“You know it will be interesting to see your reaction when we nerf McCree.”
So the departure of Jeff Kaplan isn’t the only big thing to have happened to Overwatch 2 this year. As a matter of fact, the game is changing in a way that probably wasn’t expected by fans: instead of the PvP being 6v6, it’s going to be 5v5.
Overatch’s Aaron Keller announced the change via livestream on Thursday. According to Keller, the move comes as a way to make the game more readable to players, and removing 2 from the equation just makes that easier. So from now on, team comp will be two offense characters, two support, and one tank. After all, having all those tanks around really added to that chaos they’re trying to strip away.
In the long run, this isn’t the first time the game’s team comp has been altered. The days of “pick who you like” are long gone, and were supplanted by “one per team” and role queuing. But this change is also big for tank characters. Per Keller’s stream, these characters are getting a bit of an offensive-leaning overhaul. Lead Hero designer Geoff Goodman gave a few examples: Winston’s getting an alt-fire that condenses lightning to give him a more ranged attack, Reinhardt gets two flame strikes and a cancellable charge, and Zarya gets two shared bubble charges for her Particle Barrier and Projected Barrier.
We’re not taking every tank and just making them super aggro. In some cases we’re pushing some of the more aggro tanks and making them a little tankier. In a lot of cases they have more health … D.Va has a lot more Matrix juice in the can. We didn’t just give her more missiles and let her go kill everybody, she can actually protect her team a little more.
Geoff Goodman
Note also that existing maps are being retooled for this change. Many are getting more cover added to them to facilitate the new Tank changes and team sizes, while new maps will be built with it in mind.
Overwatch 2 still has no given release date, and Blizzard has stated that you shouldn’t expect it in 2021.
Source: Polygon
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