In 2016, Blizzard launched the hero-shooter game Overwatch to widespread critical acclaim, establishing it as one of the most successful and innovative games of its generation. Blizzard has kept Overwatch fans engaged with regular content updates, adding new heroes, maps, and more to the mix in an effort to keep things fresh. However, support for Overwatch has slowed down these past couple years, as Blizzard has set its sights on the franchise’s future.
Overwatch 2 is in active development, and was previously believed to be launching within the first half of 2021. The latest information puts the Overwatch 2 release date somewhere in 2022, with no specifics available at the time of this writing. Overwatch remains a hugely popular game, however, and so one has to imagine that Blizzard has some plans for it in 2021 beyond the typical seasonal events.
On February 19, Blizzard will discuss the future of Overwatch during its BlizzCon 2021 presentation. While it’s expected that the company will be primarily focused on Overwatch 2, one has to imagine that there will be some relevant information for the original Overwatch game as well, especially since the two games share their PvP modes. It’s unclear exactly what will be announced for the first Overwatch game at BlizzCon or later this year, but this is what we would like to see from the hero-shooter.
Nowadays, crossplay is an expected feature for online multiplayer games. Despite this, Overwatch does not have crossplay support. While introducing crossplay between the console and PC versions of Overwatch would likely result in some major issues, it would be great to see crossplay added for the PlayStation and Xbox versions of the game, at least. This should help strengthen the Overwatch online community and make it even easier for players to get into games.
Blizzard surprised Overwatch fans with new hero Echo in 2020, but Echo was the only new hero added to the game for the entire year. Her addition to the Overwatch roster came as a surprise as many fans expected Blizzard to wait for the Overwatch 2 launch before adding any new heroes to the game. That’s still the general consensus, but there are many reasons why Blizzard waiting for Overwatch 2 to add new heroes would be a mistake.
With the Overwatch 2 release date not expected until 2022 at the earliest, it would be great for Blizzard to keep the base game alive with some new hero additions. Perhaps Blizzard could add the previously-revealed hero Sojourn to Overwatch, or maybe it can add some new, unrevealed heroes to the game as well.
While it would be great for Blizzard to add new heroes to Overwatch in 2021, it may be a bit more realistic if new maps came to the hero-shooter instead. As it stands, a number of new maps were revealed for Overwatch 2, but again, with that game not expected to come until 2022, maybe it would be best if Blizzard used some of those maps to keep fans of the base game busy while they wait to get their hands on the sequel.
Blizzard could also create brand new maps and add them to Overwatch in 2021. The most recent addition was the Kanezaka Deathmatch map, but Deathmatch isn’t nearly as popular as Quick Play and Competitive Play, so it would be great to see some new maps for those modes added to Overwatch in 2021 as well. As it stands, the last Overwatch map added to Quick and Competitive Play game modes was Havana, and that was all the way back in 2019.
A variety of games have been getting next-generation updates that enhance them on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. These updates sometimes add new features, but usually they are focused on improving a game’s performance. A next-gen update for Overwatch could improve the graphics and frame rate, while also adding support for next-gen exclusive features. On PlayStation 5, this could mean Overwatch supporting the unique capabilities of the DualSense controller for things like adaptive triggers and haptic feedback, not to mention 3D audio.
With Overwatch 2 not expected until 2022, a next-gen update could be the shot in the arm that the original game needs to stay relevant throughout 2021. What exactly an Overwatch next-gen update would entail is hard to say, but it could be a great way for Blizzard to keep its fans engaged with the game while the wait for Overwatch 2 continues.
In response to toxic players who throw games by picking characters that aren’t needed, Blizzard implemented a role queue in Overwatch. The idea was that players would join a competitive game in distinct roles, so they couldn’t switch off a Tank hero or a Damage hero. This also saw Overwatch implement a strict 2-2-2 system, where each team was balanced with two Damage heroes, two Support heroes, and two Tank heroes.
While this may have been a good idea on paper, the problem is that it seems the vast majority of Overwatch players are more interested in playing the Damage role than anything else. This caused Overwatch to have some severe matchmaking issues, where players would find themselves waiting excessive periods of time to get into games. Thankfully, Blizzard has pulled back role queue somewhat, making it possible to play Competitive without going into role queue.
If anything, role queue makes more sense in Competitive Play than it does Quick Play, yet it is still in Quick Play. The role queue experiment in Overwatch seems to have accomplished little beyond making it more difficult to get into games, so maybe it should be removed from the game entirely at this point.
Overwatch in its current state heavily favors the PC version of the game. The PC version of Overwatch gets new heroes sooner through the Public Test Region, along with maps and game modes. Overwatch has a large playerbase on consoles as well as PC, so hopefully Blizzard considers introducing parity between the different versions of the game so everyone can try the new content at the same time.
Like many other highly competitive games, Overwatch has an issue with rage quitters. If things aren’t going someone’s way, they may drop out of a match, which can make it impossible for their teammates left behind to win. In Competitive Play, this essentially means that those who chose not to rage quit are going to be docked SR, even though it’s not necessarily their fault and there is nothing they can do about it.
To make rage quitting less harsh for the people on the rage quitters’ team, perhaps Blizzard could reduce the SR that Overwatch players lose when this happens. Alternatively, it could make it so only the people in a party with the rage quitter lose SR, so that way people can’t coordinate and have someone on their team quit matches to protect their teammates’ SR if it looks like they are about to lose.
Like other live service games, Overwatch has changed dramatically in the months and years since its initial release. The original version of Overwatch would allow players to have more than one of the same hero on any given team, and many of the heroes themselves were very different from how they play today. Damage hero Symmetra, for example, originated as a Support hero, and had completely different abilities.
Other Overwatch characters have been part of massive reworks as well. Another good example of this is Support hero Mercy, who used to have an Ultimate that could revive the entire team simultaneously. There are many other examples of this throughout Overwatch‘s roster, and it would be interesting for Blizzard to bring back these original versions of the characters as part of a special Throwback Mode. The logistics of pulling this off may mean that it’s not a realistic venture, but if Blizzard could pull it off, it could make for an interesting Arcade Mode.
Overwatch is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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