Season 7 begins next Tuesday, and we’re bringing a frightening amount of new content and a seasonal theme that is darker than ever before! We’re introducing a new Blizzard crossover game mode in Trials of Sanctuary, the Halloween Terror 2023 event, and a hot new control map featuring the tropical island of Samoa. We’re also bringing a massive balance update, including a reworked ability kit for Sombra, and new changes to the Route 66 Map! Keep reading to find out what Overwatch 2: The Rise of Darkness has in store.

Battle against Lilith Moira in Trials of Sanctuary!

In our first-ever Blizzard crossover game mode launching with our Halloween Terror event, you’ll descend into a battle against the demons of the Burning Hells in an all-new co-op survival brawl, Trials of Sanctuary. Fight as one of six different heroes: Demon Hunter Sombra, Barbarian Zarya, Night Raven Illari, Cleric Lifeweaver, Imperious Reinhardt, and Inarius Pharah, while facing an onslaught of unr...

Illari has taken Overwatch 2 by storm—or rather, by the power of one thousand burning suns. We’re incredibly happy to see that players are enjoying her gameplay, personality, and story. To provide a little more depth and insight into how Illari came to be who she is today, we on the Overwatch 2 hero design team thought we’d share some of how her abilities were created through early prototypes.

Heroes can be inspired by many things! Sometimes, heroes are made from whatever prototypes of abilities we think are cool or have a positive impact on gameplay. Ana is a great example of this—parts of her kit were made before her character and story ever existed.

In Illari’s case, we had a strong starting point because we knew we wanted to theme the hero around the sun. These themes inspired her early abilities as well as her internal codename, Solar.

Prototyping is a journey through different questions, scenarios, and ideas. The goal is to test out and experiment wit...

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 ...

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 ...

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 p...

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 underperfor...