Blizzard reveals plans for another Overwatch overhaul

Overwatch has gone through a lot of changes over the past year. The original, 6v6 competitive shooter that millions fell in love with no longer exists, and has been replaced by an overhauled ‘sequel' with balance changes and a new 5v5 format. While Overwatch remains popular despite these changes, that hasn't stopped long-time fans from making their complaints known. Now, Blizzard is reassessing Overwatch, promising to ‘revitalise' the game. 

In a new blog post, Blizzard addresses the Overwatch community, promising to act on feedback gathered over the course of 2023 with ‘big updates' planned for 2024.

The biggest changes will be coming to competitive play. For Overwatch 2 Season 9, players can expect a better ranking system that is “more accurate” while also helping players better understand what impacts their rank and how the matchmaking system functions.

A new ‘rank information' screen will be added, which will explain different modifiers in a simple way. You'll gain more points towards your next rank for winning multiple matches in a row or for coming back from a likely loss to win a match. You'll also see notes for when you are stuck in a losing streak, or lose a game that you were expected to win. All of these factors will contribute towards your rank score.

The blog post also covers a new rank for Overwatch. Champion rank is the new top-place rank in Overwatch, taking over from Grandmaster. Players can also expect to see new competitive rewards, including a range of ‘Jade' coloured weapons, when the new season begins. Other adjustments heading to the game with Season 9 include more consistent bullet firing for weapons, more protection against ‘burst' damage to allow for more counter-offensive manoeuvres and balance adjustments to healing and damage to reduce the amount of ‘stagnant' team fights.

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KitGuru Says: I dropped off of Overwatch 2 after the first few months. Perhaps this latest round of changes can help bring back competitive-focused players, a niche that Blizzard will have to lean into a bit more this year now that Overwatch esports is moving away from its ‘League' format to standard tournament circuits, similar to other esports titles like Counter-Strike. 

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