Overwatch 2 Welcomes 5v5 Matches, Blizzard Entertainment Announces In Livestream

Although much of how Blizzard Entertainment has operated for the decades that the firm was been standing, big changes are coming – specifically coming to the Overwatch sequel for starters. In that, it was announced just this past month in April that director Jeffery Kaplan will be departing from the developer after nearly two decades working for the game studio.

In his leaving, Aaron Keller is to take the role after being one of the founders for the Overwatch IP. On Thursday during the Overwatch 2 livestream, Keller kicked off the presentation to announce that the coming follow-up still underway is to break some considered normalities. Namely, 6v6 game modes are to be reduced to 5v5, Keller announces.

You can watch the segment of the livestream in the video below:

“Overwatch has always been played with two teams of six players. Overwatch 2 will be played with two teams of five players: consisting of two support, two DPS, and one tank,” Keller explains. He goes on to elaborate that the decision is to ultimately make the game simpler to anticipate the direction of the match with less players on the field. But, his biggest concerns is how Tanks ultimately decide the outcome of a game.

“Tanks can be problematic. There- a DPS Hero is simple, they’re shooting, but a Tank has abilities that can be noisy or when stacked with other tanks can cause problems for other teams to try to overcome an encounter. A great example of that is two main Tanks on the field. Sometimes that can be very oppressive to another team.”

Keller goes on to further his reasoning by sharing that the team also experimented internally with 4v4 & 3v3 matchmaking. Even prior to the launch of the first game, 7v7 was also a consideration he shares.

What are your thoughts on the decision for Overwatch 2?

Overwatch 2 has no scheduled release date nor listed platforms currently.