One of Blizzard’s biggest upcoming games is undoubtedly the highly-anticipated sequel to the company’s hit 2016 hero-shooter,Overwatch 2. The game was expected to make a big splash at BlizzCon, only for it to not make any kind of appearance during the keynote address. WhileOverwatch 2was absent during the keynote address, for some bizarre reason, Jeff Kaplan and his team did provide a deeper look at the game in video presentations afterwards.
A variety of information onOverwatch 2was revealed after the BlizzCon keynote address through those video presentations, interviews, and elsewhere. But with the game missing from the keynote presentation, it’s safe to say that someOverwatch 2fans missed out.
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Here is a complete recap of everything revealed aboutOverwatch 2during BlizzCon 2021.
Competitive Play
Overwatch 2will be sharing the PvP experience with the firstOverwatchgame, so fans can expect a mostly similar Competitive Play experience. However, it was revealed thatOverwatch 2is actually making one big change to Competitive. As it turns out,Overwatch 2will not have Assault maps in Competitive Play, which means players will no longer be playing on maps like Hanamura or Temple of Anubis.
This decision has been somewhat controversial. On one hand, the Assault maps have often been criticized byOverwatch 2Competitive players as being particularly frustrating and poorly balanced, with it much easier to take the first point than the second point. On the other hand, the Assault maps provided some variety to the Competitive Play experience, and there are those who enjoy maps likeHanamuraand Temple of Anubis.
It’s possibleOverwatch 2will be making even more changes to the Competitive Play experience, though that remains to be seen. Whatever happens to the Competitive Play inOverwatch 2will also happen inOverwatch 1, so fans should keep that in mind.
Hero Missions
One of the big additions toOverwatch 2is permanent PvE content. While there will be a full-blown story mode forOverwatch 2players to play through, there will also be Hero Missions as well, which are smaller experiences that players can complete to upgrade the various characters on the roster.Overwatch 2will have hundreds of Hero Missions, which should ensure that fans of the game’s PvE content stay plenty busy.
Some of theseOverwatch 2Hero Missions will take place on existing maps, expanded to accommodate for the missions. The Hero Missions will allow players to travel to otherwise blocked-off areas ofOverwatchmaps, and some of the maps will also have dynamic weather. Specifically, the developers showed how dynamic weather systems couldcreate sandstorms on the Temple of Anubis mapor a blizzard on the Hanamura map.
WhileOverwatch 2players complete the Hero Missions, they will have to fight a variety of different Omnic enemies. This includes Elite Grunts, The Puller, and The Breacher. Each enemy has its own set of skills that it can use to make players' lives difficult, andOverwatch 2players will have to employ a variety of strategies if they hope to defeat them.
New Looks for Existing Heroes
Unfortunately, no newOverwatch 2hero was revealed during BlizzCon 2021. Instead of revealing new heroes, Blizzard mainly showcased footage of existing heroes. Blizzard also revealed some images ofOverwatch 2heroes McCree, Pharah, Reaper, and Widowmaker. These four characters are getting slight updates to their looks, with fan reaction mostly positive. However, there is some controversy over McCree’s new look inOverwatch 2. It will definitely be interesting to see if Blizzard changes its plans for any newOverwatch 2character looks and if any of the other characters on the roster will have new looks in the sequel.
New Maps
There were no new hero reveals forOverwatch 2at BlizzCon 2021, but Blizzard did reveal two new maps that will be making their way to the game. WhenOverwatch 2launches, fans of the hero-shooter can look forward to trying outnew maps based on New York and Rome.
Possible Reinhardt Rework
Overwatch 2will be keeping the various heroes on the roster mostly the same, but that doesn’t mean Blizzard won’t change the heroes over time with reworks. Blizzard has drastically changed some heroes in the past with reworks and it may be doing the same for Reinhardt at some point in the near future. Apossible Reinhardt reworkwas teased where Reinhardt would be able to stop his charge midway through it, as well as throw two Fire Strikes in quick succession instead of just one at a time. This would make for a much more aggressive Reinhardt than fans have been used to so far, though it’s possible Blizzard may abandon these plans well before they are ever added to the game.
Expect More Updates Soon
It was also confirmed thatOverwatch 2updates will be more frequentnow that BlizzCon 2021 is coming to an end. It’s been teased that the updates may even be monthly, though nothing is set in stone. Hopefully there will be plenty ofOverwatch 2updates between now and the game’s release date to keep fans engaged while they wait to actually play the sequel.
Overwatch 2is in development for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
