It’s no secret that Blizzard struggled to find an identity for Overwatch 2. When the hero shooter sequel launched in 2022, it did so with the expectation that it would, eventually, come with an expansive PvE mode that included changes to hero kits and new ways to play. But that mode was scrapped. The switch from 6v6 matches to 5v5 brought with it pervasive balance issues that skewed toward making every role a damage role and required several seasons’ worth of adjustments to fix.
After three years of false starts, Blizzard finally has a new vision for Overwatch 2 — and it works, so far. It’s built on a more hands-off approach that prioritizes player choice and digging deeper into what co-director Alec Dawson described as the game’s “hero fantasy” in a recent media roundtable. Season 19’s flagship event, Haunted Masquerade, is the culmination of all the changes Blizzard has made up to this point and a signifier of things to come.
Haunted Masquerade sees players don a mask representing another hero, which grants them passive buffs and other perks. Certain combinations activate special powers, like Brigitte and Reinhardt teaming up to deploy a mighty shield or Winston getting Tracer’s recall ability, which creates new opportunities for how to use his bubble shield more effectively.
“There’s a really large incentive to experiment and actually try new abilities and try different heroes, maybe [more] than you normally would in your normal play,” Dawson says.
It’s the kind of event you probably wouldn’t have seen before now. In previous years, Blizzard added limited modes that changed how heroes played, but always in a controlled manner. Junkenstein’s Lab, one of Overwatch 2′s staple Halloween events, includes “mutations” that alter hero skills similar to perks, but each hero only has a small selection to choose from. In contrast, every playable character in Haunted Masquerade has a mask, which means there’s 22 combinations and probably dozens of ways for players to use passive effects that Blizzard never even intended.
You might think 22 isn’t all that much (you’d be wrong; lead designer Kirill Perekrest says it took weeks of testing to ensure everything worked properly), but giving players that much flexibility and choice over how a match unfolds is a marked contrast to how Blizzard handled Overwatch 2 prior to 2025. That contrast is entirely by design.
“There was a big push this year for player choice, [and] a lot of the things we’ve been building are very much about your hero and your decisions,” Dawson says. “We were really looking for systems that could sit on top of Overwatch that weren’t too heavy and allowed you to have some variability from game to game, but let you stay flexible with your hero.”
It started with the addition of perks, which let you change aspects of a hero’s kit once you reach certain milestones during a match. Then Blizzard introduced Stadium mode, with dozens of powers that alter how character skills work. There are even more permutations depending on which modifiers you pick, some of which are only available if you perform well during a round. The team also changed Flashpoint maps, so players could choose their routes of attack and points of engagement more freely.
This hands-off approach that prioritizes player choice has gone over well, so much so that Dawson says the team is starting to look at ways to carry the design philosophy into the future. He says Overwatch 2‘s designers are thinking about ways to “evolve heroes further” with play styles that “may be even more of a turn than what you’re getting right now with perks.”
“There’s a lot of hero fantasy that we want to explore within even each hero’s kit, and we’re not done yet,” Dawson says.
Overwatch 2 will still be recognizably Overwatch 2, though. Dawson tells us that regardless of how the game changes over time, “coming together as a team” will remain its identity. Some of the potential future plans under discussion include teaching players how to get the most out of a hero’s existing kits and how to play together more effectively (despite removing teachable moments from hero progression recently).
Events like Haunted Masquerade — and the player feedback that follows them — help the design team figure out what kind of changes ought to become permanent. Team choice is the focus in Haunted Masquerade, for example, and it follows internal discussions about ways to encourage more experimentation among players. Blizzard wants to gently prod them into picking characters that suit their team composition, not just the one they think looks cool. If, for instance, the rest of a team is gearing up for a dive composition (teams that rush in, sow chaos, and escape quickly), Dawson says they want players to recognize that they need to pick someone whose kit supports that playstyle.
This new push started with a small change, showing players who their teammates’ top three heroes are. But Blizzard is looking for ways to make the suggestions more direct going forward. This year’s Halloween event includes unmissable elements in the selection menu that practically scream “you’ll get something good if you pair us together,” though Blizzard is considering slightly less intrusive options for the longer term, including a possible “recommended heroes” option.
Haunted Masquerade runs during the first half of Overwatch 2 season 19, which is live now on console and PC.
