Overwatch Dev Tracker

Welcome back, heroes, for part 2 of our matchmaking series! In part 1, we talked about how matchmaking works: It’s an incredibly complex system that needs to consider many different inputs to make every single game as fair as possible. For part 2, we’re going to address some community concerns regarding the matchmaker from the perspective of the competitive game mode. Let’s get into it! 

TL/DR

• Your ranked games are formed based on your internal matchmaking rating (MMR), regardless of your displayed skill tier. MMR changes based on the result of each match, with the amount of MMR you ...

Hi everyone!

This piece is aimed at looking at some of the topics that have come up in the community over the course of Season 2. This won‘t be comprehensive enough to look at everything that players are talking about, but our intent is to do this every few weeks, so we will be able to start diving into smaller topics as we go. Also, the goal here is to keep you up to date on what we’re thinking and planning, but not necessarily to be the source for all the reasoning and detail behind those decisions.

So let’s get to it!

The new Ranked mode suffered from poor comprehension. There was confusion around players’ real rank and how that translated to their skill level, difficulty forming groups with friends, and a negative impression of the matchmaker when players of different ranks were put in the same match (even if their skill levels were similar). We will be implementing some changes in S3 and quite a few more in S4 all aimed at creating more clarit...

In 2023, the fifth Overwatch World Cup competition will crown the first World Cup champion since 2019. Reigning champion United States and three-time winner South Korea will try to build on their legacy with another gold medal, but the launch of Overwatch 2 brings new competitors to the scene! Will a new champion be crowned this year? It is time to meet your competing countries and regions.

World Cup Trials and Online Qualifier Competing Countries and Regions

The program will consist of three conferences, each with two separate groups of six countries and regions. These countries and regions have been selected based on Overwatch 2 player population data. In February, competition committee applications begin. Additionally, each participating country and region will host World Cup Trials over three weekends in February (Feb. 10–12, Feb. 17–19, and Feb. 24–26). Competition committees will be responsible for organizing additional team tryou...

It’s time for us to break out the fireworks, delicious foods, and colorful costumes because the Lunar New Year is here! The Year of the Rabbit seasonal event begins January 17 for Overwatch 2 and brings new skins to collect, festive maps celebrating the holiday, and the return of fan-favorite fun Arcade Brawls. You’ll also earn free rewards when you log in, play, and watch your favorite content creators on Twitch.

Festive maps and game modes return

Head on over to Lijiang Tower to see fireworks light up the night sky and jump into arcade brawls as a part of our Lunar New Year event including Capture the Flag, Capture the Flag Blitz, and Bounty Hunter. 

Capture the Flag is a frantic and fun game mode where you must capture your opponent’s flag while ensuring they don’t do the same. 

You can participate in t...

Imagine loading into a game, choosing your hero, and making your way toward the objective. Everything seems to be going fine, but then you round the corner and come face to face with a big, angry, surprisingly Australian Zeus.

We hope you’re prepared to get smote (or is it smitten?) by the Zeus Junker Queen Mythic skin!

The Season 2 Mythic skin comes with customizable variations including different colors, armor pieces, and weapons. Regardless of your loadout, Zeus Junker Queen embodies a super-charged, electrical aesthetic that you see throughout her kit’s visual effects.

We've wrangled some insight from senior VFX artist, Greg Knowlton, about Junker Queen’s journey from sovereign of the scrapyard to ruler of the gods!

Visual effects fit for a Queen

“The biggest differences between Mythic sk...

From now through January 19, we’re introducing an all-new game mode: Battle for Olympus. In this limited time free-for-all deathmatch, heroes go head-to-head, wielding the power of Greek gods, goddesses, and creatures.

Battle for Olympus will feature seven heroes that get special powers when they activate their divine ultimates that stack new effects on top of the ability. Alongside their divine ultimates, heroes have unique interactions with one another as they ascend from mortal to myth in Battle for Olympus.

Here’s the lineup of each team as well as their special powers: 

Poseidon Ramattra
Divine Annihilation

• Ravenous Vortex is a large whirlpool that pulls in enemies then launches them upward
• Pummel throws large water blasts that deal more damage and travel further

Zeus Junker Queen
Divine Rampage

• Lasts 20 seconds
• Damage do...

The heroes of Overwatch are dashing through the snow in this year’s Winter Wonderland! This event features a special delivery of new arcade modes, cosmetics, free rewards, and plenty of good times to be had with teammates and friends!

We’re also cooking up a sweet holiday treat just for you! Starting now through January 2, you can buy the all-new Gingerbread Legendary Bastion skin for a single Overwatch Coin.

Even if you are brand new to Overwatch 2 and don’t have any Overwatch Coins yet, we have you covered. Completing weekly challenges in the game will award Overwatch Coins for free, and thanks to our friends at Microsoft, you can now ...

Hello, heroes! 

In the first part of our two-part deep dive on matchmaking and competitive we’ll look at how matchmaking works under the hood and answer some outstanding questions around how MMR is determined and factored into the system.

Ultimately, the goal of matchmaker is to create as fair matches as possible across all game modes. We know matchmaking can be a source of frustration, especially in competitive, and we’d like to recognize it doesn’t always feel like it’s meeting its goal. 

In order to address your thoughts, we need to dissect the matchmaker and competitive systems separately before going into how they affect one another. In part 1, we talk about how the matchmaker works, some of the challenges we’ve faced, and some of the ways we’ve started to tackle those issues. 

Internal matchmaking rating (MMR)

Our matchmaker is designed to create balanced matches. To do that, we need some approximation of each player’s skill...

Attention, world—after three years away, we’re thrilled to announce that the Overwatch World Cup is returning for 2023, and the competition will be bigger than ever: new game, new players, and new ways of spotlighting your country and region on a global scale. 

We’ll reveal additional program details as they’re ready, but here’s the big picture for the 2023 Overwatch World Cup…

TIMELINE OVERVIEW

In January, we’ll announce the 36 countries and regions competing in the 2023 Overwatch World Cup, and that’s also when competition committee applications will open. Each competition committee will be responsible for organizing tryouts for their country and region, following Blizzard guidelines.

Alongside regular tryouts, we’re introducing a new avenue for players to compete for a spot on their team. This comes in the form of an open tournament format: World Cup Trials. In February, the World Cup Trials competition will earn winning players a dire...

It's a holiday rumble in the Overwatch community! AverageJonas, LuluLuvely, will be joined by creators to compete in a community tournament on Tuesday, December 20. The tournament will have two groups of 4 teams compete in a round-robin to find the first two teams to get to two wins, and will then be followed by the top four teams competing in a single-elimination bracket with a $25,000 prize pool on the line!

Team Captains

• AverageJonas
• LuluLuvely
• ...

Event Overview

The Winter Wonderland festivities have arrived! From now until January 4, join in special arcade game modes like Freeze Thaw elimination, Yeti Hunter, Snowball Deathmatch, and Mei's Snowball Offensive. Complete wintery challenges alongside these limited-time modes to earn weapon charms, player icons, sprays, and more—including the Ice Queen Epic Brigitte skin.

Oh, what fun it is to play some festive games today

We’ve got some ice-cold arcade modes lined up for this year’s Winter Wonderland! First up is Mei’s Snowball Offensive, where Mei no longer fires a stream of frost or icicles but instead fires snowballs to instantly knock out her opponents in a 6v6 Elimination or an 8-player FFA Deathmatch ruleset.

Next is Mei’s Yeti Hunt, a unique 5v1 raid-boss brawl. A Yeti is stealing food f...

Season 2 has begun for Overwatch 2 and Ramattra is here to stand up for the fight for all Omnics. You can join in on his revolution and earn exclusive Twitch drops for Ramattra starting today and going through December 20. Simply tune into the Overwatch 2 category on Twitch and watch your favorite streamers who have drops enabled on their channel.

Watch for two hours to earn the Ramattra Restrained Spray. Continue watching for four more hours to earn the Traveling Monk Legendary Ramattra Skin. Remember you must claim the drop for the Ramattra Restrained Spray before you can start accumulating watch time for the Traveling Monk Legendary Ramattra Skin drop. Claim your drops at twitch.tv/drops.

...

Season 2 is around the corner, and with it, a myriad of new in-game developments! 

New tank Ramattra and the Shambali Monastery map

Ramattra rises to the forefront as Overwatch 2’s latest Hero. In a nod to his revolutionary goals, Ramattra is the first Tank that can completely change forms as part of his core kit, altering his abilities and playstyle moment to moment. 

In our new Escort map, Shambali Monastery, we’ll ascend the winding path walked by countless Omnics who have sought refuge within its walls. Transcend your opponents in a battle for mastery over the one-time home of Zenyatta and Ramattra.

New season, new balance

A new season for Overwatch 2 brings another round of balance changes intended to bring some Heroes more in line with competitive balance for the rest of the roster.

Both metric...

Ramattra storms the Overwatch 2 roster with a fierce ability kit and domineering playstyle—would you expect anything else from the leader of Null Sector?

Truth be told, Ramattra was a technically challenging hero to make. He’s very special in the world of Overwatch, both as a playable hero, and as a character with a rich story—Ramattra is exceptional, and we’re so excited to share him with you. 

He was always intended to be a tank because we knew we wanted him to be able to transform into his big, imposing tank. We call this his “Nemesis form”, but before we get into that, let’s walk through his concept and kit with members of the Overwatch 2 hero design team: 

• Josh Noh, Lead Balance Designer
• Tess Leiman, Associate Game Designer 

Ramattra is the first tempo tank we’ve added to Overwatch 2, which means he can change forms moment to moment. The base form for Ramattra is his omnic form.

Omnic form

When you fi...

On November 25 at 2 PM PST, Summit1g and iiTzTimmy are each putting together their best team of five to face off in a first to three showcase match. You will be able to catch all the action on both Summit1g’s and iiTzTimmy’s Twitch channels, as they compete for a $25,000 prize pool. You can also watch it on the PlayOverwatch Twitch channel featuring Soe and Mr. X calling all the action.

...

As we enter the holiday season and head into Thanksgiving weekend here in the United States, we wanted to take some time to show our gratitude to our players around the world who have helped make Overwatch 2 a huge success! Over 35 million of you have answered the call and joined us in exciting matches from Esperança to Midtown and everywhere in-between, embracing new heroes like Kiriko, and going on adventures like the Wrath of the Bride Co-op Mission. There is always something to do in Overwatch 2, and this week, we want to give you even more reasons to play.

Rewards When You Log On and Play

First things first, you can earn bonus highlight intros by logging into the game in November. Now through November 26, log on to receive the “Five Fingers” highlight intro for Junker Queen. Return from November 27 to December 1 to earn the “On The Wind” highlight intro for Kiriko.

...

Hey everyone!

I’m Jared, the new Executive Producer for Overwatch 2, and I’m so incredibly excited to be working with this team and community. There are a ton of exciting things happening on the Overwatch team right now, and I wanted to take a few moments to share an update with you.

But first, a quick note: Sharing plans before they’re finalized is risky. Development on a live game like Overwatch 2 requires constant juggling of urgent player needs, long-term ambitions, and live issues. It’s easier, and safer, to talk about the work once it’s nearly done and ready to deliver. That said, I think sharing our thoughts early is the right thing to do, so we can create a better dialogue between the development team and the community.

Please keep your feedback coming: we read it, we’re inspired by it, we use it in our development plans. Ultimately, we need it to ensure that we’re building a game that you want to keep playing for years to come.

Ok, let’s ...

Cyber Demon Genji is the first of its kind: our debut Mythic-tier skin. Mythic skins soar a tier above Legendary, pushing the artwork, animation, and special effects to levels we hadn’t incorporated in our skins to this point! 

We chose Genji for the first Mythic skin for several reasons, but it ultimately felt very natural to build this skin for one of the most beloved heroes in the game. I mean, who doesn’t love the little brother dragon who was rescued from the edge of death to become a lethal, cyborg-ninja who ultimately found his purpose in peace and harmony?  

Genji is a complex hero, both in story and playstyle, and building a Mythic skin for him was a new process with many additional layers. To give you an insight into this new process, we’re joined by parts of the team that made this skin a reality: 

• Lead Concept Artist – Qiu Fang
• Senior Character Artist – Jeff Mianowski 
• Animator – Nikita Taranduke
• ...

A better future for all omnics 

This evening, we introduced the latest hero at the Overwatch League Grand Finals! 

Check out Ramattra’s origin story, as well as an inside look at his development with art director Dion Rogers and lead hero designer Alec Dawson: 

Ramattra’s story is complex and multifaceted, and his ultimate goal is to protect his people—but the cost of that goal is still to be determined. 

Suffer as I have 

Originally a war machine, Ramattra shed his munitions for a shield to protect his people by promoting peace and tranquility. His ideals weren’t far removed from his fellow Shambli monk, Zenyatta. However, Ramattra’s story is one of hardships, trauma, and a magnified view of humanity’s harsh realities.  

Harmony was replaced by dissonance, and Ramattra began to approach his conv...

It's time to celebrate another year of fear: Halloween Terror is returning to Overwatch! Get ready for a shock, because this event introduces the next chapter in the saga of the devious Dr. Junkenstein through our all-new, limited time co-op mission, Junkenstein's Revenge: Wrath of the Bride.

Return to Adlersbrunn alongside four fresh faces to experience an all-new story as the Bride of Junkenstein seeks vengeance upon those responsible for the death of her creator. As we near the anniversary of the mad doctor's revenge, learn more about this year’s event directly from the desk of the Lord of Adlersbrunn.