Overwatch devs claim adding popular CoD feature to OW2 would make matchmaking worse

The Overwatch 2 team has no plans to add a map voting system despite the feature being quite popular in games such as Call of Duty.

Map voting has been a long-requested feature in Overwatch dating back to the days of the first game when players would actually leave matches if they ended up being forced to play a dreaded 2CP map.

Even though other FPS games like Call of Duty have embraced map voting to give users more chances to play on maps they prefer, the Overwatch 2 devs are against the idea for various reasons.

During an interview, Dexerto had a chance to ask Game Director Aaron Keller for his thoughts on map voting and the challenges that would come from incorporating it into OW2.

Overwatch 2 devs explain why map voting isn’t coming

According to Aaron Keller, a big issue with adding a map voting feature stems from the fact that oftentimes those systems operate in lobbies and Overwatch doesn’t have a dedicated lobby.

As a result, a map vote would need to happen as players queue, which creates another problem: matchmaking.

“One of the things we’ve been focusing on a lot lately is our matchmaking backend, trying to find the fairest matches that we can while at the same time reducing queue times. Having map voting would add a lot of factors to that,” he said.

Keller explained that a map vote would either increase the matchmaking times or the developers would need to “be more flexible” with how balanced they want matches to be.

He went on to distance Overwatch from other FPS titles, instead valuing the “journey” players go on across the world with OW maps as yet another reason for not implementing a map vote.

“We think there is a value to having a variety to the maps and the experience in Overwatch. You look to the other games and especially the other shooters on the market right now and they might take place on just a few maps or there might be a few maps that are the most popular ones,” he added, noting how he would prefer players master all the maps.

Additionally, Keller compared map voting to when Overwatch 2 had certain maps on rotation, saying this was something players universally disliked.

“With all of those together right now, we are not in a place where we’re looking at adding a map voting system. It could always change in the future as our game changes and our player’s preferences change,” the game director admitted.

We’ll have to see if the demand for a map vote grows and if the devs eventually change their minds, especially with Overwatch 2 now having five different modes available with the introduction of Flashpoint.