Blizzard has confirmed that players ofOverwatch 2can look forward to seeing the return of two maps, Rialto and Blizzard World, along with the game’s second season releasing on December 6 in a week’s time. The controversial map rotation feature introduced inOverwatch 2will bring in the new maps while rotating out some of the current ones temporarily, which will launch alongside many other new features that players can look forward to next week.
The first season ofOverwatch 2brought a huge variety of substantial changesand brand-new features to the table, including several new heroes, maps, cosmetics, and much more. The launch ofOverwatch 2itself represented the game’s transition to a free-to-play title, which encouraged the developers to introduce new season pass and shop features to accommodate the several changes to monetization in the game. While there remains to be many complaints from the community regarding some of these changes,Overwatch 2’s first season evidently gained a lot of attention, dominating social media upon its release. With the game enjoying an influx of new players, many fans have already began looking forward to Season 2 afterOverwatch 2’s next hero, Ramattra, was announced during the Overwatch League Grand Finals.
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A recent blog post on Blizzard’s official website expands on many of the new features that players first got a look atinOverwatch 2’s Season 2 trailerthat was released yesterday. While there’s a lot to dig into in the post, the developers clarified which of the existing maps will return and which will temporarily leave, courtesy of the game’s new map rotation mechanic. Alongside the introduction of the brand-new map Shambali Monastery, players can look forward to the return of Rialto and Blizzard World to casual and competitive matchmaking playlists, two maps which haven’t been seen since the originalOverwatch.Furthermore, fans can also get ready to wave goodbye to the Hollywood and Watchpoint: Gibraltar maps, which are unfortunately being moved out of rotation for the next season.
Though these two maps will be temporarily leaving the map pool for standard matchmaking playlists, players should keep in mind that they will still be available to play on in custom game modes, as is the case with the other maps currently not in rotation. On top of all that,Blizzard also mentioned that the next seasonwill change the time of day slightly on the Oasis and Nepal maps, meaning that players can experience those levels in a slightly different manner than before.
While it’s safe to say that a lot of fans are looking forward to the new upcoming content,players are also criticizing Blizzard’s map rotationdecision, claiming that they shouldn’t be celebrating the return of deliberately-vaulted maps. Whether Blizzard will ever go back on the choice to implement map rotation is not yet known, but it won’t be going away in Season 2.
Overwatch 2is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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