Listing the most important changes in the season 5 patch for Overwatch 2
A lot of future hero changes were hinted in Blizzard’s last Director’s Take blog, including ability reworks for Cassidy and Mei. And with season 5 only hours away, Blizzard has finally released the complete season 5 patch notes for the next competitive season. Huge quality-of-life (QoL) changes, a notable game mode and a future season trailer were just released for Overwatch 2, so we’ve compiled a full list of the biggest things to look forward to in-game. Here’s everything you need to know about Overwatch 2 Season 5:
Updated Weekly Challenges
To earn points on its battle pass, Overwatch 2 set up a whole variety of in-game challenges that reward players for specific achievements. If left incomplete, the progress bar on weekly challenges would reset to zero once the week ended. A challenge in particular involves winning 10 games per week, but this was modified for season 5.
Now instead of winning games, players will only have to complete them in order to progress the achievement. And although the challenge cap was raised to a daunting 30 games, winning one will now grant double progress.
“Mischief and Magic” Prop Hunt Mode
In line with the season’s fantasy theme, Overwatch 2 will now be getting its very own version of Prop Hunt. A big number of widely popular games have included a prop hunt minigame variant in events past, and it looks like the Overwatch game developers are following suit. Not much was shown in the Season 5 trailer, but if you’re familiar with prop hunt, you’ll know all about the potential for hilarious plays that people can pull off.
Opening up the possibilities for more in-game hijinks, players will also be getting access to Overwatch 2’s very first creator-made workshop game mode. Passionate, community-driven content has carried classic shooters far in their half-life, so this was a good move on Blizzard’s part, albeit a small splash in an ocean of letdowns.
Questwatch Fantasy Event
The Roadmap that was released in the latest developer chat stream had a distinct feel to it, and now it’s finally coming. Following their promise to make each season stand out from one another, Overwatch 2 is getting the Dungeons and Dragons treatment with its latest non-canon event.
As you progress through the battlepass, you unlock more stages to the game mode, which pits cosplaying Overwatch heroes against the Demon Lord Reinhardt in a simple story quest taking place in rehashed maps to the tune of uninspired voice lines. It’s nice to play pretend, though.
Following the theme, the battle pass’ latest Mythic skin for Tracer will have something unique to it. Instead of unlocking every modification when you reach the 80th tier, iterations of the same skin will be spread out. This is aptly named “Mythic Skin Progression”, and is intended to make the Battle Pass grind more satisfying (?).
Hero Changes
Arguably the most exciting part of this season update. The plant-based pansexual is finally getting the overhaul he deserves. With a decreasing activation area on his Petal Platform and a 50 HP heal on his Life Grip, his controller abilities were also given special attention. Apart from these, and an all-around boost to his damage and healing capabilities, his hitbox was also decreased by 10%. And the 8% decrease on his Ultimate Ability was just the cherry on top. Huge shoutout to the hero design team!
Additionally, the new patch notes also saw Cassidy’s new Magnetic Grenade in action. To the joy of the masses, his E no longer pops like a balloon immediately after being thrown and has a travel range of 10 meters! And despite the damage getting nerfed, Magnetic Grenade now applies the “Hindered” status effect, which not only slows stuck targets by 30%, but also deactivates movement-related abilities. Finally, a good Genji counter.
Your #Overwatch2 Season 5 journey is about to begin.
Take this roadmap to help guide you during your mythic adventure 🗺
Learn more about Season 5: https://t.co/PXt0f8uNGL pic.twitter.com/yMw4brTqM7
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) June 12, 2023
Another notable change was done to Mei’s primary fire, which can now apply a more severe slow. The developers wanted to the find the middle ground between her current version and her old Overwatch iteration. They ultimately decided on a ramping slow effect for the scientist. This new change now lets Mei’s Endothermic Blaster build up to a brutal 75% slow effect which you can “detonate” with her alt-fire. Now if you’re feeling a strong sense of dread, you’re not alone.
Lastly, this season’s new round of nerfs decreased Junker Queen’s survivability, increased Tracer’s primary fire spread and decreased Hanzo and Widowmaker’s damage over long ranges. Sonic Arrow is also more noticeable by enemies now. On top of that, Reaper and Moira can no longer use their respective fade abilities to escape from “mobility-locking effects” such as Gravity Surge and Steel Trap.
Season 5 Patch Matchmaker Improvements
In the latest string of updates, we’re getting more fine-tuning done on Overwatch 2’s matchmaking. Most prominently, the developers have made changes to make sure the skill range stays narrow, ensuring proper fair play across skill tiers.
Apart from that, players who did not play in Competitive mode last season will now be marked “inactive”. Inactive players will not be given a skill tier and division, and can happen on individual role queues. Further, a player stops being inactive once they successfully earn a new rank. This addresses one of the main problems in the developers’ quest to implement better matchmaking, which involves factoring in returning players when the system calculates for the MMR of an entire skill tier. From the way the latest changes are presented, one an infer that inactive players will be excluded from some of the MMR calculations.
Season 6 Developments
After the disappointing news about the scrapped Hero mode were brought to light, some fans were still willing to give the repackaged PvE mode a shot. Unfortunately for the fanbase at large, continuously playing the much-awaited Story Missions won’t be free.
Blizzard is slapping a $15 price tag for permanent access to its new PvE campaign, aptly named “Invasion” because this whole thing feels like an encroachment of our personal right to have fun. Buying access to Overwatch 2’s story mission will also give you 1,000 Overwatch Coins and a Legendary skin for Sojourn.
So far, Blizzard has not specified whether or not Invasion would be free of charge on release day, so the news on future story bundles feels like they put the cart before the horse. As expected, this caused a lot of backlash, especially since the PvE campaign was supposed to be the sequel’s main draw.
Season 5 “Questwatch” drops on June 13, and Season 6 “Invasion” begins on August 10.
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