If you are a fan of Overwatch, Blizzard games, or even just a fan of competitive FPS games you have surely heard about the upcoming sequel to Overwatch. This is not going to be a sequel in a traditional sense but more so an expansion to the original game. The reason Blizzard is choosing to do this is to avoid splitting up the player base. Overwatch 2 PvP will be a free update for everyone who owns Overwatch. The paid portion will be a $40 (at the time of writing this) Coop PvE campaign. Throughout this article we are going to focus on the PvP aspect and the changes being proposed.
The move to 5v5
The largest change that has been announced is the shift from a 6v6 format to a 5v5 format. The new competitive team will be 1 Tank, 2 DPS, and 2 Healers. As you would expect this has caused a lot of backlash from the competitive players, especially the competitive tank players. OW2 is still at least six months away (as of July 2021) and any number of changes to what a Tank or DPS are could happen to keep those players viable in the pro scene.
It’s important to note that Blizzard has already stated they will be reclassifying off tanks as bruisers which, to me, says they will be considered a DPS not a Tank for the sake of the 5v5 roles.
Class Passives
Another major addition to PvP in OW2 is that of class passives. So far we know that Tanks will have a knockback reduction, DPS characters will have a faster base move speed, and Healers will heal over time after not taking damage (think like a mercy passive but weaker). This is all still very much a work in progress and could change to be more specific per character. Or they could be taken out entirely!
New Map Type: Push
A new competitive map type has been announced for some time, called Push. Push is a tug of war style of map where there is a robot in the center that each team tries to maintain control of, presumably through a king of the hill style mechanic. The robot pushes some barrier or object toward one side of the map or the other based on who currently has control over it.
New Hero: Sojourn
Sojourn is a DPS hero that has been announced as one of the new additions in Overwatch 2. Sojourn’s main weapon is an automatic, assault rifle style, 40 round gun. Her alternate shot is a quake-like railgun which has two charge levels for increased damage. We do not have specifics on her other abilities other than one is some sort of movement ability, one is an activated ability, and her ultimate is a steroid that at least doubles the speed of her railgun charge shot.
General Systems
The Overwatch engine is going through an overhaul for Overwatch 2. We have seen a small portion of how the game will look with a handful of the heroes shown in the new engine. Some of the heroes are even getting updated models. At E3 2021 the Overwatch Team showed off the new Baptiste model and his visual changes for OW2.
We have yet to see any of the new maps or how the old maps will look but it is safe to assume that those will also have a visual upgrade.
