Overwatch Director says pick-ban system could add more “strategic depth” to OW2

Overwatch 2 received a massive overhaul in Season 9 with a revamped ranked system, competitive rewards and gameplay updates, and Aaron Keller already has ideas in mind for the next significant patch.

Major Overwatch 2 changes like we saw in Season 9 are going to happen again to give the game a “regular heartbeat” and while how often the updates occur is still up in the air, plans are already underway for more.

In a March 19 developer update, Game Director Aaron Keller revealed the team is committed to evolving and adding to the core game to keep things fresh.

“Part of our vision to these big updates to competitive is to give the game a regular heartbeat. Newer updated systems, shaking up PvP, rank resets, and new rewards are also examples of the sorts of updates we want to continue doing,” he said.

During an interview with Dexerto, Keller shared more details about what the future could hold and suggested a pick/ban system is the type of system that could be considered.

According to Keller, a Season 9-style rank reset could happen more than once per year instead of just an annual change.

“That’s what we’re talking about now. Is there some sort of mid-year update that could potentially include a rank reset as well? We don’t have enough details on it, because we’re still in the design for it, but there’s a possibility we do another one of these before February of next year,” he said.

When asked about massive shakeups such as the new DPS passive and HP changes that came with Season 9, Keller noted that the team has been talking a lot about the focus on the PvP content.

“We would like to not just evolve and improve the competitive side of the game, but really do things that are exciting for players. When we start talking about really big new systems or features, those types of things would happen more infrequently, maybe on an annual basis,” he said.

In particular, Keller revealed that one big thing he and the rest of the team are thinking about and looking at are additional systems that could add to the experience.

“Some of the things that I think about and the team looks at are whether there are any additional systems that we can add to the game. When you look at Overwatch, it is a very simple game. It’s very elegant. There’s not a lot of systems and that is part of the magic of the game. It allows players to just focus on the combat. We don’t want to just change that, but we do think there are opportunities to add more strategic depth,” Keller explained.

“I don’t think we’ve committed to something like, let’s say a pick or ban system, but that would be an example of the type of system that we’d be looking at when we talk about adding new things to the game.”

Of course, nothing is confirmed just yet, but with more significant changes planned for Overwatch 2’s future, the devs are more willing than ever to experiment with the game’s identity.