Season three begins on February 7 and brings with it a number of all-new content material, together with the brand new Antarctica Control map, a brand new Asian Mythology theme and Battle Pass with a Mythic Kiriko pores and skin, the Ultimate Valentine’s in-game occasion that includes a browser-based Overwatch Dating Simulator: Loverwatch, and an IP collaboration —a first-ever for Overwatch 2. What’s extra, PachiMarchi returns in March!
Read on for a brief abstract of the matchmaking, aggressive, and steadiness modifications we’re making in season three, a preview of what to anticipate from our upcoming patches, and particulars on the return of the Overwatch World Cup! Season three additionally introduces Workshop mode with new auto-moderation tech together with a number of accessibility enhancements. Let’s get to it!
New Antarctica Peninsula Control Map
Control will get its first new map in Overwatch 2 within the type of frosty Antarctica! We have already visited the primary facility of Ecopoint: Antarctica, as seen in Mei’s “Rise and Shine” cinematic, however the Antarctica Peninsula station is a lore-rich tundra with a number of tales but to be advised. This snow-themed Control map options some distinctive sights, together with an ice-breaker ship and an underground drilling station. With tons of flank routes and a few providing a high-ground benefit over high-traffic areas and targets, we are able to’t wait to see how the meta unfolds for this chilly battleground!
Asian Mythology Theme & Kiriko Mythic Skin
Overwatch has lengthy explored and celebrated real-life cultures from all over the world, which you’ll see in our roster of heroes from Korea, Japan, and China. We’re excited to share we’re diving into Asian Mythology because the theme for season three! This season options a few of our most original skins so far, and some have some enjoyable lore connections we predict gamers will love.
Complete the Premium Battle Pass, and also you’ll unlock the Amaterasu Kiriko Mythic pores and skin, impressed by varied deities in Japanese mythology with customizations you’ll be able to combine and match themed for the moon, the ocean, and storms. Our idea artists had numerous enjoyable arising with the visible results for this one, which incorporates themed headpieces and a brand new search for Kiriko’s spirit fox.
More Rewards, More Often
Season three will enhance on our first two by providing much more rewards only for logging in and enjoying. You can look ahead to 10 extra tiers of rewards on the free monitor, in addition to 1500 Credits to earn and spend as you please within the Hero Gallery. We’ve added 500 Credits to the Premium monitor as properly.
Nearly all Epic and Legendary occasion hero skins from the unique Overwatch—300 whole—have been added to the Hero Gallery and can at all times be accessible for buy with both Overwatch Coins or Credits. We’ve additionally lowered the value of these Legendary skins from 1900 Credits to 1500 Credits.
In whole, we’ll offer 4 earnable skins outdoors of the Battle Pass by way of in-game occasions and granting gamers a heaping serving to of different earnable and free cosmetics this season. These embody a gold medal weapon appeal for logging in at any level between February 7-February 20 to rejoice the Overwatch World Cup festivities, a Cupid Hanzo Player icon for logging in throughout our upcoming Ultimate Valentine’s occasion and an earnable Legendary OW2 pores and skin later within the season from our IP collaboration. We’ll share extra particulars on how gamers can earn every of the skins and different rewards nearer to when every occasion goes stay.
We’ll even be granting all gamers the primary 5 free tiers of rewards of their Battle Pass in season three only for logging in throughout our first week! And tune in for Twitch Drops all through the season to assist our streaming group and declare extra of the enjoyable cosmetics we’ve received within the chamber. In March, you’ll be able to look ahead to our returning PachiMarchi occasion, which incorporates much more rewards! More information on these occasions and their actual dates could be discovered beneath.
Loverwatch Dating Sim (Feb. 13-28) & Ultimate Valentine’s Event (Feb. 14-28)
Can you’re feeling the love? Our Ultimate Valentine occasion kicks off on Valentine’s Day this yr with a Hanzo 4v4 Limited Time Mode and Support-themed challenges that may web you two earnable epic skins, amongst different rewards. In one other first for Overwatch 2, don’t miss out on the Loverwatch relationship simulator, which launches on February 13!
Loverwatch is a non-canon text-based relationship sim the place gamers will select between two potential relationship paths: Mercy or Genji. Players will likely be offered with dialogue choices to work together with that hero and will likely be assisted by Cupid (who seems suspiciously like Hanzo). Unlock the key ending, and also you’ll be rewarded with a themed POTG Highlight!
Once stay, Loverwatch will likely be accessible at https://www.Loverwatch.gg and accessible on net consumer solely. The expertise will likely be playable till February 28 in Korean, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, and English. The full playthrough lasts roughly half-hour.
One-Punch Man Collaboration (March 7 – April 6)
100 pushups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10-kilometer run! Every single day! We’re excited to announce that we’ve been working with Japanese Anime “One-Punch Man” on our first-ever main IP collaboration for Overwatch 2 to deliver One-Punch Man skins and cosmetics to the sport this season! Together we’ve created a group of cosmetics from the beloved anime, together with Saitama pores and skin for Doomfist. We’ll reveal every merchandise earlier than they drop on March 7, with one being a Legendary pores and skin that’s earnable through themed challenges.
PachiMarchi Returns (March 21 – April 4)
PachiMarchi is again with a brand new limited-time Kill Confirmed recreation mode and a ton of rewards, together with an epic pores and skin, six PachiMarchi participant icons, a weapon appeal, and identify card! Claim a PachiMarchi Roadhog participant icon simply logging in in the course of the occasion, and full themed challenges to earn an Epic Pachimari Roadhog pores and skin earlier than the occasion ends on April 4.
Balance, Matchmaking, and Quality-of-Life Changes
The full patch notes to kick off season three will likely be posted later as we speak. Join us on Twitch as we speak at 12:00 P.M. PT for an in-depth dialogue of the Hero steadiness modifications heading your method later this week. We’ll be joined by our Lead Hero Designer, Alec Dawson, and A_Seagull as we break down who’s getting nerfed, who’s getting buffed, and what it means to you. In the meantime, right here’s a brief abstract of the largest modifications:
- The well being totals for all tanks will likely be decrease when enjoying any recreation mode that doesn’t have a job queue to deal with the relative energy of these heroes in recreation modes the place there could be a number of of the identical hero on the identical staff. Health totals will stay the identical for tanks when enjoying any Role Queue enabled recreation.
- Maximum final cost retained when swapping heroes is lowered from 30 to 25%.
- Mercy is receiving nerfs, and most helps have acquired minor steadiness modifications.
- Damaging enemies with Rammatra’s final now slows the period timer down as a substitute of pausing it completely.
We’ve additionally made a number of quality-of-life modifications to matchmaking and aggressive, as detailed in our current weblog. Here’s the gist:
- The matchmaker will likely be up to date in order that roles on each groups will likely be equally ranked. For instance, mirroring tanks ought to extra usually have related ranks than earlier than, and likewise, for every respective function.
- Your aggressive rank will replace with each 5 wins and 15 losses.
- In the mid-season patch for season three, we’ll be updating the UI so details about your progress in direction of a aggressive replace will at all times be viewable.
- Also, starting with our mid-season patch, Top 500 Leaderboard gamers will see their Top 500 leaderboard rank up to date after each match relatively than each 5 wins and 15 losses.
Looking forward, in Season 4 we’ll be eradicating rank resets and rank decay as we all know this has been a poor expertise for some gamers and trigger for churn. We’re dedicated to continuous enhancements on our matchmaking and aggressive expertise, so please maintain the suggestions on this space coming!
Overwatch World Cup Celebration
The stage is about! All 36 nations taking part within the Overwatch World Cup have been introduced, and the competitors committee choice course of is now underway. Follow Overwatch and Path to Pro on Twitter for updates as we’ll reveal the ultimate committee and participant rosters by way of these channels. Check out the newly launched net expertise for particulars on all of the methods to become involved, together with the upcoming World Cup Trials, the Wild Card Challenge which is able to qualify in extra groups, and the season three Leaderboard Challenges! More information on OWWC, together with how and when to observe, will likely be shared all year long.
Workshop Returning & Moderation Tools
Season three will deliver again our superior workshop instruments for customized recreation creators to make use of. In doing this, we need to make sure that our customized video games stay protected and gratifying for all gamers. As such, we’re additionally introducing new moderation expertise that may robotically take away customized video games containing inappropriate titles or content material, together with issuing restrictions or actioning accounts of those that create and put up these video games. If you see an inappropriate customized recreation, please report it! Our current Defense Matrix replace has extra info.
Streamer Mode & Accessibility Improvements
We’re introducing Streamer Protection beginning in season three as properly, which all gamers will be capable to discover and toggle on or off within the Social choices throughout the Settings menu. Streamer Protection can set your private consumer to cover your Battletag and the Battletags of everybody in your matches, your chat, your replay codes, and the period of time you’ve been in queue, and can enable for including a delay to your queue earlier than the sport begins discovering a match. For extra info on streamer mode, additionally try the current Defense Matrix replace.
Also added to the Settings menu are a number of accessibility enhancements, outlined beneath:
- Improved Subtitles Options to permit for textual content scalability, character portrait icons, speaker identify, textual content shade modifications, background shade modifications, and subtitle preview.
- Added the power to alter the mouse cursor dimension on PC.
- Added a setting to pick out customized colours for Group and Alerts within the UI, which could be previewed earlier than saving for simpler setup.
Best of luck on the battlefield. We hope you’re as enthusiastic about this season as we’re! Let us know what you consider the modifications, and we’ll proceed to iterate and make Overwatch 2 the most effective recreation it may be.
