Overwatch 2 season 5 launches with D&D-inspired fantasy theme

Overwatch 2, having just explored its version of Star Wars with season 4’s Starwatch mode, is pivoting to fantasy for season 5, with a new battle pass that plays out like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign and new modes like a magical take on Prop Hunt called Mischief and Magic. Of course, the requisite hero skins — some paid, some free — coming in season 5 of Overwatch 2 are also fantasy themed, with Lúcio showing up as a bard, Orisa reimagined as a griffon, and Zenyatta dressing up in wizard robes.

Blizzard Entertainment revealed Monday that season 5’s battle pass will play out somewhat differently than in past Overwatch 2 seasons. We already know that this season’s Mythic Skin, Adventurer Tracer, will be doled out in three phases as opposed to all at once at level 80 of the battle pass. Season 5’s battle pass is designed like a tabletop role-playing game campaign, called Questwatch.

“Tracer, alongside her trusted companion GR-iffon Orisa, has set out to explore the magical kingdom of Overland to become a knight,” Blizzard said in a blog post Monday. “They will meet both friends and foes, as they look to save Queen Emily and her kingdom from the terror of Demon Lord Reinhardt. As you unlock tiers in the Season 5 Battle Pass, you will also unlock new chapters in their role-playing adventure.”

As players progress through that adventure (and the battle pass) they’ll unlock cosmetics like Slime Queen Echo, Royal Guard Genji, and Demon Lord Reinhardt, some of which you can see in the gallery below.

Season 5 will also introduce the first ever creator-made game mode to Overwatch 2, Blizzard says. Called “Defeat the Demon Lord,” the mode pits a team of four heroes against Demon Lord Reinhardt in a 1v4 Team Deathmatch brawl. That’s joined by Mischief and Magic mode in season 5, which launches on July 25. Playing 5v5 elimination mode will let players unlock an Epic skin for Ana and earn 50,000 battle pass XP.

On the non-fantasy front, Summer Games returns to Overwatch 2 with a twist. Yes, Lúcioball is back, joined by a new sport: Winston’s Beach Volleyball. There will be Summer Games-themed event challenges that unlock a tropical-themed Doomfist skin and 50,000 battle pass XP. Blizzard is also teasing a new summer skin for Mercy “that is sure to make a splash.” Hmmm….

Overwatch 2 season 5 will also see the return of the previous game’s “on fire” system, as teased several times in the above trailer. There are also balance changes incoming, with nerfs to Junker Queen and one-shot-kill heroes Cassidy, Hanzo, and Widowmaker. Lifeweaver will also get a boost as previously outlined by game director Aaron Keller.

When does Overwatch 2 season 5 start?

Blizzard will kick off the new season of Overwatch 2 on Tuesday, June 13. Players can expect season 5 to go live around 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT. That means Monday, June 12 is the final full day for Overwatch 2 season 4, so if you have any seasonal challenges or battle pass levels left to complete, now’s the time.

Here’s a look at everything coming in Overwatch 2 season 5, in visual roadmap form:

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Read on for Blizzard’s patch notes for Overwatch 2 season 5.

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Overwatch 2 season 5 retail patch notes

General Updates

CHALLENGES

• Lifeweaver unlock challenges added.
• Lifeweaver can now be unlocked by completing all his challenges!
• Incomplete weekly challenges will no longer reset to zero. 100% of the progress made in weekly challenges in the previous week will be kept and carried over.
• All weekly challenges requiring wins have been converted to “Complete games. Wins grant double progress.”
  This change results in the required amounts becoming higher, but the average total number of games needed to complete the challenges has not.

ON FIRE

Fire returns to highlight your incredible plays with these new features:

• New State: BLAZING – What’s better than being On Fire? Being even more On Fire! A team’s most exceptional playmakers will now begin Blazing. Blazing cannot be maintained as easily as regular Fire, so you’ll need outstanding play to keep the heat on.
• Reignited Visuals and Sound Effects – Fire returns to the hero portrait and the scoreboard with new animations. Fire makes its debut in the kill feed as well.
• Catching Fire – Killing enemies that are On Fire grants Fire.
• Fan the Flames – The Fire has spread to more than just Genji players. Beyond eliminations and damage, Fire comes from mitigated damage, saves, healing, assists, capturing/contesting objectives, boosted damage, and crowd control. Pay attention to which heroes on your team are On Fire and help them out to increase your Fire score.

MATCHMAKING

Matchmaking Improvements

• Added new matchmaker functionality that should create matches with a narrower range of player skills. The initial tuning of the system at the start of the season will not be aggressive, but we will be making continual tuning changes throughout the season.
• The matchmaker now prioritizes placing similar groups with wide skill ranges into the same match, which means solo players will see a lower chance of being placed in those matches.

Matchmaking – Bug Fixes

• Addressed some issues with backfills in Quick Play that could cause the backfill to take a long time or never occur.
• Fixed an issue where the matchmaker sometimes initialized new players’ competitive MMRs to a value that did not reflect their skill. Players will continue to adjust to their accurate MMR as they continue to play.

FFA Player Skill Ratings – Bug Fixes

• We recently noted a major issue that affected how the matchmaker updated the internal ratings representing player skill in our “free for all” game modes, such as Deathmatch, where players are not on a team. This issue resulted in incorrect skill ratings that could create longer queue times and worse match quality than expected.
• The underlying issue causing incorrect updates has now been addressed, but unfortunately, these skill ratings are no longer meaningful. The best way forward is to do a complete reset of the FFA MMR used by these specific game modes. After this reset, match quality is expected to be suboptimal until players are able to play more games of Deathmatch. We do not take this action lightly, but it is the best course for the future.

Competitive Play Updates

RANKED INACTIVITY CHANGES

• Players that did not play any matches during the previous competitive season will become Inactive. Inactive players do not have a visible Skill Tier and Division. Each role in Role Queue can become Inactive separately, while in Open Queue, a player only has one rank that can become Inactive. Once an Inactive player returns and achieves a Competitive Update after winning five games, their Skill Tier and Division will become visible again.

COMPETITIVE MYSTERY HEROES

• Competitive Mystery Heroes returns for an entire season of randomized hero action! The competitive challenges are also back, providing mysterious titles and competitive points.

COMPETITIVE BUG FIXES

• Improved how the matchmaker computes its initial skill estimation, aka “MMR,” for a player queuing for their first competitive game.

HERO UPDATES

JUNKERQUEEN

Rampage

• Ultimate cost increased by 15%.

Commanding Shout

• Temporary health reduced from 200 to 150.

ROADHOG

Take a Breather

• Now amplifies healing received by 50% for 2.5 seconds after finishing Take a Breather.

CASSIDY

Magnetic Grenade

• No longer has a maximum projectile travel range of 10 meters.
• The projectile now magnetizes toward an enemy target from 1.5 meters away and chases them for up to 1 second.
• Impact damage increased from 0 to 10.
• Explosion damage reduced from 120 to 70.
• Stuck targets now have their movement slowed by 30%.
• Stuck targets are now affected by a “Hindered” status effect, interrupting and preventing movement abilities from being activated.

HANZO

Sonic Arrow

• Impact sound effect now plays for enemies.
• Visual effect is now briefly visible to enemies when first deployed.

Storm Bow

• Maximum damage reduced from 125 to 120.

MEI

Endothermic Blaster

• Damage per second reduced from 100 to 55.
• Primary fire slow is no longer always 40% and now scales from 30-50%.
• Primary fire impacts now build up to a slowing effect that sticks to the enemy target for 1.5 seconds and slows them for 75%.
• Secondary fire impacts can detonate this new slow effect, dealing an additional 40 damage.

REAPER

Wraith Form

• Can no longer be activated while affected by mobility-locking effects (Magnetic Grenade, Steel Trap, Graviton Surge, etc.).

TRACER

Pulse Pistols

• Spread increased by 15%.

WIDOWMAKER

Widow’s Kiss

• Scoped shot damage falloff min-max range reduced from 70-100 to 40-60 meters.
• Scoped shot maximum damage falloff scalar increased from 30 to 50%.

LIFEWEAVER

General

• Petal ornaments on his back have had their size and hit volume reduced by 10%.

Healing Blossom

• Maximum healing increased from 65 to 75.

Thorn Volley

• Damage per projectile increased from 5 to 6.
• Projectile radius increased from 0.1 to 0.125.
• Ammo increased from 60 to 70.

Petal Platform

• Walkable area increased by 15%.
• Area to trigger lift now shrinks from a radius of 2 to 0.75 meters after initial placement.

Life Grip

• Cooldown reduced from 20 to 16 seconds.
• Now heals the target ally for 50 health.

Tree of Life

• Ultimate cost increased by 8%.

MOIRA

Fade

• Can no longer be activated while affected by mobility-locking effects (Magnetic Grenade, Steel Trap, Graviton Surge, etc.).

Map Updates

BUSAN

New lighting scheme – Overcast

RIALTO

New lighting scheme – Evening

WATCHPOINT: GIBRALTAR

• Completely redesigned the final defender spawn area
• Added an exit route from the forward defender spawn
• Route adjustments and changes made around first capture point outside of the hangar
• Covers and route adjustments made inside the hangar

Bug Fixes

GENERAL

• Fixed Lifeweaver platform ping VO not playing.
• Fixed ping stems not appearing for Last Seen pings with no line of sight.
• Fixed Lifeweaver Tree and Platform from appearing as enemies when directly pinged by allies.
• Disabled ping wheel movement shortcut for controller.
• Disabled locking the crosshair in place for controller when the Ping Wheel Press Delay is active.
• Fixed performance issues some consoles were experiencing.
• Healing projectiles now make contact with targets who are phased out (i.e., Moira’s Fade).
• Fixed an issue with on Ultrawide monitors that resulted in black bars appearing on the edges of the screen.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the end of match flow not playing for Top 500 players.
• Fixed the issue that caused Antarctic Peninsula’s image to be missing from its entries in the History menu.

AUDIO

• Due to a bug, we temporarily need to change the audio reverb settings used throughout the game to an alternate method. We hope to have this fixed in an upcoming patch.

MAPS

Colosseo

• Fixed an area of the map that allowed players to leave the playable space.

Hollywood

• Fixed some haybales that did not correctly block D.Va Self-Destruct damage.

King’s Row

• Fixed a bug that allowed some gameplay elements to be placed inside the bus and taxi.

Lijiang Tower

• Fixed an area in Night Market that allowed players to stand outside of intended map boundaries.
• Fixed a location that allowed Torbjorn to almost completely hide his turret.

Nepal

• Fixed some drums on the map that players could become stuck on.

Numbani

• Fixed the vines hanging above the tunnel (the one just before the final point) having collision and blocking projectiles and explosives.

Oasis

• Fixed several areas Kiriko could become stuck when using Swift Step.

HEROES

Ana

• Fixed a bug with Sleep Dart not counting toward the Accuracy stat when performed as the final blow.

Baptiste

• Fixed a bug with Immortality Field not correctly displaying its active cooldown through Hero swaps.

Doomfist

• Fixed an issue that allowed stunned targets of Rocket Punch to escape the stun early by jumping after being hit.
• Fixed an interaction between Tree of Life and Meteor Strike that allowed Doomfist to be healed while not in the field of play.
• Fixed an interaction that resulted in Doomfist’s Rocket Punch doing no damage to Lifeweaver’s Petal Platform.
• Fixed an issue with Powerblock not reducing the area of effect damage correctly.
• Fixed an issue with Powerblock was being incorrectly applied to Junkerqueen’s Bleed.

D.Va

• Fixed a bug with D.Va’s primary fire increasing its rate of fire when it was set to the mouse wheel.

Echo

• Fixed an interaction with Duplicate destroying the duplicated ultimates when Duplicate ends (Symmetra and Wrecking Ball).
• Healing effects that were started during Echo’s ultimate will now continue to heal Echo after the ultimate has ended.
• Fixed a bug where a duplicated Lifeweaver’s Tree of Life would not heal anyone after Echo’s ultimate had ended.
• Fixed a bug with Sticky Bombs not detonating if used right after Duplicate ends.

Lifeweaver

• Life Grip will now correctly nudge targets around payload obstacles.
• Healing Blossom and Life Grip targeting now consider both the head and chest of the target as a valid line of sight, allowing targeting around vertical obstructions, such as payloads, to be more consistent.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Petal Platform from being used if Secondary Fire was set as the confirmation input.
• Fixed a bug with Life Grip not consistently pulling allies onto ledges if Lifeweaver was airborne.
• Fixed an issue where Life Gripped allies falling off the map would still die to the death plane.
• Fixed the issue that resulted in a friend Lifeweaver’s Petal Platform highlighting red when pinged.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Lifeweaver’s footsteps from playing sound when crouched.
• Resolved a bug that prevented the Tree of Life from being placed on an enemy Torbjorn turret (it now destroys the turret).
• Fixed a bug that allowed Tree of Life to be attached to the Pushbot and pulled along.

Mercy

• Resolved an issue with Resurrect not retaining cooldown through Hero swaps.
• Fixed a bug where Mercy wasn’t properly resetting her Guardian Angel cooldown when entering Valkyrie.

Orisa

• Fixed a bug where Orisa would use the animation for receiving critical shots for all damage received.

Ramattra

• Resolved an interaction with Nemesis Form and Annihilation that sometimes resulted in the ultimate not performing damage and lifesteal.
• Fixed an issue where Block was being incorrectly applied to Junkerqueen’s Bleed.
• Fixed a bug with block that prevented it from correctly stacking with Ana’s Nanoboost.

Sojourn

• Modified the screen effect applied by an enemy Sojourn’s Disruptor Shot to apply more accurately, making it easier to tell when you’re taking damage.

Sombra

• The translocator can no longer stick to loose objects on the map (i.e., Basketball).
• Fixed a bug that prevented Sombra from Hacking Petal Platforms in FFA Deathmath.

Torbjorn

• Fixed an interaction between Lifeweaver and Torbjorn’s turrets that allowed them to be placed on walls.

WORKSHOP

• Fixed a bug with the ‘Set Ability Cooldown/Charge/Resource’ not working for all abilities.
• Fixed a bug where the ‘Communicate’ Action did not work.
• Fixed a bug where ‘Set Ability 1 Enabled’ Action did not work for Orisa.
• ‘Set Ammo’ and ‘Set Max Ammo’ was not working for all heroes, but we have fixed this issue.
• The ‘Is Communicating’ Condition is now functional.