With the recent Overwatch 2 trailer about Season 3, the team has revealed the roadmap, including an out-of-game dating sim and a collaboration with the popular anime One Punch Man. This comes alongside many reveals for Season 3, including the Mythic Amaterasu Kiriko skin, the new map Antarctic Peninsula, and two seasonal events.
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New Control Map 🧊#OnePunchMan Collab 👊
Seasonal Events 💘#Overwatch2 Season 3 and an all new Battle Pass arrive Feb 7! Free to play for everyone on console & PC. pic.twitter.com/FxiHOk4Lnj— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) February 6, 2023
Dating sim coming soon alongside Valentine’s Day
One of the biggest surprises that came alongside this in-depth Season 3 reveal was a dating sim. The event it revolves around is called the Ultimate Valentine’s event, starting on Feb. 14 and ending on the 28. The team wants to include something for Valentine’s Day, so they ended up going with the Loverwatch dating sim outside of the game, accessible starting on Feb. 13 on the site www.loverwatch.gg.
This dating sim lets you choose to romance one of two Overwatch characters: Mercy or Genji. While it isn’t canon to the lore of Overwatch, fans can romance either of those heroes while Cupid Hanzo oversees it all. Taking about a half-hour, the dating sim is playable in multiple languages, including Korean, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, and English.
Outside of the sim, the game will also have new content for the event, including two epic rarity skins, a Hanzo 4v4 game mode and support-themed challenges.
One Punch Man collabs with Overwatch 2
Later on in the season, the first official Overwatch 2 collab will go live. As it turns out, popular anime One Punch Man is the first collab, with Doomfist getting to don Saitama’s robes with a legendary skin. From March 7 to April 6, players will be able to get One Punch Man-themed cosmetics and skins in-game. As for the Saitama Doomfist skin, it will be available for a limited time through themed event challenges.
PachiMarchi returns alongside Overwatch World Cup
One event fans might remember is PachiMarchi, the celebration of Pachimaris with lots of Pachimari-themed content. For Overwatch 2, the Season 3 event will provide a limited-time Kill Confirmed game mode, an epic skin, and lots of other cosmetics. Starting on March 21 and ending on April 4, players can get a free player icon just by logging in. At the same time, players can get the Pachimari Roadhog skin through themed challenges.
Another big event returning is the Overwatch World Cup, with 36 countries competing to be the best country at Overwatch in the world. If you wish to follow all the progression from the start to the end, go to the Overwatch World Cup website.
Hero balance changes and quality of life changes
Last but not least, there’s a good chunk of hero changes coming in Season 3 of Overwatch 2.
Mercy getting nerfed alongside Ramattra
To start one of the biggest changes comes to Mercy, who is getting a nerf alongside a new passive ability. Her old passive of Regeneration is gone, replaced with Sympathetic Recovery. Her new passive allows her to heal 25% of the health she uses to heal others through her staff. Alongside that, her Guardian Angel and Caduceus Staff got nerfs, from slower healing to longer cooldowns.
Zenyatta now has more ammo, plus Brigitte’s Repair Pack heals slower but heals allies instantly for 25 health. Ramattra’s ultimate now no longer pauses when he does damage, now just slowing the timer down. The ultimate charge when changing heroes mid-game is now maxed at 25% instead of 30%. There are some more changes, but mostly minor, which will come to light with upcoming patch notes.
Matchmaking improved with shorter time to determine rank
As for the quality of life changes, those are the same ones from the recent blog post by game director Aaron Keller. For those who don’t know, the changes include even matchmaking between roles and a decrease of matches to determine rank. Before, you needed seven wins or 20 losses — now it’s at five wins or 15 losses.
Lastly, one of the newer changes announced includes improved accessibility, with more aspects of the UI able to change colors to fit which ones you choose.
Published: Feb 6, 2023 05:42 pm