gun character who’s a bit of a concession to first-person shooter players. Emre’s the same thing — he even brings aim-down-sights to Overwatch for the first time. He has a grenade (a bouncy one) and a sidearm with life-stealing abilities, which temporarily boosts his jump distance and speed. Coupled with a passive that makes his health regen kick in quicker, it means he’s a very forgiving kind of hero, a bit of an all-rounder.
But there’s potential here. Emre’s main weapon is hitscan — meaning your shots will hit a target the moment you shoot — which means he has great damage capability at distance, especially where annoying flying characters are concerned. His Ultimate is also one of the most intimidating I faced during our playtest. Emre shouts out and then turns into a Tron-like AI person, hovers in the air, and fires charged, explosive blasts that can devastate clustered groups.
There’s something to like in all of the heroes, regardless of your playstyle, and the impact of them arriving together in the game will be considerable. We’ve rarely, if ever, had to shuffle multiple heroes into the pack at once, so there’ll be a period of all-change as people think of ways to work them in. And then there will be five more. Just as we settle with these heroes, another one will arrive, and then another, and then another. This can’t help but throw game balance out of whack this year, even though Blizzard assures me it has tools to better deal with this these days, but does it matter? Isn’t the chaos a large part of the excitement, of the fun?
Yearly expansions forever more
As big as this moment is — and Aaron Keller tells me «this is our most ambitious launch that we’ve ever had for Overwatch», and «the largest year we’ve ever had» — Blizzard doesn’t apparently think of it as a relaunch moment, even if I do. «We think about it more as an expansion moment for the game,» Keller says when we talk. But it’s not calling them expansions either, confusingly. It’s more accurate to think of them as year-long things that begin with a big moment and then progress in several smaller seasons over the course of the year. This year is The Reign of Talon, for example, which will have six seasons within it (roughly one every couple of months, it seems). The important thing to take from this is that each season will be akin to the seasonal Overwatch updates of the past, so the expansion-like drops are on top of that, not in place of that. We’re getting significantly more overall with this new way of doing things.
«If you look at the year we’re just jumping into, yes, we have this massive moment at the start, and we do want to do something big next year,» Keller tells me. «But at the same time, we are releasing a new hero every season this year and it’s something we’ve never done before. So this is, in essence, us really committing to something bigger.»
As suggested there, the plan is to repeat this formula each year, which I suppose brings the game much more in line with World of Warcraft and Diablo, which are also trying to stick to yearly expansion plans with several smaller updates in between. «The strategy that we would like to go forward with is to find a way to start every year off for Overwatch with a really big, ambitious moment like this,» Keller says. «Okay, we don’t think every one of them is going to be the same. We don’t want a cookie cutter template for it, but we would like a moment where everyone can sit up and take notice and be like, ‘Wow, look what Overwatch is doing.'»
But don’t expect five new heroes every February. «This isn’t something that we’re promising to do every year and it’s not even something I think that if we had the capability to do it that we would want to do every year,» Keller says. So next year it might be a map and mode overhaul, potentially, or something else entirely. «We do want there to be an element of surprise and delight in the way that we put together some of these bigger releases for our players.»
And in case you’re wondering, these expansion-like releases will be free. «This is just part of the live service for Overwatch,» Keller says. And in case you’re also wondering, what with all the focus on new heroes, Blizzard isn’t forgetting the existing ones. There’s a plan to devote a season this year to reworking some of them. «We would love to have a season this year that would be a rework season,» Keller says, «and so we’re talking about maybe a midpoint to the year where we release multiple hero reworks and map reworks at the same time.» As for which ones: «Oh I think we’re going to keep that under wraps.»
Story 2.0
Overwatch has always had lore. Since the beginning, there have been impressive cinematic videos showcasing heroes and their backstories, as well as comics and clue-laden voice-line interactions between characters in the game. But until now most of this has existed outside of the game, on the periphery, whereas in Reign of Talon it’s being brought inside, into the foreground, in a narrative viewer part of the game. Stories are also changing to become year-long things with beginnings, middles and climactic ends, rather than occasional dollops that accompany new heroes a few times a year. This has made for a significant developmental change, allowing the designers to plan story arcs further out and go much bigger with them.
The Reign of Talon begins with recently added hero Vendetta slicing off Talon leader Doomfist’s iconic cybernetic arm, to take control of the baddie group herself, then enacting, well, The Reign of Talon. This begins with an attack on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, a long-standing map in the game, and what’s exciting about this moment is we’ll see the in-game consequence of this attack when we play.
«Watchpoint: Gibraltar is going to look very different,» says Keller during the press conference, «and even play differently.» Art director Dion Rogers expands on this in a group interview, saying: «This time it’s not just additive where we just placed a couple props around and some fire. Bridges are destroyed, there’s new pathways in the map. We’ve edited the level design to support what’s happening in the storyline.»
Rogers goes on, perhaps daydreaming a little: «I can see this happening to a character, too, based on what’s going on. They may go through some sort of transformation that would affect their gameplay or maybe gain some temporary new power for a little while. Or even their artwork may change…»
Doomfist would be a brilliant test-case for this approach, with him losing his special arm, but Blizzard isn’t ready to go there yet. «This isn’t going to signal a change for Doomfist,» Keller says. «We’re not taking him out of the game. There’s not going to be a version without the arm. But I don’t think it means that we wouldn’t do some of that stuff in the future… I think that when the game feels like it’s more connected to the story, it is more powerful that way.»
Season 1 of The Reign of Talon will begin the story and in Season 5, «It’s all going to come to a head,» Keller says. «We’re going to have the big climactic finale. And then if this really resonates with players, that means Season 6 of this year is when we start setting up the next story with the newest hero that we developed.»
But that’s not all. There’s going to be a five-week faction war between the forces of Overwatch and Talon to really emphasise this, and the alluring part of this is your being able to choose a faction to ally with. Pick a side and complete objective-based missions to earn points for the faction and rewards for yourself. «And at the end of the event,» Keller says, «depending on which side wins, we’re going to be making some changes in some of our maps in order to reflect which one of those sides won.»
I think this feels like a push from Blizzard to engender a Warcraft-style Horde vs. Alliance sense of factional divide between players in the game, but when I put this to Keller, he seems genuinely surprised. «Oh,» he says. «Hey I was on the World of Warcraft team. We had a lot of people on Team 4 (the Overwatch team) that were on the World of Warcraft team. So when we think of something like the Ahn’Qiraj event or something, we have fond memories of that.»
Overwatch as the golden goose of Blizzard going forward
The clear message of the day is that Blizzard is committed to Overwatch in a big way. «We look at this business as something that will carry Overwatch to the next 10 years,» says Walter Kong during the press conference — «that we don’t look at it as a sprint, but a marathon.» And while some of that could be put down to familiar marketing bluster, there is an underlying sense that Blizzard has dug in and turned things around here, and that, with this new strategy, it’s throwing even more at the game going forward. Some of that is sheer Blizzard obstinacy and pride, I’m sure, and a desire to reassert its hero shooter as the dominant one out there. But there’s something else going on between the lines here, too, I believe, and it’s a sense that Overwatch is being shaped as a super-brand for Blizzard going forward.
«It sets us up for a much broader conversation on where the future of this universe and these characters are going to go» -Johanna Faries
Listen to Blizzard president Johanna Faries’ opening remark from the press conference: «I think there’s a vision that Overwatch is a pillar for Blizzard that we believe is a timeless game,» she says. «It’s not limited to chronology. It’s certainly not limited to number structures. And as we think about putting a forever game mindset to this universe, not only for what it is today, but what it can continue to grow to become multiple experiences — this is by no means the capstone of what people should expect from the Overwatch universe in terms of how Blizzard is going to wrap our arms around it. (…) It sets us up for a much broader conversation on where the future of this universe and these characters are going to go.»
Add to that Walter Kong’s remarks: «We have this wonderful pantheon of heroes. We have the set of values that I think are fairly timeless, that fit today as well as they did 10 years ago — hope and optimism — and we want to be able to tell more stories and set up more experiences within that franchise, but it’s something that we’re not rushing.»
«Multiple experiences», «tell more stories», «set up more experiences» — those are all indications Blizzard is exploring ways to expand Overwatch, beyond what it’s doing now. Are those references to other Overwatch game experiences? Or are they allusions to feature film desires on the team? Riot Games managed to successfully turn League of Legends into a blockbuster animated TV series in Arcane, although it did so at considerable, eye-watering cost. Exactly what Blizzard is exploring, then, I don’t know, but it’s clear how important Overwatch is to the company. Above all, it’s an exciting time to be an Overwatch player, and oh how I’ve longed to say those words again.
