Overwatch News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Greetings, heroes! We have big updates on the horizon we're excited to share with you.

The next season of Overwatch 2 will introduced a new hero, Venture, and a new way to unlock them. Instead of having to pay for the game’s premium battle pass or unlock that new hero through dozens of hours of gameplay, Blizzard will make Venture and all future heroes available to free for all players when they launch.

When Overwatch 2 was announced at BlizzCon 2019, Blizzard made a big deal of the brand new PvE component, which would have been comprised of Story Missions and Hero Missions.

According to some former Overwatch 2 developers, the troubled development, poor reception, and recent layoffs have led to an uncertain future for the game's PvE Story Missions. What was once a headlining feature of Overwatch 2 may never get the opportunity to shine if these devs' fears come true.

Overwatch 2 players have discovered a new bug in the game that prevents the newest support hero Illari from using her Solar Rifle to heal Reaper while he's in Wraith Form. Now in its ninth season, Overwatch 2 put out a new update bringing its Cowboy Bebop crossover to the game. The recent patch also brought some changes to projectile size, passive role abilities, and more.

Overwatch 2 just began its second Quick Play: Hacked experiment, Double Trouble, for a limited time. For the next 24 hours, gamers who jump into Quick Play in Overwatch 2 can share heroes by having up to two copies of each character on a single team.

Overwatch 2 fans are disappointed with the lack of a hat for Cassidy's new Spike Spiegel skin, which puts his long, spiky hair on full display. The recently added skin is part of Overwatch 2's Cowboy Bebop collaboration that began on March 12.

Cowboy Bebop skins have slithered into Overwatch 2's in-game store, but you can just as easily buy the entire anime series physically for the same price as one single crossover cosmetic.

“A Friendly Rivalry,” a new Overwatch 2 short story set in Junkertown, teases the true nature of Junkrat’s secret treasure for the first time in eight years. While its exact nature is still shrouded in mystery, the Overwatch 2 short story seems to suggest it is a flying vehicle or device of some kind.

Blizzard and NetEase are allegedly planning on announcing the restoration of their partnership within the next few weeks. If the rumors are true, Blizzard may be able to restore access to its games in China via NetEase this year, possibly as early as April.

Overwatch 2 has seemingly delayed the start of Season 10 from April 7 to April 16. Though it did not have a concrete release date before, it seems like players will have to wait an extra week to try out Venture, the 40th hero in Overwatch 2.

Overwatch 2 is offering the Calavera Reaper skin and its accompanying cosmetics for free via Twitch Drops from now through March 19. This Overwatch 2 skin is the latest in a series of cash shop items that have been given away for free not long after they were originally sold for real money.

The second season of Embark Studios’ first-person shooter The Finals launches March 14, giving players all-new tools to speedily traverse through — and destroy — its game show-inspired levels. Players can already blow holes through walls, floors, and ceilings to reshape the game’s highly destructible maps, but players will get a new tool called the Dematerializer that straight-up erases parts of a level’s geometry.

Overwatch 2 recently updated the Play menu to feature a larger button for Hero Mastery, but a smaller button for Missions. This small adjustment seems to suggest a change in priority for Overwatch 2, and could mean new PvE missions are a long way off.

Overwatch 2 just rolled out its mid-Season 9 patch, featuring buffs to almost half of the game’s playable heroes. This update, which also includes the PvE Hero Mastery: Gauntlet game mode, a nerf to the DPS passive, and new features for competitive play, is live in Overwatch 2 right now.

Celebrate the legendary crew of Bebop in Overwatch 2! Immerse yourself in the iconic saga of Cowboy Bebop with an array of new skins found exclusively in the Overwatch 2 shop. From now until March 25, you can also tackle in-game challenges to answer the call of the bounty hunter and snatch up your cosmic cosmetic rewards. Keep reading to find out how you can claim these legendary bounties of this limited-time event.

Blizzard Entertainment’s collaboration with anime studio Sunrise to bring the world of Cowboy Bebop to Overwatch 2 was met with great enthusiasm when it was first revealed in its stylized, animated form. But when Blizzard released a full look at the in-game skins for Cassidy, Ashe, Mauga, Sombra, and Wrecking Ball, a dose of reality set in.

Overwatch 2 recently confirmed Wrecking Ball is getting a small rework in Season 10. Players can expect this challenging Overwatch 2 Tank hero to play a little differently after Season 9 ends in early April.

Overwatch 2 is bringing back Quick Play: Hacked with Double Trouble – a game mode that removes the one hero limitation on each team. Players can expect to see this new gameplay experiment sometime before Overwatch 2 Season 9 ends in early April.

An Overwatch 2 fan has created a concept for what a Masters of the Universe Skeletor crossover would potentially entail with Reaper, one of the game's deadliest close-range damage heroes. Currently in the midst of its ninth season,Overwatch 2 has added a mythic Moira skin as part of its Eldritch Horror Battle Pass, and has revamped Competitive Play, resetting everyone's progress and adding the Champion rank.

The next Overwatch 2 crossover event will see the popular hero shooter collaborating with the hit anime series Cowboy Bebop, and now all the collab's skins have been revealed. Blizzard announced the Overwatch 2 x Cowboy Bebop crossover last week, though it was first teased with the Season 9 reveal trailer. The collab will go live on Tuesday, March 12, but it's not the first time Overwatch 2 has crossed over with an anime series.

In Season 10, we’re joining Porsche for a new in-game collaboration, featuring a Legendary D.Va skin inspired by the all-new Macan Electric!

Overwatch 2 and Porsche reveal a new crossover, bringing fresh skins to the team-based shooter game inspired by the car manufacturer's designs. Before the official announcement, the Overwatch 2 Twitter account teased the collaboration in a tweet, sparking fan speculation about what this crossover could bring to the table.

The Overwatch 2 team is tweaking "roughly half" of the playable heroes in the upcoming midseason patch.

Yesterday (March 7), Blizzard Entertainment dropped a trailer for the upcoming collaboration between competitive first-person shooter Overwatch 2 and beloved anime Cowboy Bebop. 

The WoW Classic Cataclysm beta is now live, and players can still sign up to play this closed beta ahead of the full launch later this year.

Overwatch 2 just revealed a slew of changes coming in the mid-Season 9 patch, including a slight nerf to the new DPS passive, and buffs to Ana, Lifeweaver, Doomfist, and Mauga. These changes and more will arrive in Overwatch 2 on March 12.

Blizzard has announced Overwatch 2's newest collaboration, a crossover with the popular animeCowboy Bebop that begins on March 12 and brings skins, emotes, and more inspired by the franchise. One of the new Overwatch 2 skins can be unlocked for free by completing various challenges.

Hello, wonderful people, and welcome to the mid-Season 9 Director's Take! This season had the most significant changes to the game that we've made in a long time. When we launched Season 9 in February, we wanted to make sure to keep an eye on your feedback and react to what we saw. We've had two patches so far, and we have another one, which is quite the stunner, coming up next week. Let's get into that… no, wait! ...Let's talk about where we're at… and then get into that.

Blizzard Entertainment announced that Overwatch 2’s next crossover is with Cowboy Bebop, and a snazzy trailer recreates the anime’s iconic opening with the collaboration’s character skins.

Blizzard has released a new trailer for an upcoming collaboration between Cowboy Bebop and Overwatch 2, beginning on March 12th! The trailer is a full remake of the classic Cowboy Bebop opening sequence, featuring Overwatch characters Cassidy as Spike Spiegel, Ashe as Faye Valentine, Sombra as Ed, Mauga as Jet Black, and Wrecking Ball's Hammond as Ein! Full details of the crossover event have yet to be released, though unlockable items are said to include five legendary skins for the characters listed above, new emotes, play of the game highlight intros, and more. High resolution screenshots courtesy of Blizzard's Press Kit. The attention to detail visible in the trailer will make any Cowboy Bebop fan excited: blink-and-you-miss-it tributes such as Cassidy's gun being styled as a tribute to the Swordfish II, Spike's ship, and Bob's design and guns evoking Faye's ship Red Tail, our only question is whether iconic voice lines like «See you Space Cowboy» will also make it in?! As with the first Overwatch anime crossover with One Punch Man last year, these skins aren't just fun fan service, they're canon! In a previous interview with Xbox Wire, Art Director Dion Rogers confirmed that these character skins are essentially in-universe cosplay.

Today, Blizzard revealed a stylish trailer for Overwatch 2's next big crossover collaboration event with none other than the fan-favorite 90's anime series, Cowboy Bebop. The special collaboration will launch as a part of Overwatch 2 Season 9 on March 12.

Overwatch 2’s second anime crossover event will bring the characters (and music) of Cowboy Bebop to the team-based hero shooter on March 12, Blizzard Entertainment announced Thursday. The collab will add new Cowboy Bebop-inspired skins, emotes, highlight intros, and more to Overwatch 2, including an Ein skin for Wrecking Ball that all players will be able to unlock for free.

An Overwatch 2 fan just broke the game with Roadhog’s Chain Hook by transforming the iconic ability into a teleporter that seemingly brought its target to two places at once. This mind-bending Overwatch 2 clip gets more confusing the longer players look at it.

One former Overwatch 2 developer has explained how wild the game's scripting situations can get, and how it turns into visual and gameplay bugs.

An Overwatch fan makes a huge collector's find at a garage sale, snagging a great deal on a Widowmaker statue at the sale. The expansive roster of characters from the Blizzard team shooter has served as one of the most popular facets of the franchise since its debut, with characters like Tracer and Genji becoming fan-favorites. The game's popularity has led to a wide variety of merchandise, featuring everything from Overwatch figures and statues to apparel. Now, one fan has found a particularly rare piece of Overwatch merchandise at a garage sale.

Today, NVIDIA announced that its GeForce NOW cloud gaming platform has been upgraded to support Battle.net PC games like Call of Duty, Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, and Hearthstone.

NVIDIA is announcing today via newsletter that the free GeForce NOW tier will begin showing up to two minutes of 'video sponsorship messages' (ads, basically) before each free gaming session (which only lasts up to an hour) while in the queue. NVIDIA says the change will go live starting next Tuesday, March 5, and it reckons it'll eventually improve average wait times for GeForce NOW free users.

An Overwatch 2 player has come up with a hilarious and ridiculous idea that would fit right in with the game's expected April Fools joke patch. Currently in its ninth season, Overwatch 2 has overhauled its competitive mode, resetting everyone's ranks and adding a new tier called Champion. The new season also brought some significant changes to the Junkertown payload map, adding several new pieces of large cover around the first payload checkpoint to give offensive teams a better chance against opposing Pharah and Widowmaker players.

The recently-released Season 9 of Overwatch 2 has been both an exciting and controversial time for the game, but the new mythic skin it introduces brings with it a cool feature that adds to the level of quality fans feel has been missing from the game's recent mythic skins. As usual, Overwatch 2 fans won't be able to snag this new skin without first purchasing the latest season's premium battle pass, which itself offers a whole batch of freaky new skins.

Overwatch 2 just teased some more updates coming to Competitive Play in Season 10. The ranked PvP mode may have just received some huge updates in Season 9, but Overwatch 2 already has plans to make more improvements in the near future.

Overwatch 2 is making some changes to the Push, Flashpoint, Hybrid, and Escort game modes to make them faster-paced. These speed adjustments are being made in response to positive feedback during the recent Quicker Play test Overwatch 2 held as a part of its new Quick Play: Hacked feature.

Hi everyone, and Happy Friday! :)

An unlucky Kiriko player in Overwatch 2 has been brutalized by an opposing Pharah immediately after teleporting to their low-health Widowmaker. Overwatch 2 recently started its ninth season, named Champions, which primarily focuses on reworking the Competitive suite, resetting the ranks of all players, and adding the new Champion rank. The new season also introduced a mythic skin for Moira as part of its eldritch horror-themed battle pass.

Kai ‘Kai’ Collins, better known online as yung_kai, has gotten his Blizzard Entertainment account banned following suspicions of cheating in Overwatch 2 mid-game. This turn of events has left the Overwatch 2 pro player surprised and disheartened by the decision.

Overwatch 2 may bring back Orisa’s Halt ability in the future in some form. While the ability may not be given back to Orisa, the Overwatch 2 development team unanimously liked the ability, and would like to experiment with re-implementing it in the future.

Hell is more accessible than ever before — Diablo 4 has been revealed as coming to the PC Game Pass on March 28! Officially revealed during an episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, Diablo 4 will debut on the PC Game Pass on March 28. Players will be able to journey in Sanctuary even more easily than before — which was originally announced back in 2022, during a statement regarding the future of Game Pass after the Microsoft and ABK merger. While Diablo 4 is the first Activision Blizzard King title to debut on PC Game Pass, Sarah Bond, President of Xbox, had this to say regarding other titles:

Hell is more accessible than ever before — Diablo 4 has been revealed as coming to the PC Game Pass on March 28! Officially revealed during an episode of the Official Xbox Podcast, Diablo 4 will debut on the PC Game Pass on March 28. Players will be able to journey in Sanctuary even more easily than before — which was originally announced back in 2022, during a statement regarding the future of Game Pass after the Microsoft and ABK merger. While Diablo 4 is the first Activision Blizzard King title to debut on PC Game Pass, Sarah Bond, President of Xbox, had this to say regarding other titles:

Overwatch 2's latest season made changes to the FPS' bullet size, but fans can't decide if they can actually tell the difference.

Overwatch 2 is currently offering the Cybermonk Zenyatta skin to all players for free via a Twitch Drop. By watching 12 hours of Overwatch 2 on Twitch, fans can pick up this Legendary skin, originally available in the shop during the sequel’s first season, along with the other cosmetics offered in its original bundle.

The new Ancient Caller Moira in Overwatch 2 Season 9 has nine total customization options – a big improvement from other recent Mythic Skins. This skin fixes a big problem many Overwatch 2 fans have had with the premium cosmetics in previous seasons.

Season 9 of Overwatch 2 is finally here. As you'd expect, Blizzard has provided a rundown of all the new additions coming to the team-based shooter.

An unknown horror lurks beneath the ruins of Ecopoint: Antarctica. It will be up to you to solve the mystery of...Cosmic Crisis! Starting today with Overwatch 2 – Season 9: Champions, this new 4-player Co-op event explores a non-canon story that will test your loyalty to your teammates. Read on to learn more about Cosmic Crisis, and the new rewards and ways to play that will keep you coming back to this limited-time event.

Overwatch 2 season 9 is set to introduce a series of quality-of-life improvements to the game, including big changes to competitive play.

Overwatch 2 Season 9, entitled “Champions,” kicks off tomorrow, and while players won’t be getting a new hero, Blizzard is promising some pretty major under-the-hood changes. These include the controversial decision to give all characters passive healing abilities, as well as boosting heroes’ health stats and increasing the actual size of projectiles in order to make shooting more accessible. Competitive play is also getting a full revamp, with all skill ranks being reset. Before we go on to the rest of the details, you can check out a quick trailer for Overwatch 2 Season 9 below.

An Overwatch 2 fan designed a skin for Lifeweaver based on Mercy's controversial Mystic Swan skin. Some Overwatch 2 fans think the design fits the newer Support hero much better.

Overwatch 2 just released the full patch notes for Season 9: Champions. Though this season does not add any new heroes or maps to the game, this update is still one of the largest ones in Overwatch 2 since its launch.

Overwatch 2 Season 9 arrives tomorrow with exciting core gameplay updates, a reworked Competitive game mode, and a season theme that will test the courage of even the bravest heroes as they face a dangerous threat of cosmic proportions. Get your friends together, queue up, and face the unknown that awaits you.

While in the practice range, one Overwatch 2 player notices that the Junker Queen is the only character in the game to not have a blinking animation. The amount of playable characters available to use in Overwatch 2 continues to expand through various seasonal updates, such as the addition of the tank hero Mauga. Taking the base roster from the first game, Overwatch 2 began with a handful of new characters including the Junker Queen, a tank class character which quickly became one of the more popular character choices.

As many of you know, two weeks ago, there were a series of changes made to the Overwatch team, as well as other teams across Blizzard. Writing a public blog is difficult in the wake of these events. I want to express gratitude for the absolutely amazing people who worked on our game that are no longer on our team. I want the community to feel informed, and I want to convey our excitement about what is to come in Season 9. To be honest, it’s a lot to balance – but one of the things we’ve been most proud of is how we’ve kept lines of communication open between the team and our community, and we intend to continue that.

The Defense Matrix Initiative is continuing to go strong in 2024. Previously, we shared our efforts to deter leavers in Overwatch 2, promote positive communication, and show the impact of your reports.  As we head into Season 9, we have more to share on our ongoing improvements to Endorsements and disruptive behavior.

An Overwatch 2 player claims they were banned from Quick Play for over three and a half years. Unless this ban is lifted prematurely, this unfortunate Overwatch 2 fan won’t be able to queue into this casual game mode until late September 2027.

The newest season of Overwatch 2 is just around the corner, and with it comes some exciting changes. During our Overwatch 2: What’s Next Panel at BlizzCon 2023, we shared a sneak peek at some of the philosophy guiding many of the system changes coming this year: striving to make PvP gameplay more rewarding and fun and providing greater transparency for players in-game. We are introducing major changes to Competitive in the new season—from a new progression system to an all-new skill tier above Grand Master—as well as major gameplay changes to combat and hero survivability. Read for details on what you can expect for Overwatch 2 Season 9: Champions.

Season 9 of Overwatch 2 kicks off next week, with some big changes to the game’s competitive mode, a new battle pass, and a cosmic horror theme for hero skins. But Blizzard Entertainment’s sneak peek at season 9, named Champions, also hints at something surprising: a crossover with beloved anime series Cowboy Bebop.

Overwatch 2 players will need at least 38 GB of free space in order to install the patch for Season 9. Once the Overwatch 2 update comes out on February 13, if fans don’t have this spare room on their hard drives, they will have to completely reinstall the game.

Overwatch 2’s next season will introduce a major rework for at least one hero, but every hero in Blizzard’s team-based shooter will feel different starting in the new season. The developer is set to make “major changes to the fundamentals of Overwatch 2 gameplay” with season 9, known as Champions.

An Overwatch 2 leak revealed a potential buff for Tracer that would increase her HP to 175. Overwatch 2 has 39 heroes, but few are as iconic as Tracer. The face of the game since the original Overwatch days, Tracer has a strong presence in Overwatch 2's lore. She's equally striking in Overwatch 2 matches, having tools to carry games as few other heroes can.

Blizzard has announced an exclusive, multi-year partnership with esports company ESL FACEIT Group for Overwatch 2 esports events. Previously, professional Overwatch esports events were held as part of the now-defunct Overwatch League.

An Overwatch 2 fan has created an incredible bug skin concept for the Tank hero Ramattra. Ramattra is one of the first heroes exclusive to Overwatch 2, and this skin concept could make him a favorite among bug fans.

The Overwatch 2 game director apologized after announcing controversial new changes coming with the game's next seasonal update. Overwatch 2's Season 9 is expected to launch on February 20th.

A hilarious Overwatch animation highlights how the tank meta has unfolded between both games. Overwatch tanks can range from annoyingly good to frustratingly bad, and this animation shows how they stack up next to each other.

Overwatch 2 announced that in Season 9 all Tank and Damage heroes will receive a self-healing passive ability. This will likely cause a significant shift in Overwatch 2's meta. Its development team further explained this new change.

Blizzard has officially announced that its esports league for Overwatch, the Overwatch League, is being shut down. The studio made released a statement, according to IGN, stating that it will be “transitioning from the Overwatch League“.

Mauga is an offense focused tank, but you need to watch out for enemy crowd control.

BlizzCon 2023 is upon us as the venerable MMO developer is poised to shower fans with announcements for Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and others. You can check out the Opening Ceremony here and follow along with all the big announcements made in Anaheim today.

So many changes it's scary.

Overwatch 2 has made history by becoming the worst-reviewed game on Steam. Publisher Blizzard, which usually kept its PC games locked to the Battle.net client, brought its team-based shooter to Steam on August 10, only to be flooded with negative reviews. At the time of writing, merely nine percent of the overall ratings (111,234) are positive, with many criticising the title's approach to locking heroes and cosmetics behind a battle pass and the cancellation of its long-advertised PvE mode. While Blizzard might have expected some backlash, this reception must've been eye-opening for them, given Battle.net did not have a review system in place.

The final part of Overwatch: GENESIS is now out for free on the PlayOverwatch YouTube. Rebirth is the final of the 3 part Overawatch anime short: Genesis.

It’s the battle of the free FPS games, as Valve’s Team Fortress 2 has briefly overtaken Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 in terms of concurrent Twitch viewers. With multiple reasons for the spike in viewers that overtook OW2, and the Blizzard shooter’s impending Steam release, it looks like it could be in for some friendly competition with Team Fortress 2 going forward.

When it comes to Blizzard, they used to be known for being one of the best content-rich developers out there. But over the last several years, they’ve made choices that have backfired against them in various ways and have left fans frustrated. One of the biggest blunders they’ve made recently was the launch of Overwatch 2. From the literal launch of the game, the title has had problems, and fans have been very vocal about those problems. They didn’t like many of the gameplay changes, didn’t appreciate how long it took to get into matches, etc. It’s bad, and it’s only gotten worse.