Overwatch 2 reworks will make Cassidy & Reaper more like their OW1 versions

An Overwatch 2 developer has announced some significant reworks coming to Cassidy and Reaper that fans of the original game will surely enjoy.

A couple of big changes are coming to Overwatch 2’s DPS heroes, with some of the updates expected to arrive as early as next season.

Cassidy, formerly known as McCree, hasn’t been the most popular character in Overwatch 2 when compared to his iteration in the first game. The devs removed his Flashbang ability in an attempt to cut back on the amount of crowd control, replacing it with a Magnetic Grenade that players found unfun to play against.

During a Reddit AMA, Lead Hero Designer Alec Dawson revealed that the team will be bringing Cassidy a bit back to his roots by making Magnetic Grenade behave more like his old Flashbang.

According to Dawson, Magnetic Grenade will no longer directly hone onto the target, but it will slow them down and hinder them.

“We think that plays a lot better with his kit and removes some of the larger frustrations around Magnetic Grenade. More specifics on all that soon,” he said.

Furthermore, there are some QoL changes to the hero coming too. While Dawson didn’t specify what they’d be, he says that the cowboy’s ultimate is getting touched and we can expect these updates to arrive in Season 11.

The Hero Designer also touched on Reaper – a hero the team has been teasing a rework for a while now.

“For Reaper, we went fairly wide as well in the beginning and then started to focus closely on updating Shadow Step. At the moment, we have something we quite like but it’s actually a large technical challenge and we are in the process of planning out the work/seeing what’s possible,” the dev explained.

Unfortunately, it seems like Reaper’s Shadow Step changes are still a ways off, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing buffs to the Talon DPS in an upcoming patch.

“In the meantime, we may buff Reaper in some non-Tank Buster ways as he lost a lot in the most recent update,” Dawson teased.

Expect to learn more about the hero changes as Season 11 approaches, so be sure to keep an eye open as Blizzard reveals new details in the weeks ahead.