Edit: I just want to clarify that this was a really casual Q&A format where they took random questions off discord and reddit and answered them while a concept artist drew rammatra. This isn’t supposed to be a super thorough overview of what’s coming to the game in the next year like some people in the replies seem to be interpreting it. The big start of year patch is in 2 months on Feb 10 so you should get some more substantial info closer to then
There was a dev stream today, they took Q&A questions from the community, here are some informative or interesting tidbits
hype for next year:
As we plan [big] updates, we almost get a little scared of how much the game might be changes. As we were developing perks, we thought it was going to be a really controversial system, but once that release was live and as we sat with it for a little bit and looked back on it, we thought we probably could’ve done more with it. Each of these release we’ve done, we’re like ‘hey we think this is going to be big’ and we get to the other side of it and we’re like ‘man, we should’ve gone bigger than that.’ So for 2026, I don’t think there’s any way that we’re going to look back at our releases and say ‘those could’ve been bigger’
(He even jokes about already being excited for 2027 later in the stream)
Other points:
Rammatra won a chat poll so they spent the stream drawing a snowball fight and mistletoe spray for him. The misletoe won and will be added to the game
Lootbox pool update early next year
Aaron was partial to a community suggestion for allowing cosmetics to swap mid game (This was originally not a thing since most people were on disk drives when the game came out), but there still may be technical or gameplay (e.g. people switching skins every life to confuse people) considerations blocking it
They plan on making seasons to feel more cohesive, as in the hero has a fitting role in a larger narrative and even some of the cosmetics and events may fit.
Some scrapped prototypes in the process of making Vendetta included one whose primary fire is a boomerang and a walljumping hero who could teleport to a thrown projectile
No workshop updates planned currently, it’s not something they want to be off the table it just ends up being low priority compared to other things
They toyed with adding a leaderboard outside of top 500 but nothing came of it other than drives. They’d maybe consider some kind of temporary experience like that
6v6 balance isn’t top priority but they’ll step in if things get too out of hand
question dodge when asked about hero reworks. There are hero’s they are considering, but no names
The midseason balance patch is finalized 1 week into the start of the season (so around 3 weeks in advance), kinda nutty
One complaint about Vendetta is that she is too quiet while in the air, they’re considering making her more noticeable. Vendetta will definitely get other changes in the midseason patch.
‘several’ core game maps coming out next year, the map team was being split between stadium, the core game, and reworks, but they’re going to start to shift some of the focus from stadium to the core game. More map reworks coming next year as well
New challenger system, they know it still has a lot to work out. They don’t want diamond players filling up the top of the leaderboard or anything like that
They are generally a bit more comfortable adding more complexity to the game now both with hero kits and systems like perks. A talent system similar to perks was actually tried in Overwatch 1
Aaron acknowledged that they shouldn’t have just changed the default controls for everyone. They’ve made some adjustments today but no reversion that some have been calling for.
ETA, appreciate them doing this. There were definitely some softball questions in there but they put some good meat on the bones too. Appreciate Aaron.
I do hope they work on vendettas audio cues wholesale. Her swinging etc just somehow sounds to come from “everywhere” and its really hard to pinpoint how far away she is.
Overall good news. Glad they are looking in to more consistency in the seasons, right now they feel very disconnected.
Great news they’re going to focus hard on main game mode maps again. Totally made sense to double down stadium for a short time, and then pop back to the main game.
It’s been “low priority, but still on the table” for 5 years, and yet they’d rather spend time developing garbage that only 500 players in the entire playerbase will even get to see.
They haven’t changed and neither should anyone’s opinions of them until proven otherwise.
Yeah, that’s the problem with this character… like who’s paying these people? They’re getting scammed.
Yeah, more of the same trash that nobody asked for. Glad they’re dedicating this much time to the smallest percentage of their playerbase.
Plot Twist: it’s our first character representation for the Guisin faction, who will now be thoroughly fleshed-out and integrated into the wider Overwatch lore.
I almost made a thread about this yesterday since I saw a promo about a Dev Live Stream for today.
Swapping skins mid-game sounds awesome! I really like that idea And more cohesive seasons sounds great too! OW2 needs that. Im curious to hear more about these “scrapped” heroes. Im Ok with no 6v6 balancing. It feels fine to me at the moment. And yes, Vendetta is too quiet in the air, sometimes I cant even hear her “AHHHHH!” Ultimate. Bug I think. Id love to see a Bastion rework but I doubt it would happen….
So this is the most common and vague thing so I’m not more hyped than usual.
Actually a bit scared. I don’t want to lose the current game and become like Deadlock or something.
This sounds good. I wonder if the Stadium game mode could work in the core game.
And more cohesive seasons sounds great too! OW2 needs that. Im curious to hear more about these “scrapped” heroes. 
Im Ok with no 6v6 balancing. It feels fine to me at the moment. And yes, Vendetta is too quiet in the air, sometimes I cant even hear her “AHHHHH!” Ultimate. Bug I think. Id love to see a Bastion rework but I doubt it would happen….
