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Director’s Take – Retrospective on Season 6 Hero BalanceSep 22, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsDirector’s Take – Retrospective on Season 6 Hero Balance Hero Designer Alec Dawson reflects on the past season for hero balance and previews upcoming changes for Overwatch 2 Hey y'all! This is Alec, Lead Hero Designer, stepping in for Aaron this week. We thought this Director’s Take would be a good time to chat about our heroes, recent balance changes, and what we’ve learned from them, and talk a bit about the philosophy behind our two upcoming reworks for Sombra and Roadhog. Illari and the Safe Side of Strong Let’s start with Illari. Going into Illari’s launch, our slogan was “safe side of strong.” We want hero releases to be impactful. It’s best for the game for a number of reasons, but most importantly, it creates change throughout the meta. An impactful hero launch can shift other heroes’ viability and create new and unique team compositions - an unimpactful hero launch can feel as if the game didn’t enter a new season. Making a new hero feel impactful on launch is challenging because we are asking you to choose between that hero and their overall potential versus picking the heroes that you may have hundreds or thousands of hours on. Players like to try new things, but players also like to win. To mitigate this friction, while you are learning the nuances of a hero, we generally will continue to aim for the “safe side of strong” with our hero releases and then tune them where necessary. In situations where the hero's kit contains mechanics we'd describe as more “sharp” or potentially polarizing (say we were to release Widowmaker again), we may exercise more caution with this approach. We aimed to make sure Illari was powerful, and we were happy to see that she launched in an impactful, game-changing state, but it's important to evaluate where that power is coming from. A lot of her initial power budget was wrapped up in her Healing Pylon and her lethality. Despite its potency, the Healing Pylon itself can feel invisible throughout a match due to its fire-and-forget automated healing. It was one of the first things we tuned for a few reasons. First, it can create situations that resemble stalemates. Next, breaking through the line of defense to shoot the pylon can already be a difficult task - it shouldn't be hard to kill once you're shooting it. Finally, as a more passive ability, it does not have the immediate impact and satisfaction of other elements in her kit, like her primary and secondary fire. Going forward, we'll continue to iterate on Illari's balance whilst making sure she doesn't feel muted. We think there's still a good amount of room there, and we will be making an adjustment to her secondary fire healing in Season 7. Layers of Balance Now let's talk about some recent balance changes and how we approach our start-of-season and mid-season updates. There are a few goals when we approach balancing Overwatch 2, but two that are consistently front of mind are that Hero changes should be an improvement to the game experience - whether...Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes - September 21, 2023Sep 21, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsHERO UPDATES DAMAGE Bastion Reconfiguration No longer restores armor when transforming Developer Comments: Bastion's self-healing during transformation was doubly effective with how the Ironclad passive stacked with armor damage reduction, making him too capable of surviving ambushes and dives.Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes – September 19, 2023Sep 19, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsOverwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes – September 19, 2023 General Updates Hero Mastery Completing a hero mastery course in the gold bonus tier will now grant bonus score based on how fast you completed the course. This bonus score is granted based on the time differential down to the nearest tenth of a second between your time and gold bonus tier. This new bonus time can be viewed in the finish line bonus tooltip on the course summary screen. This change affects all Hero Mastery courses played going forward and should allow the global leaderboards for each course to be more competitive. Bug Fixes Fixed in a previous update - Resolved an issue that caused jump pads to stop functioning after a round transition. Fixed a bug that resulted in Sombra’s EMP failing to apply to some targets. Fixed a bug in Suravasa that prevented players from contesting the Ruins objective point (E) when standing in certain locations. Made general bug fixes and improvements. Party and Play with Overwatch 2 Anniversary 2023Sep 19, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsParty and Play with Overwatch 2 Anniversary 2023 Celebrate the first year of Overwatch 2 playing returning game modes and earn fan-favorite shop skins! The first anniversary of Overwatch 2 is here! Millions of players have already answered the call, and we’re celebrating with lots of fun rewards. For three weeks, you’ll be able to play returning modes from past events throughout the year in the Arcade, along with the chance to earn Overwatch Credits, which can be spent on fan-favorite skins in a limited-time Anniversary Shop. Keep reading to find out more about everything coming in the Overwatch 2 Anniversary event! Week 1 – Winter Wonderland and Battle for Olympus During the first week of the event, stay frosty with the return of Winter Wonderland event game modes. Join in the ultimate snowball fight with Mei’s Snowball Offense, both in Elimination and Deathmatch versions. Try your hand at the epic 1v5 Yeti Hunt, or the challenging Flash Freeze elimination game modes. If you prefer more godly challenges, Battle for Olympus also returns in Week 1 with both Free-For-All Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch game modes. Battle for Olympus features eight heroes who have been buffed with god-like ultimates to create a frenzied battle that will rock the heavens. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/c0dad67e45b093f943747ae53929db14764e5b78.png Week 2 – Assault, Catch-a-Mari, and Starwatch: Galactic Rescue It’s a blast from the past! Classic Overwatch Assault maps are back to play in the Arcade. Assault maps require teams to either capture or defend two static objective points. Often considered the most challenging to play because of intense and long team fights, you’ve got to have exceptional coordination and teamwork to win. Do you think you have what it takes to cap both points? We’re also bringing back the chaotic fun of Catch-A-Mari, our elimination-confirm style game mode where you pick up the Pachimari toys dropped from defeated opponents to score points for your team and win. Plus, save the galaxy with the return of Starwatch: Galactic Rescue. In Starwatch, a team of Watchers (attackers) work to liberate 3CH-O (played by Echo) from the clutches of the Infinite Empire (defenders) in a four-objective point map. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/bf1da0947d1b786b4566b10618ee8727f7f23900.png Week 3 – Summer Games and Mischief & Magic In the third and final week of the Anniversary event, break out the sunscreen and hit the beach with the comeback of your favorite Summer Games event modes, including fan favorites like Lúcioball, and Winston’s Beach Volleyball. We’re also bringing back Mischief & Magic, the prop hunt style game mode, where Knight Genji chases down the mischievous Rogue Kiriko as she transforms and hides as everyday objects. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/ef952820462a5c1944d58e0c1ab9d1e9f4a9532b.png Earn Credits to redeem Returning Shop Skins Earn up to 3,000 Overwatch Credits when you complete all of the challenges that appear throughout the event. Use them to...Defense Matrix – Text Chat Changes, Stopping Cheating, and Improving ReportingSep 8, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsDefense Matrix – Text Chat Changes, Stopping Cheating, and Improving Reporting In our latest update to our Defense Matrix initiative, we’re sharing new changes to make the Overwatch 2 experience fun and fair. Hello heroes! We’re back with news from the Defense Matrix team, covering our latest efforts to bring a positive and fair gameplay experience to Overwatch 2. We've been taking big steps to help discourage and remove disruptive behavior and cheating and wanted to share more details with you. Hold on, what is Defense Matrix? We’re glad you asked! Defense Matrix is the name for our collection of efforts to quell the cheating, disruptive chat, and griefing issues that negatively impact many multiplayer video games, including Overwatch 2. These efforts are the product of a dedicated task force of developers, researchers, and community experts, all working to improve our existing systems while finding new ways to counter disruptive behaviors. Guided by two core principles, we strive to keep Overwatch 2 a positive player experience. The first is Fair is Fun, meaning all players should have the same level playing field when it comes to the game. The second is to foster a Safe and Inclusive Social Experience, working to prevent and discourage disruptive and unwanted behaviors from players. Improving Text Chat Text chat is one of the most basic ways players communicate with each other in-game. Previously, there were three text chat settings: Unfiltered, which did not have any restrictions, Mature, which allowed for more “adult” common language, and Friendly, which removed any words identified as obscene, vulgar, or offensive. Starting this season, we are removing the Unfiltered text chat option from the social menu, since this allowed harmful language and phrases that have no place in our community. We recommend you use the Friendly setting if you want to avoid seeing inappropriate and disruptive language that we commonly filter. All new players start with this as their default text chat setting. The Mature text chat option permits some vulgar words commonly seen in open communication in any team-based online game that, in many cases, are considered acceptable when not used to insult or harass other players. Players who had their text chat filter set to Unfiltered have been moved to Mature. Regardless of which setting you decide to use, it’s never acceptable for anyone to direct disruptive chat toward other players, no matter what language is used. Our filters are constantly updating, but so is the online culture lexicon. If you see anyone using any offensive language that is not being filtered, or anyone working around our filters using altered or misspelled text, please report them in-game for disruptive communication. For all platforms, you can find the report option in the social menu. If you play on a PC, you can also right-click the username directly in text chat. Expanding Disruptive Voice Chat Detection and Actioning We’ve talked previously...Director’s Take – Looking to the Future of Competitive OverwatchSep 8, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsDirector’s Take – Looking to the Future of Competitive Overwatch Game Director Aaron Keller’s latest blog looks at the future of Competitive Play in Overwatch 2 Hello, everyone! We've seen a lot of conversations around Competitive in Overwatch lately, and I'd like to take most of this week's Director's Take to address it. But first, let’s have a quick hero update. We made several changes to Illari when she was enabled for Ranked. Most notably, the healing for her pylon was reduced, and her Ultimate projectile size was decreased while it no longer pierces barriers. The Pylon nerfs effectively equalized the healing between her pylon and Solar Rifle. Pre-nerf, the Healing Pylon accounted for about 62% of her healing; now that number is 55%. This change also brings her more in line with other damage-forward supports, whereas before, she was outputting healing numbers close to Lifeweaver and Mercy. We're happy with those latest changes and the additional changes made to Captive Sun. We’ll continue to monitor her damage output and see if anything needs addressing next season. Additionally, we're looking at Roadhog's underperformance and targeting his rework for the midseason update in Season 7. Over the past few weeks, more people have been talking about Competitive Play. Conversations really started to trend following a video from Eskay. I'd like to join in on the conversation. I agree with a lot of what has been said – and I want to share a glimpse into what the development team is thinking and the direction that we're likely to go with Competitive in the future. The team has been working on changes to our Competitive mode for some time, but moderate to major changes to the mode won't find their way into the game until sometime down the road. I won’t be able to address every issue that people are discussing in this piece, but I would like to address some of the major ones. We’ll share more details on specifics as we get closer to releasing the changes. changes. Some feedback we’ve heard about the current system is that you’re not pleased with how much information about the match, and your progress is hidden from you. We understand you want to know how the system works, especially regarding how your rating goes up, down, or even changes at all) when you get a Competitive Update, along with trying to figure out how fair a match is at the start of a game. For instance, we’ve seen players go 5-2 and be demoted at their next Competitive Update. Many of the reports investigated so far have occurred due to MMR decay. For instance, if you typically pick DPS and go a significant amount of time between playing other roles, then MMR decay could kick in between updates for lesser-played roles. Since decay is tracked per role, this could pull your rating down far enough to cause the demotion. When players see this happen, they would justifiably assume there was an issue with the system. Many of the changes that came with our Competitive 2.0 update were based on ...Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes – September 7, 2023Sep 7, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsOverwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes – September 5, 2023 OVERWATCH 2 ANNIVERSARY 2023 We’re celebrating the first year of Overwatch 2! Come and play returning event game modes, including Battle for Olympus, Catch-A-Mari, Starwatch, and Mischief and Magic! You’ll also be able to take part in new challenges that reward Overwatch Credits, which can be spent on returning Legendary skins from the in-game shop. Join the celebration when it begins on September 19! NEW GAME MODE – HERO MASTERY Hero Mastery is a new, single-player game mode that allows players to test their skills with individual heroes on custom courses. Push your expertise to the limit for high scores and dominate the leaderboards. Are you up to the challenge? Each hero can be played on three unique courses of increasing difficulty. Flex your skills and unlock up to five stars on each course. Hero Mastery courses are scored on various factors, including time, eliminations, heals, and escorts. Each hero has individual stats that are tracked as well. Plus collect all the Mastery Emblems to show off your prowess! Hero Mastery is launching with a limited-time event that includes exclusive rewards. Courses for Tracer, Reinhardt, and Mercy are now available, along with courses for Sojourn, Winston, and more premiering in the weeks ahead. GENERAL UPDATES PING SYSTEM UPDATES Owned entities (such as Torbjörn's Turret, Symmetra's Teleporter, or Illari's Healing Pylon) now have a lower priority as ping targets than enemy heroes. HERO UPDATES TANK Zarya Projected Barrier Health increased from 200 to 225. Cooldown decreased from 10 to 8 seconds. Size increased 15%. Developer Comment: Zarya often spends both barrier charges on herself as it is usually more consistent for building energy. The change to Projected Barrier incentivizes using the barrier for her allies more often. Junker Queen Jagged Blade Impact damage increased from 50 to 65. Developer Comment: This change rewards throwing accuracy with the Jagged Blade without directly affecting Junker Queen's self-healing. Orisa Fortify Cooldown begins when the ability is activated instead of when it ends. Cooldown increased from 12 to 16.5 seconds. Overhealth bonus decreased from 125 to 100. Developer Comment: The Fortify cooldown has been adjusted so that the effective uptime remains the same. However, Orisa is no longer incentivized to cancel the ability early to begin the cooldown immediately, which makes the interval between uses consistent and more susceptible to counterplay. DAMAGE Ashe The Viper Reload time decreased from .25 to .2 seconds. Developer Comment: Ashe has the longest total reload time of all heroes to balance out the advantage of being able to shoot after a partial reload. However, we are shortening it slightly to make the full reload from empty less punishing. Bastion A-36 Tactical Grenade Impact damage decreased from 30 to 15. Configuration Artillery: Can no longer deal critical hits. Developer Comment: The A-36 Tactical Grenade is no...Master Your Skills in Hero Mastery Mode!Sep 7, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsMaster Your Skills in Hero Mastery Mode! Learn and master your skills with Tracer, Reinhardt, and Mercy in new training courses now available in Overwatch 2! Do you have the fastest kill rate as you zip past the front lines? Are you an expert at charging your enemies? Do you master the skies with your Guardian Angel skills? Prove and enhance your skills as you take on the new Hero Mastery mode in Overwatch 2! Hero Mastery is an all-new single-player mode, permanently available for everyone. The objective for Hero Mastery is to race through an action-packed course filled with training bots, obstacles, and jump pads as you race for the finish line. It’ll test your skills and limitations across training courses for Mercy, Reinhardt, and Tracer, with Sojourn and Winston coming later this Season. Your score is based on how fast you reach the finish line, how many enemy bots you defeat, and how many Emblems you collect throughout the course. Watch Out for New Training Bots With new courses come new Training bots! While most of the enemy training bots will look familiar, there will also be new challenging ones to shoot, dodge, and block. Tank Bots are beefy machines with high HP and barriers. Rocket Bots shoot projectiles that will deal significant burst damage. And Sniper Bots take out their targets from long range. These training bots will be strategically placed throughout the map, so you’ll have to figure out how to deal with them as you master each course. In some cases, you’ll need to defeat the enemy bots in a specific section before continuing to the next. In other cases, you’ll help keep friendly bots from being destroyed. Don’t worry—if a bot gets the best of you, simply restart the course! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/5999d204f17b2c42b344aad380381bc9db94f150.png Boosting Your Score Looking for the highest score? There are two ways to achieve an impressive score in Hero Mastery Mode: collecting Emblems and finishing with a fast time. Picking up Emblems grants additional bonus points to your score. Large Emblems are worth an extra bonus on rare occasions but reaching them will be much trickier than the small Emblems. Each hero’s course also rewards bonuses based on their abilities, so strategize carefully to get maximum impact in the course! Then comes your speed through the course. Depending on how quickly you reach the finish line, you’ll be granted scaling multipliers of gold, silver, or bronze. Your time, combined with how many Emblems you collect, will determine your star rating and total score earned on the course. Become A Hero Master! Each hero comes with three courses, each with increasing difficulties. Completing the Recruit course with at least a 3-star rating will grant access to the Agent course. Testing your skills in the Expert course requires a 4-star rating or higher in the Agent course. Each hero also comes with an exclusive Player Icon, an exclusive Name Card, and bonus Battle Pass XP, rewarded after mastering the three co...Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes – August 24, 2023Aug 24, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsGENERAL UPDATES Player Progression Updated the Wins sub-badge level-up requirement from 2 to 1 across all heroes, game modes, and roles and re-tuned XP granted to balance. HERO UPDATES SUPPORT Illari Healing Pylon Heal decreased from 40 to 30. Shields decreased from 75 to 50. Captive Sun Projectile Impact and explosion are now blocked by barriers. Projectile size decreased from 1.5 to 0.75 meters. Sunstruck duration decreased from 7 to 6 seconds. Dev Comments: Illari has had a strong showing since her launch. The following changes are meant to promote a better balance between healing and damage while adding more counterplay against her abilities. We are making the Healing Pylon weaker, as it's often placed out of line-of-sight or at odd angles and isn't being destroyed as often as we expect. Captive Sun ignoring barriers is not immediately intuitive, but we are also reducing the projectile size, so blocking or destroying will require more precision. Finally, the Sunstruck effect lasts too long to reasonably avoid the detonation damage threshold. BUG FIXES GENERAL Fixed bug where some event challenges weren't counting towards "Savior of the Underworld" for the Brigitte Sparkplug skin. Fixed an issue that made the Ashe Snakewrangler Skin in the Battle Pass a premium reward instead of a free one. Any player on the free Battle Pass track who already unlocked this tier will receive this skin automatically. Fixed an issue that resulted in players backfilling into the Underworld Event Mission and Invasion Story Missions. Fixed an issue that allowed Spectating of players in the Underworld Event Mission and Invasion Story Missions. HEROES Echo Fixed an issue with cloned Illari's Captive Sun explosion, damaging herself and her allies. Orisa Fixed an issue where the "Who Said Chivalry Is Dead?" voice line is missing from Hero Gallery. Fixed an issue where Orisa World Cup Skin was inaccessible. MISSIONS Toronto Fixed in a previous update - Fixed an issue with Slicers clipping into the Ferry, making them difficult to target. Gothenburg Fixed in a previous update - Fixed an issue where "The Babies Are Safe" challenge was unable to be completed. Fixed an issue with the Titan being invisible for the first few seconds of its intro. Fixed an issue with an invisible collision around the Mega-Cannon that blocks Brigitte's Shield Bash and Whip Shot. Underworld Fixed in a previous update - Fixed an issue where the "Stop, Thief!" challenge was unable to be completed. Show Off Your Playstyle with the New Player Progression SystemAug 22, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsIs boosting damage your biggest goal when playing Mercy? Do you make sure you block all damage with Reinhardt’s barrier? Is getting quintuple kills using D.Va’s Self Destruct ultimate ability the one trait your opponents fear? If you are proud of your playstyle with your favorite heroes, now you can celebrate it with Overwatch 2’s new Player Progression feature. Originally, we used experience levels to celebrate how much players advanced in Overwatch. In Overwatch 2, we want to bring different ways for players to earn rewards and show off their playstyles to their peers. Starting in Overwatch 2: Invasion, we introduced an entirely new Player Progression system to track and celebrate your playstyle with your favorite heroes, roles, and game modes. Celebrate your Playstyle and Favorite Heroes Your progress in Overwatch 2 is now looked at in three progression layers. First, sub-badges are displayed for specific statistics based on the hero, role, and game mode you play. For heroes, this tracks the key stats common to that hero’s role, time played, and games won, along with the stats surrounding their unique abilities. For roles, you’ll track common stats associated with that role, along with how many wins you earn and how much you play. Finally, with game modes, you track number of wins and time played across each mode. As you reach the threshold for each sub-badge level, you’ll level up that sub-badge, contributing XP to the badge level for that specific hero, role, or game mode. Badges reach new tiers as they level up and are a great way to show your favorite heroes, roles, or game modes. Each time one of your badges levels up, you gain a player progression level that you can show off in your career profile and other places throughout Overwatch 2 (or if you prefer, you can turn off showing your badges and progression in your social options). As you play, your Progression Showcase will become more decorated with higher-ranked badges and sub-badges that you can screenshot and share with your friends or on social. Badges will be displayed in places that show off the heroes you play, such as the Play of the Game highlight. Your player progression level will also proudly be displayed in the overview of your career profile as well. Also, be sure to enable your Career Profile to public view if you want to show off your achievements to any players you encounter! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/5066ea2929041de9788b78dc8013edce342b7bdc.png Introducing New Challenges As you level up your badges and progression levels for each hero, you’ll be able to complete new hero challenges and earn Player Icons, Name Cards, and Titles. There is also a new weekly challenge with Player Progression. Once you level up your Player Progression enough, you’ll earn bonus Overwatch Credits that can be spent in the Hero Gallery for Overwatch cosmetics. It will also count toward the three weekly reward challenge tiers that grant Overwatch Coins to spend for premium Overwatch 2 cosmeti...Director’s Take – Looking Beyond Overwatch 2: InvasionAug 18, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsOverwatch 2: Invasion launched last week, and it was our biggest season launch ever! The release included work from every section of the Overwatch team, and we’ve been looking forward to sharing what we built with all of you for a long time. We made big additions to the Core PvP game and other features, a new Battle Pass, and a Null Sector theme that we received great feedback early on. We also launched the first chapter of our Story Missions and ran a Co-op event alongside their release. We've heard from many of our core players that the game is in the best state it's ever been, and many have told us that it feels like we're really listening to their feedback and that this season is a culmination of that. It’s so awesome to hear. Illari, our newest support hero, was introduced this season. Players have given us a lot of positive feedback about her. Our balance goal for the release of Illari was to make sure that she felt strong (but not overpowered!) at launch. I think we hit that goal. Illari is very strong, but some of what helps Illari not feel overpowered is her Support role and kit. Were we to release a Damage hero with a one-shot ability, we would be a little more careful with their power level. Illari will enter our Ranked mode on Thursday, August 24, and we will be making a few adjustments to her by then - most likely to her Healing Pylon and Ultimate. We also released a new game mode, Flashpoint, with two unique maps this season. While there’s been a lot of talk about Illari and other parts of Overwatch 2: Invasion, we're seeing lower conversation around this mode. Players are busy with the new hero and everything else released this season, so it’s understandable… but we still want the mode to be as good as possible! So let us have it. We’d like to know what people like and dislike with Flashpoint so that we can iterate on it. We’re also talking about when to bring Flashpoint to Ranked. Barring any bugs or exploits, we'd like to start Ranked matches sooner rather than later. A big part of this season was the release of our first set of Story Missions, which has seen more discussion than any other part of the season. Some of the discussion has been critical, and I’ll get to that, but one of the things that I loved seeing was the Legendary runs that people were streaming online. These missions on Legendary are hard. Super hard. Most people can't complete them at this difficulty, and those that did had to devise custom strategies and team comps to get past the hardest encounters. If you’re a content creator who completed Legendary and you’re reading this post, pat yourself on the back. You were great entertainment! Only 1.6% of attempts successfully completed Gothenburg on Legendary, and 0.7% of attempts on Toronto were successful! We feel like we learned something with the level of difficulty and are excited to apply and expand on it for future Co-op content. We also launched on Steam last week, and, although being review-bombed isn't a...Overwatch® 2 peaks at 75k playersAug 11, 2023 - SteamDB Overwatch® 2 has peaked at 75,608 concurrent players on 11 August 2023 on release day. View charts and more statistics on our website.Illari | New Hero Gameplay TrailerAug 10, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsIntroducing Illari ☀️ Light up the battlefield as the newest Support Hero and her solar-powered Ability Kit! An all-new adventure awaits. Overwatch 2: Invasion is LIVE NOW!New Event – King’s Row: UnderworldAug 10, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsStarting today, you can team up in an exciting limited-time co-op event that will further test your skills against the forces of Null Sector. King’s Row is under siege, and you will need to work together with your friends to save the Omnics trapped in the Underworld before Null Sector can get to them. You’ll explore all new parts of the King’s Row map as you work to bring a combat-modified TS-1 push bot online and then escort it to defeat the enemy forces that stand in your way. This free-to-play co-op event will also have new challenges every week for you to test your skills and earn new rewards. Play King’s Row: Underworld today through September 4.Overwatch 2: Invasion is here!Aug 10, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsOverwatch 2: Invasion is here, and packed with a new hero, a new seasonal Battle Pass, and a new core PvP game mode. We’re also bringing new Invasion Story Missions, a limited-time Co-op Event, and new ways to practice and celebrate your achievements with your favorite heroes. Let’s check out everything that you can expect in the new update! Introducing new Support hero Illari {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/3324d19e116e5255eaa25669db70fb8a18a18b3a.png Illari is the newest Support Hero to join the ranks in Overwatch 2. What sets Illari apart from other Support heroes is that she has a very damage-focused kit, so that you can heal your team while dominating the opposition. Her Solar Rifle fires a beam of sunlight that can do powerful burst damage at long-range, or use it to heal allies around you. She can also support her team with a deployable Healing Pylon, granting bursts of health to allies around it. Her Outburst ability will knock enemies back and propel herself out of danger. When you need to turn up the heat, use Captive Sun and fire a massive ball of solar energy. Opponents hit by this ultimate ability will be Sun Struck, making them vulnerable to lethal explosions if they take too much damage. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/d83787b0d47b4cbbb3de998e5082cfc6c4cdb6e7.png Unlock Illari immediately when you get the Premium Battle Pass, or wait to unlock her on tier 45 for free. You can also unlock Illari—and all the heroes in Overwatch—with the new Overwatch 2 Complete Hero Collection, now available in the In-Game Shop. Invasion Story Missions – The next chapter in the Overwatch 2 story {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/1a86b8b76f5cd4edaa2a67aac61dac172c86cfed.png A global invasion has begun, and it’s up to you to answer the call, with Invasion Story Missions! The rogue Omnic group, Null Sector, has begun attacking Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, and Gothenburg, using powerful war bots to defeat anything that stands in their way. Winston and his Overwatch strike team are on a mission to stop Null Sector, and they'll need to rely on allies - old and new - to get the job done. Invasion Story Missions are deep and expansive co-op experiences where a team of four players will work to complete multiple mission objectives across massive maps. You won’t find this kind of teamwork in traditional PvP play. The heroes choices are custom selected for each particular Story Mission as well, and you can challenge yourself with four different levels of difficulty. Get started today with the Overwatch 2: Invasion Bundle, which grants permanent access to the Invasion Story Missions and 1,000 Overwatch Coins, which can be used to purchase the Invasion Premium Battle Pass or more cosmetics for your favorite heroes. Once you complete all Invasion Story Missions, you’ll also unlock the Vigilante Legendary skin and permanent access to Sojourn as a playable hero in all PVP game modes. You can also upgrade to the Overwatch 2: Invasion Ultimate Bundle. This massive collection includes e...Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes – August 10, 2023Aug 10, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsOverwatch 2: Invasion Overwatch 2: Invasion is now available! Enjoy the new Invasion Story Missions, all-new skins, and cosmetic rewards in the Invasion Battle Pass, the new core PVP game mode Flashpoint, and the new Support Hero Illari! Introducing Illari Using solar threading augmentation, Illari strikes down her enemies by harnessing the power of the sun. Illari has been added to the line-up. Solar Rifle (Primary Fire) Long-range auto-charging rifle. Solar Rifle (Secondary Fire) Medium-range healing beam that consumes solar energy. Outburst (Ability 1) Launches you in the direction you are moving, knocking back enemies. Hold jump to go higher. Healing Pylon (Ability 2) Deploy a pylon that heals allies. Captive Sun (Ultimate) Fire an explosive ball of solar energy. Enemies hit are slowed and explode after taking significant damage. New Game Mode - Flashpoint Flashpoint is the newest core game mode available on two of the biggest maps to date: Suravasa and New Junk City. Gameplay begins with both teams pursuing a central objective called a Flashpoint, aiming to capture it before the opposing team does. Capture progress for Flashpoint is like the Control game mode, but plays out faster. A point is captured by a team once a Flashpoint reaches 100% capture progress. If the Flashpoint is being contested by a member of the opposite team currently not in control when the capture progress reaches 99%, Overtime will activate until either the team in control can remove all remaining opponents off, or until the contesting team can retake control of the Flashpoint. A point is scored when a Flashpoint is fully captured by a team, however, gameplay continues when a new Flashpoint located somewhere else on the map is activated, and both teams must immediately race to capture it. As additional Flashpoints unlock, the spawn locations of each team will be of generally equal distance to the currently activated Flashpoint. The team to be the first to successfully capture three of the five flashpoints wins the match. Flashpoint is available now in Unranked modes and will be available for Competitive Play later this season. Invasion Story Missions Players who purchase the Invasion Bundle from the in-game shop can play in all-new Story Missions with their friends or others in queue. These massive co-op experiences will have players face against the invading forces of Null Sector, who have launched an all-out global offensive. Play through all of them and unlock the Overwatch 2 hero Sojourn, along with her new Vigilante Legendary skin. Players can access the Story Missions can be accessed through Winston’s Desk in the Missions card in the play menu, where players can explore the Story Missions hub and new Intel Database. Playing missions and completing various goals will unlock lore entries, movies, never-before-revealed details about your favorite heroes and characters, and clues about the future of the world of Overwatch! New Limited Time Event: King’s Row – Underwo...Connecting your Steam account to Battle.netAug 10, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsWelcome, heroes! We’re excited for you to join the Overwatch 2 community! Before you begin playing, you’ll need to link your Battle.net account with Steam. Please follow the steps below: 1. If you do not have one yet, make a Battle.net account at https://account.battle.net/creation/flow/creation-full 2. Click on your profile --> Account Settings 3. Click on Connections {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44392706/82b6ae6e1167136f3d1673e7660b7ec0c09f2e98.png 4. Scroll down and find Steam and click “+CONNECT” a. You’ll be directed to the Steam website where you will be prompted to log in with your Steam account information b. You’ll be prompted to “Sign into account.battle.net using your Steam account” 5. After signing in on Steam you’ll be re-directed back to Battle.net. Press “Continue” to confirm account connection 6. You should now see your account name listed next to Steam on the connections page on Battle.net If you experience any issues or require more troubleshooting information, please follow this link. We’ll see you in-game! Invasion: Official Trailer | New Support Hero, Flashpoint, and moreAug 8, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsAn all-new adventure begins. Experience the next chapter of the Overwatch saga in Invasion Story Missions, unleash solar power as the newest Support Hero Illari, fight for control of two new maps in the new permanent game mode Flashpoint, and so much more. New ways to play await you in Overwatch 2: Invasion, launching August 10 at 12PM PT.Overwatch 2 Animated Short | “Calling” feat. SojournAug 7, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsWith the Overwatch Task Force out of commission, former Captain Sojourn settles into a quiet life of corgis, coffee, and croissants… or so it seems. An all-new adventure begins with Overwatch 2: Invasion, launching August 10!Genesis - Part Three: RebirthJul 20, 2023 - Community AnnouncementsOmnics suppress any resistance, spreading darkness across the globe, while the Overwatch team clings to hope in the form of one unique individual.
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