Overwatch 2 Aims to Stop Hero Stagnation - Including Two More Unannounced Heroes This Year
Blizzard has promised that Overwatch 2 will deliver a new hero every 18 weeks (one for every two in-game seasons) – and the game will see two more unannounced heroes added this year, on top of those already announced.
Announced during today's Overwatch 2 reveal event, the game's new content roadmap introduces 9-week seasons of content, and lead hero designer Geoff Goodman says the team is looking at releasing a new hero "every other season" – so every 18 weeks.
If upkept, this would return Overwatch to its original cadence of hero releases, which delivered a new character to play as roughly every 18 weeks from release in 2016 up until August 2019. However, things dramatically slowed down after that point, with only one hero, Echo, added to the game between 2019 and the upcoming release of Overwatch 2 on October 4.
It looks like the start of the game will see a glut of new heroes. Season 1 (starting on October 4) will include 3 new heroes, comprising the previously announced Sojourn and Junker Queen, and a new, unannounced Support hero. Season 2 won't be taking a break, itself adding a new Tank hero on December 6. We don't know when those new characters will be revealed.
Lead character concept artist, Qiu Fang teased heroes even beyond that. "We're still working on new characters for the next year, year-and-a-half down the line as well. There's characters that folks have already seen glimpses of in the story, and there's also characters that you've never seen before, never heard about."
As you'd expect, Goodman is designing characters that fit the new, more aggressive playstyle Overwatch 2 is aiming for – and he confirms that they won't be focusing on shields, which are being somewhat phased out of the meta in the new game.
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