Overwatch 2’s mid-season patch is upon us, and with it comes the final exam for your mechanic skill – Hero Mastery Challenges.
Simply put, the mastery challenges serve as unique character-centric obstacle courses that will try and capture the essential skills needed for a particular Overwatch 2 hero. The initial courses made available target some mainstays of the series – being Reinhardt, Mercy and the every-annoying gremlin that is Tracer.
Hero Mastery is here 💪
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) September 7, 2023
💥 Jump in with Tracer, Mercy, and Reinhardt
🥇 Climb Global Leaderboards
🎯 Sojourn arrives Sep 12
🦍 Winston arrives Sep 19 pic.twitter.com/3cHxDtLBhy
More hero courses will be rolled out over time—Sojourn’s will become available on 13 September, with everyone’s favourite ape Winston, following on 20 September.
The courses are super robust, and do a great effort to capture some of the minutiae that embody these characters – like using Mercy’s guardian angle to rapidly flit across bottomless gaps or Reinhard carefully using his firestrike to target enemies hiding behind a shield. These character-specific tech options wholly serve to open the eyes of everyday players to the real potential of the games roster in an accessible and approachable way. Not everyone wants to wade into ‘educational’ game TikToks or hours of YouTube game footage from questionable sources.
And the neatest part? There are hero-specific leaderboards. Completing the courses in a speedy and efficient way will net you a position, with the opportunity to further refine your run, speedrunner style – honing your skills further.
The great thing about hero mastery isn’t beating the course, it’s showing everyone online that I did.
It’s another feather in the cap of what Overwatch 2 is shaping up to be – the Invasion content patch has demonstrated the kind of legs that people may have been expecting from the initial re-launch of the game, it is just a shame it took six entire seasons to reach this point.
For those that held on, it’s a vindicating reward – but for those that perhaps rightfully leapt off the wagon along the way, I can only hope they give it a second glance because this content is real fun.
Are you ready to test your mettle? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
