I made a similar thread earlier in the season but it died and there is more information now so I figured I’d remake it
Most of the recent seasons we knew a lot about far in advance. Seasons 5-6 had a detailed roadmap, seasons 8-10 were pretty much completely explained at blizzcon, but season 11 is a bit of an enigma, we know the map and very little else about it
Dates
Season 11 is set to begin on June 20th. Curiously, that is on a Thursday, which is unusual but not unheard of, and means that season 10 is 2 days longer than usual. This means if season 11 lasts for the usual 9 weeks, it will end on August 22nd, though because of the Thursday start it is highly likely that they cut it it short 2 days to get back onto the ordinary Tuesday release date.
On 2024-06-09T17:00:00Z Microsoft is hosting it’s annual Xbox Games Showcase. Overwatch debuted trailers at this event during the past two years, so it’s not unlikely that we see a Season 11 trailer, or potentially even later content like Space Ranger, at this showcase. If not, the trailer can typically fall at any time in the week before the season begins, there is not much consistency there
Major Gameplay Features
Season 11 will receive Runasapi, a Push map set in Peru that presumably has some lore connection to Illari. In addition, the Collosseo map is getting a rework, which includes removing the glass panes at the center of the map and changes to the bridge/looping ramp section. Other planned map reworks won’t be happening until season 13 at the earliest.
Social Features
In season 11, Blizzard will remove the ability for spectators to participate in chat in all gamemodes and will also add a feature where players can randomly be invited to take a survey after a match. Surveys have existed before, but now the invite to take the survey will be sent through the game client rather than via email. Other planned social features like faster reporting and more avoid slots won’t be added until season 12 at the earliest.
Theme
2 of the 4 remaining season themes for 2024 are known: Witches and Egyptian Mythology. It may or may not be one of these
Mythic Skin
So far, a consistent pattern has occurred where all 3 roles get a mythic skin in any order, before the cycle resets and all 3 roles get a mythic skin in any order again (basically, all roles are always within 1 skin of having an equal number of mythic skins). Mind you this is not set in stone whatsoever, but if it does still hold then the next mythic skin is allowed to go towards either a Dps or Tank hero, with dps being the more likely candidate since it has gone the longest without getting one
Events
The pride month event started during season 10, but the map changes will last into the first few weeks of season 11.
The summer games event will almost certainly occur during this season, and for the first time in 3 years, the Summer Olympics which this event was originally based off of will occur. This may potentially mean a somewhat more exciting event than usual this year (During 2020, when the last Olympics were original going to occur, they made some big improvements to lucioball), but more plausibly it also means the event’s dates are likely to roughly coincide with the real Olympic dates of July 26 - August 11. This is also the first major seasonal event since Christmas, so maybe the event pass system will finally return, or maybe they messed up the Christmas one so badly that they just gave up on that system entirely
We got crossover events 2 seasons in a row now, so I’d say another one is somewhat unlikely this upcoming season, but we’ll have to wait and see
It is also likely we get a gameplay trial for the Season 12 support hero Space Ranger (codename) towards the end of this event
Balance
Cassidy’s magnetic grenade is getting overhauled again to work more similarly to his original flashbang. Reaper changes won’t be until a later time.