With the launch of Overwatch 2 right around the corner, it's perhaps no surprise that many are wondering about Blizzard Entertainment's seasonal release schedule plans.
In addition to simply going free-to-play, Blizzard is overhauling its update and content release schedule for OW2. As such, here's a breakdown of everything you need to know about the Overwatch 2 seasonal model.
Overwatch 2 Seasonal Release Schedule Explained
As revealed back in June, OW2 is set to feature frequent seasonal content updates, starting with Season 1 on Oct. 4.
Each season in OW2 is promised to last nine weeks, which is also how long each of its battle passes will run. Following this timeline, Season 2 is expected to begin on Dec. 6.
Although Seasons 1 and 2 will both have new heroes and at least one new map, the plan is for each new season to typically bring either one new hero or one new map, in an alternating pattern.
When asked about its new 9-week Season cadence, Blizzard game director Aaron Keller revealed that the devs are already working content way in advance, and that it provides a fine balance between chaos and calm.
"In one aspect, we think that roughly every nine weeks, or roughly every two months, is about the right amount of time to be implementing big new pieces of content into the game," Keller said, according to Eurogamer. "If you start going much longer than that, we feel like players - especially players that are dedicated to the game and play it a lot — they might start feeling like the game hasn't updated as much as they would like it to. And if you go much shorter, actually sometimes it can be a little bit disruptive.
"We are intentionally making a hero every other season. Every time we introduce a hero to the game, it has a really big splash. It's one of the most exciting things, if not the most exciting thing that we can put into the game. And if we were to do it constantly, it actually starts to get a little bit disruptive to the meta, disruptive to our players, and it's hard to keep up with something like that."
Lastly, aside from new content, each season's release in OW2 is guaranteed to come with "impactful" hero balance changes.
According to Blizzard, the new seasons are said to feel more "distinct and special" with balance changing things significantly each time. Blizzard also claims, however, that it is also prepared to make additional balance adjustments if the need within a season arises to keep the game feeling fair and fun.
Overwatch 2 is set to release worldwide for PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Windows PC (via Battle.net) on Oct. 4, 2022.
This article was originally published on dbltap as Overwatch 2 Seasonal Release Schedule Explained.