Whereas Marvel Rivals has been extremely profitable for developer NetEase Video games, many have been questioning how Blizzard feels a few new title seemingly stealing the thunder from Overwatch 2. Director Aaron Keller has revealed in an interview with GamesRadar that the workforce has to cease “enjoying it protected”.
For context, whereas Overwatch 2 has nonetheless maintained a wholesome participant base, an increasing number of gamers have been opting to spend their time with Marvel Rivals as an alternative. Even Overwatch 2‘s Twitch viewership dropped again in January, with Marvel Rivals getting extra viewers since its launch.
Keller spoke in regards to the new sense of competitors that Blizzard is feeling from Marvel Rivals, for the reason that two video games are fairly comparable in style and gameplay kinds. He refers to this competitors as “form of thrilling”.
“We’re clearly in a brand new aggressive panorama that I believe, for Overwatch, we’ve by no means actually been in earlier than, to this extent the place there’s one other sport that’s so just like the one which we’ve created,” Keller mentioned within the interview. “There’s really one thing form of thrilling about this, for a couple of causes.”
The Overwatch 2 director then pointed to the recently-announced Season 15 of the sport as a superb instance of how the corporate is trying to shake issues up in response to the recognition of Marvel Rivals. He refers back to the workforce engaged on Overwatch 2 as feeling inside strain, prompting themselves to make the very best sport that they will.
“There’s strain on the Overwatch workforce, and a number of it’s inside,” Keller mentioned. “It’s [asking] how will we make the very best sport that we are able to? And we’ve been feeling it for some time.”
“We wish to inject a little bit of freshness into the sport, however not only for selection’s sake. We wish to enhance the depth of play,” Keller continued. “So with perks, there’s some selections in there that we hope add depth to what it means to play any one among our heroes within the sport, and we hope that it provides technique over the course of a match, as a result of now you’re capable of decide issues that both increase what your hero is doing – or possibly you’re going to make use of it to counter what any individual is doing on the opposite workforce.”
Season 15 of Overwatch 2, titled Honor & Glory, is slated for launch on February 18. The replace goes to convey fairly a couple of new options to the sport, together with the addition of Perks as a brand new sport mechanic. Divided into Minor and Main perks, the system permits gamers to refine their play type with any of the playable characters the deeper they get right into a match. For instance, a Torbjorn participant will be capable to decide between having a extra highly effective degree 3 turret, or in the event that they would like degree 2 turrets that may be constructed alongside partitions or ceilings as an alternative.
Together with the gameplay and stability adjustments, Overwatch 2 will even be resetting participant ranks. A brand new reward system can also be being added to the sport within the type of loot packing containers that may permit gamers to earn extra cosmetics.