Overwatch updates - everything Blizzard have planned for the months ahead

We’ve split this into sections based on rough estimates of when different features are planned for. In cases where we don’t know, we’ve estimated based on perceived workload, but make it very clear that it is our estimation, not Blizzard’s. On that note, at least for the forseeable future, it looks like we can expect one major patch at the end of each month, though varying depending on big factors like BlizzCon and holidays.

It’s worth noting that none of this is guaranteed. Game director Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch team have been more open than most development teams about what they’re working on, specifically under the caveat that plans do change, delays can happen, better ideas pop up and life gets in the way. There’s a lot of things Blizzard would like to do here, particularly planned for further down the line - that doesn’t mean they’ll get around to it, or it will be in a predictable form when it launches. That said, since launch they've implemented many of the features they've promised.

Overwatch - what's coming soon in 2017

New legendary skins

McCree has one on the way this year. Widowmaker is getting one "soon."

More custom game options

With the introduction of the Overwatch server browser, people want more. Saving settings is now on the PTR. They're also working to add more alternate fire abilities plus disabling primary weapons or melee attacks. Passwords are also on the hope list, along with team switching. They don't want to, but Blizzard may need to turn off exp-gain in custom games.

Events coming back

Events - and their various items and brawls - are likely to return each year. You can almost certainly expect things like Lucioball and Junkenstein's Revenge to return in the Arcade too.

Overwatch development documentary

This was teased by Kaplan during his AMA. No time frame given, but if it's already made, it can't be too far out - especially with the one-year anniversary coming up.

Less draws in CTF / Elimination

Kaplan mentioned these changes were further out than the now-live changes to 2CP Assault maps. Hopefully that means in a couple of patches time.

Play of the Game improvements

Kaplan specifically mentioned making Plays of the Game “more cinematic” in his interview with Eurogamer, and that he hoped they’d get to it during summer. Doing this should allow the system to become more robust, as more things will look cool. With the introduction of Ana, this has become a very commonly requested feature due to her ultimate. Kaplan also spoke about this on the forums in September 2016.

The much requested feature of being able to save and share your Play of the Game and highlights will be in by the end of summer.

Matchmaking improvements

In a massive post, Kaplan laid out the whole current matchmaking system, as well as saying they’re constantly improving it. This most likely won’t even be called out in notes every time it happens, just know that things are being tweaked to give better matches pretty much all the time. Season 3 of competitive play also refactored skill ratings once again. Scott Mercer also expanded massively on the problems in matchmaking and the solutions being looked at.

Handling leavers is also "high on the list" of things to improve according to Scott. Also of note is his large post about matchmaking and competitive play in general, in which he mentions several improvements already made to the system.

Social improvements

Similar to matchmaking, social improvements are being developed and implemented constantly, though normally will be called out in patch notes. This was covered in Kaplan’s big future post. Elsewhere he also talked about hiding the chat box and the possibility of having an appear offline option. He's also spoken about improving the reporting and banning system, as well as just removing poor sports from competitive play.

Harsher punishment for intentionally losing games

The practice of creating a 'smurf' account by deliberately losing games and then going from low ranks to high ranks at speed is much hated by lower-level players (whose games are ruined by throws or far better players on their way to the top). Kaplan agrees, and says they want to kill this off.

Gifting lootboxes

Kaplan said in his AMA that Blizzard were "working on it."

Bug fixing, anti-hack and anti-cheat

Not a lot of info on these beyond that it’s happening, but again, they’re constant efforts. Naturally, Blizzard can't really go into detail on the specifics of anti-cheat measures. They did post in early February about ongoing action, however.

New heroes

Kaplan’s said that new heroes won’t be released in batches, but that several are “very far along” in the production process. Ana, Sombra and Orisa are now out - for who is coming next check our dedicated new Overwatch heroes post. Community bets are still on Doomfist. Old concepts are never dumpstered, according to Kaplan, so if you enjoy designs you've seen in concept art they might still make it. He also mentioned that constant hero releases are not required or something he thinks would be a good idea.

New maps

Christmas brought more of the re-skinned maps so expect those to continue. There's also this post giving hints as to further map development plans.

New cosmetics

So far we've received major event upgrade packs and the odd added cosmetic between them. Expect that to continue, but Kaplan also pointed out that each new hero was going to be developed over time, rather than always come with a full selection of what's been released before.

The Overwatch team have also tweeted that in the future, all heroes will get new skins for special events, so your favourites won't be randomly left out.

More animated shorts

Obviously, Blizzard want to make more of their incredibly successful animated shorts. Timing is more of the question. We saw the Bastion animated short at Gamescom and Sombra at BlizzCon - Zarya seems likely for the next, but there's no clue when we'll see it. The furor around a Greek voice actor 

Similarly, "new story content" is on the way according to Michael Chu.

Longer-term Overwatch updates

Map Editor

There will, one day, probably, be an Overwatch map editor, but it's a long way off. The tools just aren't ready for public use yet, says Kaplan, along with loads of other issues.

Sound toggle hotkeys

Kaplan confirmed this feature but it was never implemented - whether they've forgotten or it was harder to implement than originally thought, we'll presumably find out eventually.

Genji and D.Va ult-block voice-lines

No ETA on it yet, but this was confirmed as happening, but requires more voice acting work (obviously).

Symmetra Shield Generator voice-lines

Also on the way are lines for reacting to and destroying shield generators placed by enemy Symmetras. It'll take a while though as all the voice actors need to come back into the office.

More competitive point rewards

Specifically, Kaplan said they'd like to add more things to buy with competitive play points beyond the golden weapons. He also said they don't want to allow the buying of normal skins through competitive points, keeping that and the gold/loot box economy seperate. More recently he said again they want to add stuff, but are worried about over-rewarding. He also gave a timeframe of beyond Season 4. In his AMA, he mentioned again about over-rewarding competitive play and attracting players who don't want to be there.

In-game tournament mode

Another on the long, long developer wishlist, but something you could expect in the far future.

Competitive 3v3 / 1v1

This is something both the community and Blizzard want to see implemented, but wasn't an immediate feature due to wanting to make sure the system worked first. It clearly did, and is quite popular, so we'll hopefully see it one day. Upcoming improvements to the mode were also confirmed in early 2017.

Replay system

Kaplan said on the forums that this is a lower priority than highlights improvements, and is therefore “not on the immediate horizon” but they do have a system working internally. He later pointed out that the same team is working on high-bandwidth servers, which has taken priority as it actually improves the level of play in-game. Replays still weren't on the horizon at the end of 2016 and again in March 2017.

Spectator/Broadcast system

Kaplan has said that despite improvements already made, more could be done with the spectator UI. No immediate timeframe on that, though Kaplan did post again saying that they want to make it possible to spectate friends' competitive games.

Last we heard about both this and the replay system, Kaplan was saying they were handled by the same team as the Season 2 competitive improvements, matchmaking improvements, high bandwidth servers and highlight saving, hence the delay.

Spectator mini-map

As part of this, Kaplan said that a mini-map would eventually be in place for spectators to more easily understand how a game was developing, but specifically said they wouldn't be adding one for normal in-game situations. This was reiterated more recently.

Permanent progression in PTR

As part of an effort to get more players testing on PTR, Blizzard and the community both want a system whereby progression and loot boxes could be moved to the main client after being earned on PTR. Blizzard are finding coming up with a solution quite difficult but continue to work on it.

More recently, Kaplan said this was still being worked on but is a "significant development tasks that would directly take away from development time on the core game."

Updated emotes for newer characters

Characters like Sombra don't have a sitting emote, as they keep out after that round of updates was done. Kaplan explained why it takes "months" to get these out, with so much else to prioritise.

Mercy and Lucio in 1v1, more 1v1 modes

There's a "long term plan" to get these guys into 1v1 games without it being horrible. This was reconfirmed more recently. There's also a plan for more 1v1 modes in the works.

Pause

Kaplan said they would "look into" adding a pause mechanic, specifically for eSports-tier games in case of problems. This is one of several improvements they want to make over time.

Progression system improvements

Specifically described as “more long term” in, again, Kaplan’s big future post, further improvements to progression and cosmetics are planned. This includes the possibility of a random pose/highlight intro function. Here’s Kaplan also saying they’d like a random cosmetic option.

Cosmetic selection in-game

Kaplan has posted that Blizzard want it to be possible to change skins in the game-beginning phase, but not at will while mid-match.

Character backstories in-game

Lead story-man Michael Chu has said that Blizzard would like to make backstories and biographies, as well as other lore-entries, readable in-game. It's probably not the highest priority, and would require some new UI elements, hence its position in this section. Chu confirmed in mid-March it was still under development, and small versions were added in patch 1.10.

Hero language options

This one is likely a long way off, but David Clyde, a programmer, confirmed on the forums that Blizzard would like to do XCOM 2-style nationality-based language select for hero voice lines, for an extra touch of realism. It isn't supported by the code currently, but he wants to "make it work in the future."

Three-round burst gun

Kaplan said that he'd love to put a burst-fire gun in the game at some stage, similar to the M16 from Modern Warfare 2.

Forum improvements

Kaplan mentioned on the forums that the team isn't a big fan of the way the forums work currently, especially the way voting is presented and the ability to 'bump' your own thread. Obviously, when this gets fixed is more down to the Blizzard web-team than the OW developers.

In January, he mentioned the changes were still "months away." Same again in February.

Competitive queue confirmation

While not definitely on the way, Kaplan posted in a thread about this in January, noting a couple of possible solutions.

Arcade stats and achievements

Blizzard want to do this, specifically for no limits.There'so plans to add stat-tracking functions to non-standard game modes.

Kaplan posted further about this in January, saying that stat tracking is in active discussion. He also mentioned that while they want to do achievements, it will be a way off.

Reporting on console

Kaplan gave a specific timeline of summer or sooner for the ability to report players on consoles.

Clan/Guild system

This is probably a long, long way out but Kaplan's enthusiasm likely means it could happen one day.

Mystery hero fixes

There's some "clean up" coming to this custom game mode at some point and Blizzard are thinking about changing the way ultimate charge operates within it.

Color Blind improvements

Kaplan's AMA revealed they want to do more with color blind options, but that it's difficult to prioritize.

Stats transperancy

While full transperancy is unlikely according to Kaplan's AMA, they're looking for ways to improve their internal tracking so some things could be made public.

Features not coming to Overwatch

This section is for things that the team have explicitly said they don’t want to do, can’t do or isn’t worth the time investment.

Surrender option

Some players have been asking for a surrender option so losing teams can throw in the towel if they wish. However, game director Jeff Kaplan says this isn't likely to happen. "We do not currently agree that the game needs a surrender option, especially with our quick match lengths," he said.

Daily quests

For either currency or loot boxes, Kaplan says the team “aren’t super keen” on doing these, at least as far as they’re implemented in Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone. They don’t want players creating poor team comps because they want to finish, for example, their offensive class daily when their team desperately needs a tank or support.

Fall damage

They tried this and it didn’t work across the board, then felt weird on specific characters.

Increased FOV or 'proper' 21:9 support

Kaplan made it clear in this post that they'll never increase the FOV above 103, even for resolution reasons. This makes proper 21:9 support impossible.

Multi-hero in competitive

Kaplan confirmed that the 1-hero limit would remain in competitive, as feedback and results had been good.

Deathmatch mode in regular games

In response to a question about the addition of a kills-based mode, Kaplan confirmed that it's not something they want to put in the game as part of regular play. They could see it as a Brawl or other side-event, however.

Scoreboard icons reflect skin use

This isn't being implemented to make sure the scoreboard is quick and easy to read as far as members of each team are concerned.

Retiring heroes

After some confusion on the topic, Kaplan made it clear that they are "not even remotely thinking about retiring heroes right now or anytime in the foreseeable future."

Vertical Tracer blink

Kaplan said they experimented with this but it created imbalance and totally changed how Tracer played.

Leaver compensation

A forum user brought up the idea of increased health, altered spawn times or ult charge changes for teams that have had leavers in competitive play. Kaplan said they'd thought about it, but didn't want to change core gameplay values, and also pointed out problems with catch-up mechanics in general.

Death medal

Kaplan revealed Overwatch used to have a fewest deaths medal but it created some toxic gameplay patterns to try to get golds - like not leaving the spawn room.

Emote invulnerability and cancelling

Both of these have implications for using emotes during combat, as explained by Kaplan on the forums.

Arcade rewards based on games played rather than won

Kaplan said this would create deviant behaviours.

Easter or Valentines event in 2017

Kaplan announced this wasn't happening although some Valentines voice lines have been datamined, suggesting a smaller-scale event.

Buffing Sombra's EMP / Hack

Geoff Goodman wrote a fairly long post in the forums about how buffing Sombra's Hack or EMP likely wouldn't be happening, as it's already such a strong part of her kit.

Bloom reduction

In his Reddit AMA, Kaplan said that a bloom reduction graphical setting was unlikely as it is a part of the artstyle.