Overwatch 2 devs to gather feedback from OWL pros in week-long playtest

❘ Published: 2021-09-20T16:14:51

Blizzard Entertainment

As the Overwatch 2 devs plan to reveal new details about Sombra and Bastion at the OWL Grand Finals, pros in Hawaii will be providing feedback in a week-long playtest.

The Overwatch League playoffs are set to begin on September 22 with the five top NA-based teams in Hawaii set to play against the best Asia has to offer and crown the last-ever Overwatch 1 champs.

With the league shifting to an early build of Overwatch 2 in April 2022, these will be the final matches played on the original game. As such, as teams are eliminated from playoffs, their attention will be turned to Overwatch 2, where they’ll be giving the developers feedback.

A lot of heroes need to be reworked to fit Overwatch 2’s 5v5 model.

OWL pros to give feedback to Overwatch 2 devs

As OWL VP Jon Spector told Dot Esports, “we’re going to have a setup at the University of Hawaii where they’ll be able to start playtesting some of the five-vs-five experience. We’ll be gathering feedback from the pro players on that.”

Even though the league still plans to air a Push show match during the Grand Finals half-time featuring players from eliminated teams, the players are going to have a lot more experience with the game by that point.

Read More: Silver ranked Blizzard dev responds to criticism over Overwatch balancing

“We’re also going to have the opportunity to debrief the pros on their experience: How did it go, what did you like, what’s your feedback?” Spector explained.

Just to address one of the questions I’ve seen pop up – the pro player exhibition will feature players in Hawaii for our playoffs. We’re setting up for those teams to playtest after they’re knocked out of playoffs (so this doesn’t become a distraction to their competition).

— Jon Spector (@Spex_J) September 16, 2021

What do OWL pros want from Overwatch 2?

Despite the fact the pros are often at odds with the casual community in regards to game balance, some of what they want may outside of hero tweaks may line up with the desires of most players.

Read More: Blizzard devs reveal possible Mercy and Zenyatta Overwatch 2 nerfs

“Constant updates. A lot of new cosmetics with skins that can be updated every month,” Los Angeles Gladiators off-tank Indy ‘Space’ Halpern told Dallas News. “I just want the game to be kept fresh and new. I feel like that was really undervalued in the first game.”

Meanwhile, two-time OWL champ Matthew ‘super’ DeLisi wants new heroes, something many people in the community likely agree with.

There are still many characters set to be revealed.

“Overwatch used to have new heroes every three to four months, so I think by the time Overwatch 2 releases I hope we get all those heroes we should have gotten in the time since we had a new one, but a couple new ones for the wait,” he said.

Not much is known about Overwatch 2 at the moment, but with the change to 5v5, there will be loads of balance changes required and hopefully we see a good of them during the show match.