Overwatch announces new balance update designed by streamers & pros

Overwatch has announced that a huge future Experimental Mode will be designed entirely by streamers and pros who add their own unique balance changes to the game.

The announcement was first made by the Overwatch League, who revealed that come March, a panel of “experts” will be deciding the rules for a community tournament scheduled for March 27-28 played on the Experimental Card.

Since being added to the game, Overwatch’s Experimental Mode had been used to showcase future balance update over the PTR, but it has also had some more “out there” modes such as one tank per team or a revamped version of 2CP.

Jon Spector, Vice President of Overwatch esports took to Reddit to further explain what this new mode and tournament will entail.

“Just to clarify the question I’ve seen a bunch here already – we’re going to deputize a few pros and streamers to decide what balance changes they want to make on an experimental card and run this tournament on those settings,” he revealed.

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Originally, some players on the site suspected that this could be a sign that some major new changes were on the way and the Experimental Mode would be used to showcase them, though that seems to not be the case.

As for whether any of the changes actually make it to the live game after the Experimental Mode, Jon Spector isn’t exactly ruling it out, but it seems like a bit of a pipe dream.

“Assuming they decide to make Genji do triple damage and double Zenyatta’s HP, it seems unlikely,” he commented.

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Some streamers have already started throwing their name into the ring for helping design the Experimental Mode.

Florida Mayhem content creator Samito asked where one could “submit their resume” for the event.

Another Overwatch streamer, SVB was pleased that yet another community tournament was happening and hoped that the changes are actually legitimate instead of just being “memey sh*t.”

We’ll have to see what crazy buffs and nerfs streamers and pros end up coming up with and how serious they take this opportunity to either improve the game or make it way whackier.