Blizzard is changing its philosophy behind hero designs with Overwatch 2, and it will change the way new characters are released in the game.
As revealed in a new blog post this morning, Blizzard announced that it is doing away with hard counters for heroes. This means there will be less emphasis on heroes who are able to defeat specific characters, and forcing players to swap heroes.
The example Blizzard uses is Tracer, who is hard countered by Cassidy. In Overwatch, a skilled Cassidy player can effectively shut down Tracer and force the player to swap to a different character.
“While Overwatch 2 heroes will each have their own clear strengths and weakness, and some heroes will be more effective against others, we believe our game plays better and is more fun with fewer hard counters and a broader range of effective hero picks,” Blizzard writes.
This balance change is also a reason why new heroes are going to be released in the battle pass.
In Overwatch 2, new heroes will not be introduced into Competitive modes immediately. This allows the developers to tune the balance and give players time to experiment with the new heroes before they join Competitive play a few weeks after launch.
Blizzard says new heroes will be released every alternate season, except for Season One and Two. Meaning the next heroes will be released in Season Four and Season Six.
For more on Overwatch 2’s Battle Pass, check out IGN’s full battle pass explainer here and check out our preview of Overwatch 2 ahead of its October 4 release.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.