Overwatch 2 Season 5: Reveal Trailer, Hero Balance Changes And What You Need To Know
Overwatch 2 Season 5 is turning out to be one of the most jam-packed game updates so far in the game’s second iteration. Season 5 packs in a ton of added content, including the addition of two new game modes, a new role-playing campaign and better ways to play with more of your friends in competitive game modes. Best of all, we will also get a sneak peek into Overwatch 2’s next season Invasion, with a new animated short airing on August 4th in the game.
Arguably the biggest feature update in Season 5 is the new role-playing campaign called Questwatch. This new campaign will follow Tracer as she explores a magical kingdom called Overland in the effort to become a knight. The campaign will be tied into the Overwatch battle pass progression system and will unlock new chapters of the campaign as you rank through the battle pass.
Several new game modes are also arriving in Season 5, with the first creator-made game mode coming to Overwatch 2 called Defeat the Demon Lord. This is a classic co-op boss battle scenario, featuring a group of four team members against a single PvP opponent known as Demon Lord Reinheart. Another game mode that is coming is the return of Lúcioball, which is a 3v3 sports game featuring a Lucio on both teams, with the goal of scoring a gigantic soccer ball in the opponent's goal. There’s also Winston’s Beach Volleyball, which as the title states is a modified volleyball game designed for Overwatch 2, featuring Winston who can run, jump and spike volleyballs at friends or opponents.
Finally, later in Season 5, there will be yet another game mode coming to Overwatch 2 called Mischief and Magic. This game is a type of hide and seek game based on FPS gameplay from prop hunt, with the goal of seeking a band of rogues hiding as everyday objects.
Several of the game's hero's are getting some serious balancing changes, specifically targeted at crowd control. Mei, is getting a big boost in her crowd control potential with a updated primary fire that will deal less damage to enemies but in turn will slow down enemies even more, with a new slowing mechanism that can significantly slow down player's movement speed and disable all movement abilities for up to 1.5 seconds. In a similar fashion, Cassidy's magnetic grenade has been reworked to deal substantially lower damage enemies, and will now slow enemies and disable movement abilities. Some other changes were made to Hanzo, Widowmaker and Lifeweaver as well, including massive nerfs in "one-shot" potential with the former two, and a whopping eight buffs for Lifeweaver to make him competitive with other support heroes.
Season 5 is also getting some major updates to its competitive game modes with Competitive Mystery Heros coming back for another season. According to the patch notes, comp Mystery Heros was received with a lot of praise when it first was introduced back in Season 3, which is why it is back again in Season 5. Mystery Heros cycles through heroes randomly for each player, forcing each player to play at their best on all heroes and roles.
Season 5 is also getting some major updates to its competitive game modes with Competitive Mystery Heros coming back for another season. According to the patch notes, comp Mystery Heros was received with a lot of praise when it first was introduced back in Season 3, which is why it is back again in Season 5. Mystery Heros cycles through heroes randomly for each player, forcing each player to play at their best on all heroes and roles.
Another welcome update is the expanded player-count in groups that Overwatch 2’s competitive scene will allow. Before, you were limited to just a couple of players in comp, with grand master players only being allowed to group up with just one player. Now, there will be a new mode called Team Queue that will only allow groups of five players to play against each other exclusively. This mode will not have any skill ratings or matchmaking, so each team will have to fight to their best potential to beat their opponents.
Then, coming on August 4th, as Season 5 wraps up, there will be a brand new animated short featuring Sojourn and highlighting what’s to come in Season 6 of Overwatch 2, Invasion. This will be the heavy hitter of Overwatch 2’s seasonal updates, bringing the newly revamped PvE element of the game online with new story missions, co-op events, as well as a new support hero.
For more details be sure to check out the patch notes for both the Season 5 and Season 6 updates.
