Overwatch 2 is winding down its 18th season this week, with its 19th set to begin on October 14. The season doubles as both a return of the hero shooter’s previous Halloween events, and a chance to shake things up with new modes, tweaks, and some rarer rewards than seasons past. While breaking down all that’s coming in season 19, Blizzard also teased something coming in season 20: hero 45.
Blizzard’s full developer update breaks down several changes and additions happening in season 19. The Halloween event this year is called Haunted Masquerade, and it lets you put on masks based on different heroes that grant you different perks. Some of these buffs are simple, such as Tracer’s mask granting you increased movement speed and Junkrat’s making your enemies explode when they die. Other hidden perks are found when you pair some masks with specific heroes. If you’re playing as Brigitte, for example, wearing the Reinhardt mask will make your shield as large as his. It also looks like a Mei mask might add a Blizzard effect to Juno’s Ultimate, allowing you to freeze enemies in a straight path. So it looks like a lot of interesting, unexpected combos await.
On the Stadium side of things, Torbjörn, Sojourn, and Hazard are being added to the build-centric mode, and some of their upgrades look pretty nasty. Torb can create multiple upgradable turrets to place around the field, Sojourn can get a Soldier: 76-style auto-aim when she ults, and Hazard can now shoot bursts from the spikes on his back. Those are just a few examples of how their play styles will no doubt change as you upgrade and tweak your build throughout Stadium’s long matches. Ana has been in the mode for a while, but she is also getting a rework to change up some of her loadouts. All characters are also getting consumable gadgets that they can use throughout the match that will grant you temporary buffs. One example shown in the video is an item that makes your hero grow in size with increased damage and defense.
Mythic Skins, the customizable prestige skins released each season, have been a bit hit-or-miss since Overwatch 2’s launch, but the Lifeweaver’s Divine Druid Mythic skin is really fucking gorgeous. Blizzard is retooling the Mythic upgrade levels so you’ll unlock more significant alterations more quickly, but that’s not the only major change happening this season. In season 19, Blizzard will release two mythic skins, rather than just one. The second one will be for Junkrat and will be available in the mid-season patch. We didn’t see it, but Blizzard says it’s called “Cyberfuel.”
Closing out the presentation, Blizzard revealed it is finally putting all of the external lore media, such as comics and animated shorts, in the game itself. So now those of you who only really interact with Overwatch 2 through the game itself will be able to read and watch these in your launcher. Everything we can glimpse in this new section of the main menu during the presentation is recent material from Overwatch 2, so it’s unclear just how far back in the lore we’ll be going here. Will this be a one-stop shop for works dating back to the original game? We’ll see next week. After talking about the past, Blizzard also teased the future with hero 45. The sword-wielding damage hero will be getting a trial session at some point during season 19, but all we saw of her was a silhouette and a brief shot of her legs as she shouts, “Ready yourselves for war!”
This mystery swordswoman was briefly teased in the latest motion comic starring Ramattra and Zenyatta, where she was seen standing in front of an explosion with her giant sword. Overwatch 2 doesn’t have enough melee-centric heroes, so hopefully she spices things up when she joins the roster in season 20.
