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Blizzard has held a developer livestream for upcoming sequel Overwatch 2 as previously promised, and revealed a couple of big changes to the game’s standard PvP mode.
During the over two-and-a-half-hour broadcast—which included the game’s new director Aaron Keller, Lead Hero Designer Geoff Goodman and Associate Art Director Dion Rogers—the studio confirmed that team size is being changed from the first game’s six players per side to five. Those teams will still be made up of two support and two DPS chraracters, but only one member of the team will be able to take the Tank role.
Keller said there were many reasons for this change, many going on what Blizzard has learned over the five years that the first game has been live, calling this the “next step” of those changes. He also mentioned it made it easier and clearer to read, thanks to the removal of two of the players on maps, but also referred to how the Overwatch team wanted to see players move away from an over-reliance on tank characters and not be carried by them. Many configurations were apparently tried, including seven versus seven, but the team found five versus five to be the sweet spot.
The broadcast also included plenty of other tweaks and changes that will be coming in the sequel, including a cleaner UI and power changes such as Mei no longer being able to fully freeze opponents and Winston’s Tesla Coil getting a new ranged attack to name but a few. We also got a good look at three of the new maps that’ll be appearing in the sequel including New York with its Grand Central Terminal, Rio which sports a nightclub and Monte Carlo which is set, naturally, on a race track.
You can check out the full broadcast for yourself below. Overwatch 2 doesn’t have a firm release date yet, but isn’t expected to land until 2022 at the earliest.
