Activision Blizzard is making “major changes” to Overwatch 2 as part of a “revitalisation” of the free-to-play shooter that hopes to “make PvP gameplay more rewarding and fun”, as well as “provide greater transparency for players in-game”.
In a candid blog, the team insisted it had “heard [the] feedback” from players about the competitive play over the last eight seasons, and has plans to introduce “big updates” to enable you to better build on your skills and “see how you progress through the competitive ranks”.
“We built a better system that’s more accurate while also helping convey the meaning behind the mathematical complexity of a modern matchmaker and bring clear insights about what impacts your rank in every match,” the team said.
“One piece of feedback we heard is that just knowing your rank doesn’t say anything about why your rank went up or down. Competitive Updates originally worked to provide updates that reflected your growth as a player across multiple matches, but with the goal to provide greater transparency in each individual match, we’re going back to updating your rank after every match and showing how much progress you gain or lose between each Skill Division.”
This – along with displaying Modifiers that affected your last match below the rank progression bar – will “provide transparency in the matchmaking for each match”.
“Feedback is a driving force behind these changes, and we want to hear your thoughts on Competitive Play now that you’ll have more context for each game,” the team added.
“At its core, Overwatch 2 is a competitive game, so it’s important for the core systems and Competitive System to be as intuitive and accessible as possible. In addition to these core system changes, we’re introducing reworks to Pharah and Junkertown, which we’ll go into in a later blog.”
Overwatch 2 – Season 9: Champions is set to launch on 13th February. Other changes planned for the new season include a new progression system, an all-new skill tier above Grand Master, “as well as major gameplay changes to combat, hero survivability, and role passives”.
In a separate blog, director Aaron Keller said the drive for change came from the community itself, adding that “feedback from […] players along with our team’s vision [will] make the game more fun and challenging for everyone”.