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Overwatch
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Published on 2025-06-17 05:28 PM
Get Powered Up in Overwatch 2 - Season 17!
A new season means new rewards and even more ways to play. From Map Voting to Stadium innovations to the first-ever dual Mythic drop at launch—not to mention new maps, limited-time events, and a fully stacked Battle Pass—Season 17 is about powering up your game. Let’s go!
Stadium Report
Stadium, Overwatch 2’s round based PvP mode, will start to evolve with updates galore. Zenyatta, Sigma, and Junkrat are coming, along with two new (to Stadium) maps, Esperança and Samoa. Strategy will run deeper thanks to expanded build tools and the debut of Stadium Forge: a create/save/share system to test and refine your team comps like a pro, which will include early and late game example loadouts for every Hero.
Season 17 also brings the first ever Stadium rank reset, giving everyone a fresh start to prove their skill. Add in Drives to reward consistent performance, Custom Games for making your own rules, plus fresh All-Star rewards, and Stadium becomes a real proving ground to upgrade your mastery.
Be sure to read our Weekly Recalls and Director's Takes for more on these features and Stadium's ongoing evolution!
Map Voting: Choose the Map, Shape the Match
Map Voting goes live at launch in Quick Play and Competitive, letting you shape the match before it starts and control where the action unfolds. After role queue locks, you’ll get three randomized map options to choose from. Every vote adds a 1-in-10 chance to that map's odds, and the winner is selected using a roulette style roll.
To keep things chill, team chat, battle tags, and individual votes are hidden, so there’s no pressure—just a better chance at playing on maps you love. And leaver penalties kick in as soon as voting starts, so stick around and make it count.
Your match, your map, so take the fight where you want it.
New Maps, New Places to Play
We’re dropping three new maps to master, each one bringing their own unique energy to the game.
In Core, say hello to Aatlis, a vibrant new Flashpoint map showing off the beauty and culture of Morocco. From lush gardens to luxury resort spaces, this one is built for tighter fights, cleaner rotations, and fast paced momentum.
Over in Stadium, the streets of Esperança will return in a round-based format that introduces new elevation layers and lets tactics shift from round to round. Think of it as a Push map made for Stadium’s unique format and built to keep you adapting.
Finally, lava meets loadouts as the volcanic control point from Samoa joins the Stadium pool. Expect open arenas, strong vertical mayhem, and an ideal space for high mobility comps. If you love a good third person brawl or creative high ground play, this is the one for you.
Whether you’re climbing the comp ladder or just chasing highlight worthy moments, these maps are here to shake up your season. Your next favorite battleground is just one match away!
Double Mythics at Launch
For the first time ever, two Mythics will be available from day one, giving you more flexibility and more ways to flex.
D.Va's Mythic Horang Hero Skin roars to life, reflecting her strength and channeling the spirit of the Siberian tiger. Across four evolving tiers, this skin blends mythical VFX, thematic voice lines, and folklore-rooted customization options that honor the timeless tale of Sister Sun and Brother Moon. Mythic Horang D.Va is fierce, elegant, and fully customizable. This tiger has claws!
Two guns, one terrifying outcome for your enemies. Available at season launch for the first time, Reaper’s Mythic Steel Death Weapon Skin reflects the merciless presence he brings to the battlefield; the sharp edges forged in soulfire and destruction echoing the cold inevitability of his wrath. With dark customizations and haunting details on two distinct weapons across four levels ferocity, these sinister shotguns don’t just kill, they send a message— whether by bullet or blade, Steel Death will bring your end.
From folklore to fear itself, both Mythics will drop at launch, available through the Mythic Shop and fully unlockable with 80 Mythic Prisms.
Battle Passes: Legendary Style, Premium Power
The Season 17 Premium Battle Pass is loaded with variety and style.
You’ll unlock 8-bit Reinhardt, Genji, and Sombra; plus Delinquent Cole Cassidy, and Professor Fawkes Junkrat from Overwatch Academy. You’ll also get Sakura Ana, two Legendary Loot Boxes, 500 Credits, a full range of cosmetics like emotes, souvenirs, charms, name cards, voice lines—and of course, up to 80 Mythic Prisms to unlock the Mythic Horang D.Va Hero Skin, Mythic Steel Death Reaper Weapon Skin, or other Mythic content.
Go all in with the Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle for everything in the Premium Pass plus 20 Tier Skips, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and two extra Legendary skins: Principal Lacroix Widowmaker and Professor de Kuiper Sigma.
And play for free to earn a Legendary Loot Box, 600 Coins, 1,500 Credits, plus the Epic 8-bit Orisa and Zenyatta skins.
Powered Up Event
Season 17 kicks off with a reward warmup: the Powered Up Event from June 24 to 30! Complete 17 matches in Quick Play, Competitive, or Stadium to earn 4 Epic Loot Boxes, with a guaranteed Legendary skin within the last unboxing. Progress tracks across Quickplay, Competitive, and Stadium, but doesn’t apply to Custom Games, Hero Mastery, or Practice vs AI.
It’s a no fuss way to start your season strong. Play how you want and unbox something shiny. The only catch? Once it’s over, it’s over. So don’t sleep on it.
Hacks & Hijinx
When 8-bit Sombra hacks the game, nothing is safe!
From July 15 to 28, jump into Hacks & Hijinx, a limited-time 6v6 mode where match modifiers rotate every round. You might find yourself floating in low gravity, chasing down health packs that charge your Ultimate, or reacting to entirely new mechanics that break the rules in the best way. Each round forces new strategies and quick thinking, so if you’re looking for pure chaos, remixed gameplay, and moments that make you say, “what just happened...” we’ve got you.
Hacks & Hijinx is only on Control maps, for room to experiment and pressure to keep things spicy. There’s no meta here. Just glitches and madness. Bring your best and adapt fast!
Whether you're honing your prowess in Stadium, casting your map vote, or unlocking Mythics like it’s your job, Season 17 is coming June 24 to get you Powered Up!
Stadium Report
Stadium, Overwatch 2’s round based PvP mode, will start to evolve with updates galore. Zenyatta, Sigma, and Junkrat are coming, along with two new (to Stadium) maps, Esperança and Samoa. Strategy will run deeper thanks to expanded build tools and the debut of Stadium Forge: a create/save/share system to test and refine your team comps like a pro, which will include early and late game example loadouts for every Hero.
Season 17 also brings the first ever Stadium rank reset, giving everyone a fresh start to prove their skill. Add in Drives to reward consistent performance, Custom Games for making your own rules, plus fresh All-Star rewards, and Stadium becomes a real proving ground to upgrade your mastery.
Be sure to read our Weekly Recalls and Director's Takes for more on these features and Stadium's ongoing evolution!
Map Voting: Choose the Map, Shape the Match
Map Voting goes live at launch in Quick Play and Competitive, letting you shape the match before it starts and control where the action unfolds. After role queue locks, you’ll get three randomized map options to choose from. Every vote adds a 1-in-10 chance to that map's odds, and the winner is selected using a roulette style roll.
To keep things chill, team chat, battle tags, and individual votes are hidden, so there’s no pressure—just a better chance at playing on maps you love. And leaver penalties kick in as soon as voting starts, so stick around and make it count.
Your match, your map, so take the fight where you want it.
New Maps, New Places to Play
We’re dropping three new maps to master, each one bringing their own unique energy to the game.
In Core, say hello to Aatlis, a vibrant new Flashpoint map showing off the beauty and culture of Morocco. From lush gardens to luxury resort spaces, this one is built for tighter fights, cleaner rotations, and fast paced momentum.
Over in Stadium, the streets of Esperança will return in a round-based format that introduces new elevation layers and lets tactics shift from round to round. Think of it as a Push map made for Stadium’s unique format and built to keep you adapting.
Finally, lava meets loadouts as the volcanic control point from Samoa joins the Stadium pool. Expect open arenas, strong vertical mayhem, and an ideal space for high mobility comps. If you love a good third person brawl or creative high ground play, this is the one for you.
Whether you’re climbing the comp ladder or just chasing highlight worthy moments, these maps are here to shake up your season. Your next favorite battleground is just one match away!
Double Mythics at Launch
For the first time ever, two Mythics will be available from day one, giving you more flexibility and more ways to flex.
D.Va's Mythic Horang Hero Skin roars to life, reflecting her strength and channeling the spirit of the Siberian tiger. Across four evolving tiers, this skin blends mythical VFX, thematic voice lines, and folklore-rooted customization options that honor the timeless tale of Sister Sun and Brother Moon. Mythic Horang D.Va is fierce, elegant, and fully customizable. This tiger has claws!
- Level 1: Tiger armor and a hat with sleek, fierce white styling.
- Level 2: Bun hairstyle with upgraded visuals in a cinnabar red colorway.
- Level 3: Flex braids and a wild tiger mask in a pink tinted colorway.
- Level 4: Hit full tiger mode with ambient spirit energy, glowing effects, and flourishes that radiate power.
Two guns, one terrifying outcome for your enemies. Available at season launch for the first time, Reaper’s Mythic Steel Death Weapon Skin reflects the merciless presence he brings to the battlefield; the sharp edges forged in soulfire and destruction echoing the cold inevitability of his wrath. With dark customizations and haunting details on two distinct weapons across four levels ferocity, these sinister shotguns don’t just kill, they send a message— whether by bullet or blade, Steel Death will bring your end.
- Level 1: Brutal, sharp, soulfire-infused shotguns built for lethal precision.
- Level 2: Weapons flare with dark energy as you deal damage.
- Level 3: Intricate glowing details surround your shotguns.
- Level 4: Finish foes with haunting swirled shadows and sound effects that embody Reaper’s fury.
From folklore to fear itself, both Mythics will drop at launch, available through the Mythic Shop and fully unlockable with 80 Mythic Prisms.
Battle Passes: Legendary Style, Premium Power
The Season 17 Premium Battle Pass is loaded with variety and style.
You’ll unlock 8-bit Reinhardt, Genji, and Sombra; plus Delinquent Cole Cassidy, and Professor Fawkes Junkrat from Overwatch Academy. You’ll also get Sakura Ana, two Legendary Loot Boxes, 500 Credits, a full range of cosmetics like emotes, souvenirs, charms, name cards, voice lines—and of course, up to 80 Mythic Prisms to unlock the Mythic Horang D.Va Hero Skin, Mythic Steel Death Reaper Weapon Skin, or other Mythic content.
Go all in with the Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle for everything in the Premium Pass plus 20 Tier Skips, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and two extra Legendary skins: Principal Lacroix Widowmaker and Professor de Kuiper Sigma.
And play for free to earn a Legendary Loot Box, 600 Coins, 1,500 Credits, plus the Epic 8-bit Orisa and Zenyatta skins.
Powered Up Event
Season 17 kicks off with a reward warmup: the Powered Up Event from June 24 to 30! Complete 17 matches in Quick Play, Competitive, or Stadium to earn 4 Epic Loot Boxes, with a guaranteed Legendary skin within the last unboxing. Progress tracks across Quickplay, Competitive, and Stadium, but doesn’t apply to Custom Games, Hero Mastery, or Practice vs AI.
It’s a no fuss way to start your season strong. Play how you want and unbox something shiny. The only catch? Once it’s over, it’s over. So don’t sleep on it.
Hacks & Hijinx
When 8-bit Sombra hacks the game, nothing is safe!
From July 15 to 28, jump into Hacks & Hijinx, a limited-time 6v6 mode where match modifiers rotate every round. You might find yourself floating in low gravity, chasing down health packs that charge your Ultimate, or reacting to entirely new mechanics that break the rules in the best way. Each round forces new strategies and quick thinking, so if you’re looking for pure chaos, remixed gameplay, and moments that make you say, “what just happened...” we’ve got you.
Hacks & Hijinx is only on Control maps, for room to experiment and pressure to keep things spicy. There’s no meta here. Just glitches and madness. Bring your best and adapt fast!
Whether you're honing your prowess in Stadium, casting your map vote, or unlocking Mythics like it’s your job, Season 17 is coming June 24 to get you Powered Up!
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by
Published on 2025-06-13 06:27 PM
Weekly Recall: The Balancing Act
Hey everyone! Scott here, reporting from the hero design team about a subject that’s always at the forefront of our minds: balance.
This is one of the trickiest parts of game development and often one of the hottest topics in the Overwatch community. We want to show you a bit of what that process looks like from start to finish and how we arrive at balance changes, from Hero-specific adjustments to whole-game modifications. You’ll also get a sneak peek at some changes coming to Season 17!
Data, Feedback, Action
If it wasn’t obvious from past Weekly Recall blogs and Director’s Takes, we’re big fans of data here on the Overwatch 2 team.
Some of our balance changes are inspired by tangible numbers that come from various sources, like pick rates or win rates. We aim to keep Heroes within a set win percentage range of 45-55, and if they deviate from it, we know something needs to be done. This is less about making all Heroes viable in every situation and more about ensuring no Hero is ever universally a “wrong” choice.
Hero Ban data has added a whole new set of information we can use and this feature essentially gives you all a direct line to the balance team by way of collected data. High ban rates are a concrete indicator that a Hero is an issue for a large subset of players, and leads us to take a much closer look at what we can do to improve the experience of playing against certain Heroes.
Contextualizing the data we’ve gathered is important and it helps us identify changes that need to be made. For example, Widowmaker has a decently high ban rate on sniper playgrounds like Havana, but that doesn’t mean she needs immediate changes—some players just don’t want to catch a headshot right out of spawn.
Freja is an excellent example of how we’ve already used Hero Ban data to make improvements. Her win rates were low after she was introduced, so we strengthened parts of her kit to make her more impactful; however, as players got better with that kit, her Hero Ban rate skyrocketed at the highest skill tiers. Above Diamond rank in Competitive mode, Freja is the most banned Hero in multiple regions!
Data is helpful to identify a specific issue, but after that we look at your feedback and delve into how a Hero feels within matches. For Freja, we asked ourselves what her pain points were and analyzed community input. The biggest concerns you shared were how oppressive she felt, especially when allowed to spam damage while airborne.
This led us to increase the cooldowns on her movement abilities—Quick Dash and Updraft—while also increasing her primary weapon reload time to avoid such constant spam damage. Freja is still a devastating damage dealer, but small tweaks make her less of a terror to play against. Both her win rate and ban rate have stabilized and we’re continuously monitoring all of the data to ensure that she lands in a balanced, fun state.
Despite the presence of compelling data, improvements aren’t so clear or immediate for some Heroes. Sombra’s ban rates are high in multiple regions on both PC and Console and we’re currently discussing future changes. She’s a complex case that can’t be solved overnight, but know the balance team has her in their sights.
Thinking Outside the Box
Data isn’t the only way we decide balance changes, though. Gameplay factors, like the enjoyment and ease of playing a Hero or their ability to keep up with the rest of the Overwatch 2 roster, influence our decisions. We also pull back and look at gameplay with a wider lens to make more overarching changes.
One big adjustment heading to Season 17 is increasing the damage role passive healing reduction from 25% to 30%, which should help damage dealers better contend with the amount of healing that support Heroes are churning out. The basic global health regeneration timer is also increasing from 5 to 6 seconds in an effort to make damage feel more impactful within matches.
Other times, we zoom in on Hero-specific changes that mean a lot to us. When I first joined the Hero Design team last year, one of my initial balance pitches was a little wild: I wanted to shrink Bastion.
Our favorite cheerful Omnic does a ton of damage, but the sheer size of his character model makes him difficult to play in many situations. Bastion struggles with survivability even though he has the largest health and armor pool of any damage Hero.
Though I was initially (and correctly) told it would be a difficult change to implement, other departments across the Overwatch 2 team joined the cause and we took a tinier Bastion into internal testing. We found that reducing his size by 15% simply made him too cute, so we kept tweaking the numbers.
Bastion’s size will be reduced by 10% when Season 17 launches to give him a survivability boost. While it’s not the most earth-shattering change to ever hit Overwatch, it’s a testament to the many different ways we can change and balance the game for every hero.
Other than a tinier (and possibly more ferocious) Bastion, you can expect lots of minor Hero balance changes when Season 17 hits on June 24. Junker Queen will see some important changes to her Commanding Shout that prioritize ally Overhealth, making her a more viable offensive tank choice. Perks like Pharah’s Helix Shields and Lifeweaver’s Cleansing Grasp will get some quality-of-life improvements as well.
Thanks for playing! Good luck and have fun.
This is one of the trickiest parts of game development and often one of the hottest topics in the Overwatch community. We want to show you a bit of what that process looks like from start to finish and how we arrive at balance changes, from Hero-specific adjustments to whole-game modifications. You’ll also get a sneak peek at some changes coming to Season 17!
Data, Feedback, Action
If it wasn’t obvious from past Weekly Recall blogs and Director’s Takes, we’re big fans of data here on the Overwatch 2 team.
Some of our balance changes are inspired by tangible numbers that come from various sources, like pick rates or win rates. We aim to keep Heroes within a set win percentage range of 45-55, and if they deviate from it, we know something needs to be done. This is less about making all Heroes viable in every situation and more about ensuring no Hero is ever universally a “wrong” choice.
Hero Ban data has added a whole new set of information we can use and this feature essentially gives you all a direct line to the balance team by way of collected data. High ban rates are a concrete indicator that a Hero is an issue for a large subset of players, and leads us to take a much closer look at what we can do to improve the experience of playing against certain Heroes.
Contextualizing the data we’ve gathered is important and it helps us identify changes that need to be made. For example, Widowmaker has a decently high ban rate on sniper playgrounds like Havana, but that doesn’t mean she needs immediate changes—some players just don’t want to catch a headshot right out of spawn.
Freja is an excellent example of how we’ve already used Hero Ban data to make improvements. Her win rates were low after she was introduced, so we strengthened parts of her kit to make her more impactful; however, as players got better with that kit, her Hero Ban rate skyrocketed at the highest skill tiers. Above Diamond rank in Competitive mode, Freja is the most banned Hero in multiple regions!
Data is helpful to identify a specific issue, but after that we look at your feedback and delve into how a Hero feels within matches. For Freja, we asked ourselves what her pain points were and analyzed community input. The biggest concerns you shared were how oppressive she felt, especially when allowed to spam damage while airborne.
This led us to increase the cooldowns on her movement abilities—Quick Dash and Updraft—while also increasing her primary weapon reload time to avoid such constant spam damage. Freja is still a devastating damage dealer, but small tweaks make her less of a terror to play against. Both her win rate and ban rate have stabilized and we’re continuously monitoring all of the data to ensure that she lands in a balanced, fun state.
Despite the presence of compelling data, improvements aren’t so clear or immediate for some Heroes. Sombra’s ban rates are high in multiple regions on both PC and Console and we’re currently discussing future changes. She’s a complex case that can’t be solved overnight, but know the balance team has her in their sights.
Thinking Outside the Box
Data isn’t the only way we decide balance changes, though. Gameplay factors, like the enjoyment and ease of playing a Hero or their ability to keep up with the rest of the Overwatch 2 roster, influence our decisions. We also pull back and look at gameplay with a wider lens to make more overarching changes.
One big adjustment heading to Season 17 is increasing the damage role passive healing reduction from 25% to 30%, which should help damage dealers better contend with the amount of healing that support Heroes are churning out. The basic global health regeneration timer is also increasing from 5 to 6 seconds in an effort to make damage feel more impactful within matches.
Other times, we zoom in on Hero-specific changes that mean a lot to us. When I first joined the Hero Design team last year, one of my initial balance pitches was a little wild: I wanted to shrink Bastion.
Our favorite cheerful Omnic does a ton of damage, but the sheer size of his character model makes him difficult to play in many situations. Bastion struggles with survivability even though he has the largest health and armor pool of any damage Hero.
Though I was initially (and correctly) told it would be a difficult change to implement, other departments across the Overwatch 2 team joined the cause and we took a tinier Bastion into internal testing. We found that reducing his size by 15% simply made him too cute, so we kept tweaking the numbers.
Bastion’s size will be reduced by 10% when Season 17 launches to give him a survivability boost. While it’s not the most earth-shattering change to ever hit Overwatch, it’s a testament to the many different ways we can change and balance the game for every hero.
Other than a tinier (and possibly more ferocious) Bastion, you can expect lots of minor Hero balance changes when Season 17 hits on June 24. Junker Queen will see some important changes to her Commanding Shout that prioritize ally Overhealth, making her a more viable offensive tank choice. Perks like Pharah’s Helix Shields and Lifeweaver’s Cleansing Grasp will get some quality-of-life improvements as well.
Thanks for playing! Good luck and have fun.
by
Published on 2025-06-06 07:30 PM
Junkrat's Loot Hunt: Earn up to 9 Loot Boxes!
Complete daily matches in Junkrat's Loot Hunt weekend event to earn up to 9 Loot Boxes! From June 6 through June 8, hit daily milestones by playing 2, 5, and 10 matches each day to claim three Loot Boxes daily.
Complete daily matches in Junkrat's Loot Hunt weekend event to earn up to 9 Loot Boxes! From June 6 through June 8, hit daily milestones by playing 2, 5, and 10 matches each day to claim three Loot Boxes daily.
by
Published on 2025-06-06 07:19 PM
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