The Overwatch 2 team continues to offer a generous amount of transparency when it comes to how the title is progressing. On the Overwatch Blog page today, a development post has dropped that discusses a very cool retrospective look at how things have progressing, with a spotlight on some of their main goals and concerns.
It’s amazing to me that just a year ago we were talking about launching Overwatch 2 and now we’re coming to the end of Season 3! Check out our newest blog post with a look back at the last 6 months. https://t.co/y2YTP0hCnh
— Aaron Keller (@aaronkellerOW) March 24, 2023
Aaron Keller serves as the Game Director of Overwatch 2, and speaks openly about challenges and player concerns that have arisen and been addressed. A particular sticking point that always rang true with me was how Support Players could easily be bullied in the new 5v5 format:
A common (and accurate) complaint was Support Heroes felt constantly picked on. This feedback is something the team has been working on addressing since before launch. To do so, we tackled the problem from a few different angles:
- Reduce the ability for Damage Heroes to disrupt the enemy backline and target Supports
- Give Supports additional tools to deal with the threat
- Exercise some restraint. Many players were getting accustomed to the switch to 5v5.
He further clarifies more adjacent changes to address this, with details such as how DPS heroes lost the stacking speed buff passive that came with the Overwatch 2 rollout. This helped address the “snowball effect” that seemed to happen when a big mean mother hubbard got in to your backline and was suddenly zooming around swatting you like flies.
There was also a rather revealing look at the amount of concern that was had when it came to the One Punch Man collaboration – with the concern being that it may dilute the strong identity that Overwatch has established.
When we first announced the collab, we talked about our values with how we’d like to handle events like these, and players seemed to agree with us. The popularity of the event has given us the confidence to do more collaborations, and we’re hoping to premier another large collab later this year.
It’s exciting to think what collaboration may come in future, particularly if the attitude of Blizzard is to ensure they are curating this content carefully and measurably – rather than rapid fire shoe-horning any and every property with a pocketful of cash.
Finally there was some talk about the absence of the “On Fire” system, which was essentially a tracker in the original Overwatch that gave you an idea on whether or not you were sucking arse. In-game, your character portrait would crackle and sizzle, eventually becoming entirely aflame – indicating that your current performance was on point. Racking up kills, capturing objectives – even saving the lives of your team mates, these would all contribute to this indicator and give you a warm pat on the back.
Well, the system is almost entirely absent in Overwatch 2 – your character may vocalise that they are kicking arse, but there would be no visual indicator. Thankfully, they have confirmed that this feature is being rebuilt in the upgraded engine – alongside tweaks to the Play of the Game algorithm, to hopefully spotlight more killer plays.
It’s eye opening to think that Overwatch 2’s multiplayer experience has been live for close to six months at this point, and the amount of improvements are far from meagre. Despite the rocky start, the Overwatch team is extremely committed to making sure that the world that players have come to love will persist for a long while yet.
Are you excited to see the On Fire system return? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
