TLDR Of "Behind The Scenes Of OVERWATCH 2" At BlizzConline 2021

Blizzcon is finally back! Here is a rundown of all the news from the Overwatch 2 behind-the-scenes segment. There is a lot to cover here, so we’ll try and brief and to the point. Here we go!

New Maps

Rome has been added to the long list of fantastic places to explore in Overwatch 2. The vistas are beautiful and the reconstruction of the colosseum is amazing. They also revealed New York City. Players will go through places with small shops, pizza joints, and towering skyscrapers.

Role Updates

One of the biggest things that will be added to Overwatch 2 will be role passives. This means that each role will have a passive ability that is applied to all heroes in that role. As of now, they are still testing and trying many things, but is a look at what they have now. Tanks have reduced pushback and give less ult charge when damaged. DPS move faster in order to flank and get in and out of battle quicker. Heals self-heal after a short time of not being hit. They also plan on making huge changes to tanks, in general, to make them more aggressive and engage in battle much more. 

They didn’t outright tell us a lot about Sojourn. But we know she now has a rail gun and another fire that shoots like 76, but with less spread.

To make Overwatch feel new and improve its quality in general, they also overhauled various aspects of the guns. Between the sounds themselves, the sounds interacting in different environments, and how much screens shake, they are adding a lot to make each weapon feel even more impactful and unique.

Hero Missions

Hero Missions are PVE levels that send players to fight a wide variety of enemies with a wide variety of objectives. These missions are on rotation and there are supposed to be hundreds of them. They will involve various heroes and new and old maps. Some maps will even receive new areas specific to those missions. Missions will also include some light story elements and different difficulty levels. The Overwatch team has also started working with weather systems and environmental hazards that affect gameplay. There will also be unique game modes, some possibilities could be Wall of Death, Kill Quest, Scavenger Hunt, and Gather and Return. Players can earn hero progression by doing these.

Progression and Talents

It isn’t clear how many or if all heroes will have forms of hero progression. But as of now, we see a much more fleshed-out progression system. With some of the characters having three progression trees, it is a lot to grow and choose. The progression can unlock new abilities, talents, passives, and alterations to current abilities.

Enemies

I could go into details of all the variety of Null Sector enemies, but I’ll just leave that for the video. All you really need to know is that there are a huge variety of enemies, elite versions of many of them that include new interactions and approaches.

New Hero Looks

The Overwatch team showed how the new outfits are more tech-infused with more functional parts and higher detailed textures. They also showed off the new looks for McCree, Widowmaker, Reaper, and Pharah. They are running new systems for cloth and for faces to have more realistic interactions and reactions.

Story Developments

Along with new environmental weather systems in the story missions, there will also be environmental cinematic events and changes throughout the mission. Characters will also have new and branching personal interactions between characters depending on the mission and the heroes being played. Story missions will have unique maps like Toronto, India, and Gothenburg. The story has also be worked and refined in many ways to tell a vast and powerful story.

Even though there are a lot of cool things here, there are some essential parts of Overwatch and information about the game as a whole that is still missing. A release window? Any indication that we should expect it at the beginning of next year or wait till the holiday season of 2022 should have been announced. Also, with such a big emphasis on Overwatch 2, what will happen to Overwatch? Also, will all heroes have progressive trees? Will PVP modes include any aspects of the progression systems? They showed some cool things here, but it is a little worrisome that they are discussing “trying” a lot of things, instead of working on finishing the game any time remotely soon. Let us know in the comments what you guys thought of the new maps, role changes, and PVE focus of this presentation.