Yesterday, a bunch of Blizzard bigwigs sat down to talk to Overwatch fans on Reddit via an AMA. This included most of the Overwatch development team’s leaders, including game director Aaron Keller, principal game designer Scott Mercer, lead hero designer Geoff Goodman, and technical director John Lafleur.
You’d think with all those big names in the list fans would at least get a release date when asked directly, but that didn’t happen. We did get some interesting teasers to look forward to, however, including at least one more “large feature” coming in a future Overwatch update.
“We have several exciting things coming to Overwatch,” wrote Keller when asked if the original Overwatch was still receiving any of Blizzard’s attention these days. “As far as rough estimates go - one large feature will be announced somewhere in the timeframe between soon and really soon.”
No info on what that new feature might be, but later in the AMA we found out some tantalizing details concerning Overwatch 2’s upgraded engine. “Many optimizations, better lighting, and many new features have been added,” Lafleur revealed without getting into too many specifics. “PvE has also allowed us to look much more at how our environments tell our story, so we’ve added many features that help with that. In addition, since the hardware landscape has changed a lot since Overwatch was launched, we’re taking the opportunity (both on the artist side and the technical side) to beef up our high-end features and assets.”
A ping system is also in the prototype stage for Overwatch 2, according to Keller, but stopped short of promising it as a launch feature. “It is something that we are excited about as a team and are working through issues currently,” he added.
Perhaps the most concrete answer fans received in the AMA was regarding the potential for an Overwatch 2 beta, which Lafleur said would be “almost certainly” a sure thing, but we’re unclear on the timing. “If I knew when, I couldn’t tell you.”
Overwatch 2 still doesn’t have a release date and Blizzard previously said that it was unlikely to launch this year. We do know that Overwatch 2 will cut team sizes down to five and limit tanks to just one per team, which has some professional Overwatch teams a little nervous.
