Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes, Gameplay, And Latest Updates
by Janani
Updated Apr 15, 2023
![Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes, Gameplay, And Latest Updates Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes, Gameplay, And Latest Updates](https://img20.fresherslive.com/latestnews/2023/04/overwatch-2-retail-patch-notes-643a4d526b46291277400-900.webp)
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2, developed by Blizzard Entertainment, is an upcoming first-person shooter game that was released in 2022. As a sequel to the popular 2016 hero shooter Overwatch, the game will feature both player-versus-player (PvP) modes and new cooperative modes set in a shared environment. In an effort to shake things up, the game's PvP modes will reduce team sizes from six to five and some major characters have been reworked. Players will be able to enjoy the game for free on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with early access starting on October 4. Furthermore, the game will offer full cross-platform play, allowing players on different platforms to play together.
Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes
OVERWATCH 2 SEASON FOUR
Fight for a better future in Season Four! Our newest Support hero Lifeweaver, who hails from Thailand and wields light, enters the fray. Take combat to the cosmos with the new Battle Pass featuring Mythic Space Conqueror Sigma, and earn free rewards in events happening throughout the season.
INTRODUCING LIFE WEAVER
Scientist, artist, and activist: Overwatch 2’s latest hero entwines the beauty of nature with the practicality of science. He dreams of healing the world.
LIFEWEAVER
Healing Blossom
Thorn Volley
Petal Platform
Rejuvenating Dash
Life Grip
Tree of Life (Ultimate)
Parting Gift (Passive)
GENERAL UPDATES
This patch is a rebase and will require a large download for all platforms.
Accessibility
Added a setting to select custom colors for health, armor, shields, and over health in health bars. Improved preview feature for custom color settings with different preview backgrounds.
Stranded Spawn System
Regrouping with your team after getting stranded in a spawn room has never been easier! Spawn rooms that shut down due to capturing or losing an objective will now remain partially active for 7 seconds. While you still can't change heroes in these spawn rooms, other new features have been activated. In these “stranded spawns,” the doors remain locked to the opposing team, the healing field remains active, and you can now use the Interact key to instantly teleport to the new active spawn room.
Matchmaking
Backfilling players in Unranked modes will now prioritize finding players closer to the skill level of the other players in the match. Minor optimizations for large groups improving matchmaking quality.
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
Top 500 Leaderboard Eligibility
Players will now be required to win 25 Competitive matches before being eligible to enter the Top 500 leaderboard for a specific role, queue, or region.
Developer comments: Previously, we only required 25 games to be completed regardless of winning prior to becoming eligible for the Top 500 leaderboards; however, this change should help make sure that players are consistently pushing toward winning matches, which should help ensure the leaderboards have the best players in each region.
Competitive Leaver Penalty Changes
Matches left in different Competitive queues are still considered separate for purposes of determining the lengths of suspensions or receiving a seasonal ban from Competitive Play.
The start of a new Competitive season also no longer fully resets the severity of these suspensions and bans. This should hopefully prevent players from leaving Competitive games at the end of a season without facing meaningful consequences at the start of the next.
Matches left in Competitive Play will also have a more negative effect on a player’s Skill Tier and Division after a 5-win Competitive Update.
Competitive Point Reward Changes
The number of Competitive Points (CP) rewarded for a win in Competitive Play has been changed from 15 to 25. The number of Competitive Points earned from seasonal challenges based on your final seasonal rank has also been updated. Games played after your last Competitive Update during a season will still count towards your final seasonal rank. You must still compete in the season’s Competitive Play Qualification challenge to receive bonus Competitive Points.
Competitive Challenge Titles
Seasonal Competitive titles earned from challenges now distinguish between whether they are earned in Open Queue or Role Queue. For example:
Developer Comments: The goal of these changes is to prevent confusion about a player’s rank from the previous season if they participate in multiple Competitive queues.
Competitive Match Rank
The initial loading screen that shows all the participants of Competitive matches will now show an icon at the top of the screen representing the average Skill Tier and Division of all players in that match. This should provide players with a better comparison of their own rank to other players in the match.
Seasonal Rank Decay Removed
Starting with Season Four, a player’s Competitive Play rank will no longer be reduced at the beginning of a season. Furthermore, the effects of this reduction of rank from previous seasons will also be removed. Depending on how many games they played during the previous season, most players will see their skill tier and division increase. A player’s skill tier and division at the beginning of Season 4 will now closely match the matchmaker’s estimate of your current skill.
Developer Comments: The previous seasonal rank decay was causing considerable confusion for players, who would see players in their Competitive games who did not appear to be of a similar rank. Often these players were actually of similar skill, but they had not played enough games during the season to compensate for the initial decay.
Competitive Skill Update and Progression
Both the Competitive progress and Competitive update screens will now include information about a player’s losses and ties as well as their wins.
The Competitive Update screen will also now provide players with an indication of their current percentage progress within a skill division. This will hopefully make it more clear how the results of games played during the update affect a player’s Skill Tier and Division.
It is possible for players to have a positive win/loss record, but not go up a skill division because the progress occurs entirely within a single division. This new message will allow players to see that they did in fact make positive progress, just not enough to reach a new skill tier or division.
There is also a similar message with Competitive Updates for players who are Grandmaster 1, but not yet on the Top 500 leaderboard. This should provide those players with feedback about their progress toward earning a spot on the Top 500 leaderboard.
HERO UPDATES
TANK
REINHARDT
Developer Comment: Reinhardt has been overperforming after the recent increases to his offensive capabilities. Those changes have been playing well, so to adjust his overall power, we’re reducing his overall health through this armor reduction.
SIGMA
Developer Comment: Like Roadhog’s Chain Hook, Sigma’s Accretion and primary fire combo can be highly lethal and can feel like a guaranteed kill against 200 health targets. We're reducing the damage slightly to require an additional volley of primary fire but are also increasing the stun duration to provide allies with more opportunity to follow up on successful impacts.
Accretion
DAMAGE
CASSIDY
Developer Comments: Magnetic Grenade only requiring one additional primary fire shot after sticking to a target was too reliable to execute on, even though it only works at close range. We're reducing the total damage on Magnetic Grenade, evenly split between the direct target damage and explosion. The reduced falloff-damage buff his primary fire received recently enables Cassidy to play from safer engagement ranges now, so we're reducing his health back to 200.
Magnetic Grenade
SOMBRA
Developer Comment: We are expanding what Sombra's EMP turns off to keep it consistent with how it affects other device-controlled ultimates.
EMP
SUPPORT
ANA
Developer Comment: We've been watching how effective Sleep Dart has been in 5v5 gameplay. It hasn't been overly disruptive as a whole, but since it is significantly more reliable to land against Tank heroes due to their large hitboxes and even more valuable to do so with only one tank on the field, we're reducing its maximum duration against those targets.
Sleep Dart
BRIGITTE
Developer Comments: Rally lost some of its power with the change from granting allies additional armor to temporary health, and overall took a relatively long time to build up its defensive benefits. This rework is intended to keep it as a defensive ultimate ability but with a more immediate impact due to gaining an increased armor health pool upfront and the enhanced barrier, which can be utilized to block for teammates while their temporary health builds or interrupt enemies with the stun.
Rally
Repair Pack
MERCY
Developer Comments: The recent increase to Guardian Angel's jump-cancel mobility still needs to be kept in check in some way, but while the last iteration was simple, it also had some unintended effects, such as not being ready to use GA again after flying in and using Resurrect. This revision provides more flexibility, and allows Mercy to opt into an additional 1.5 second cooldown when using the increased mobility from the jump/crouch cancel options or otherwise waiting for the base cooldown time.
The increased healing multiplier condition on Caduceus Staff was intended to help Mercy players feel more agency in trying to save critical-health allies and to add depth to the healing mechanic without changing the total time to heal to full health. However, the overall rebalance of the healing values received significant negative feedback, both from those playing as Mercy and those playing against it. There wasn't a satisfying middle ground where we could reduce the potency of this effect while still having it feel impactful, so we're reverting it.
Caduceus Staff
Guardian Angel
Valkyrie
MOIRA
Developer Comments: Being able to use Fade during her Coalescence ultimate gives Moira more playmaking ability by being able to reposition even more quickly and avoid potential threats with quick reactions. Due to the more spread-out playstyle of 5v5, we're increasing the lingering heal duration from her primary fire, meaning it will heal more in total.
Fade
Coalescence
Biotic Grasp
MAP UPDATES
General Updates
Map Pools have been disabled, all maps are now in rotation
New Arcade Map: Talantis
You designed it, we built it: an underwater Talon base with jump pads, pit traps, giant fish, and waterfalls. Talantis will be playable for a limited time from April 25th through May 1st.
Season 4 Map Lighting
Push
Hybrid
Escort
Control
WORKSHOP UPDATES
Introducing Workshop Projectiles
There are three new Workshop actions allowing you to create either a fully functioning projectile or a cosmetic projectile effect:
Additionally, there is a corresponding workshop extension that enables 19 projectile visual effects.
BUG FIXES
General
Maps
Circuit Royale
Hanamura
Ilios
New Queen Street
Oasis
Shambali Monastery
Heroes
Ashe
Bastion
Cassidy
Doomfist
Echo
Genji
Kiriko
Mercy
Moira
Orisa
Pharah
Roadhog
Sigma
Sombra
Torbjorn
Tracer
Widowmaker
Zarya
Zenyatta
Overwatch 2 Gameplay
In Overwatch 2, players participate in a hero-based shooter game where they are split into two teams and can choose from a roster of 35 unique characters. These characters are categorized into three classes: damage, support, and tank, each with its own specific roles in the game.
The damage class is responsible for offensive efforts, while the support class focuses on healing and buffing, and the tank class creates space for their team.
Each character comes with a distinct set of abilities, including active, passive, and ultimate abilities.
The gameplay in Overwatch 2 is primarily centered on player versus player (PvP) combat across multiple maps and game modes, with both casual and ranked competitive matches available.
The game's focus on hero-based gameplay allows for a diverse range of strategies and playstyles, making each match unique and challenging.
Overwatch 2 Trailer
Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes - FAQs
Overwatch 2 is a 2022 first-person shooter game by Blizzard Entertainment.
Blizzard Entertainment developed Overwatch 2.
Blizzard Entertainment published Overwatch 2.
Overwatch 2 was released on October 4, 2022.
Overwatch 2 is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.