Overwatch Season 2 will rework older hero kits

Blizzard is using Overwatch’s Season 2 update to do more than add another round of content. In its April “Director’s Take: Small Steps, Big Leaps,” the studio said the new season will fold selected Perks into older heroes’ base kits, bring back a modernized post-match recognition screen, and adjust map voting so overwhelming lobby majorities are more likely to get the map they picked. The post was published four days before Season 2’s reported April 14 launch.

Mercy, Reaper, and Pharah are getting baseline kit upgrades

Blizzard said Mercy’s Flash Heal will be added to her base kit in Season 2, while Reaper’s Dire Triggers and Pharah’s Drift Thrusters will also become baseline tools. According to associate game director Alec Dawson, the goal is to help older heroes “keep up” with newer additions without making their kits overly bloated or forcing players to relearn them from scratch.

Essentially, Blizzard is paying more attention to legacy heroes that need structural help, not just number tweaks, if they are going to stay compelling in the current version of Overwatch. The same April 10 post also said Blizzard is considering larger reworks later in 2026 for an early shortlist that includes Sombra, Lifeweaver, and Roadhog. However, those are described as subject to change and more likely to arrive after Season 3.

Post-Match Accolades and optional rival voice chat are coming back

Blizzard is also reviving some of Overwatch’s social features. In Season 2, players will get Post-Match Accolades on a new, fully 3D results screen where they can vote for an MVP after a match. Blizzard also said it is testing an optional voice-chat lobby with the opposing team during the Play of the Game reveal, while stressing that chat will still be monitored for safety.

That social angle fits Blizzard’s broader 2026 roadmap. Back in its February 4 Overwatch Spotlight presentation, the company had already said it planned upgrades to map voting, hero bans, Drives, and other systems over the course of the year, along with a return for Post-Match Accolades later in 2026. The April 10 update turns part of that roadmap into a more concrete near-term feature list.

Blizzard is changing map voting so big majorities matter more

Blizzard said that when a map wins by what it calls an “undeniable majority,” that map will now be chosen instead of losing out to a lone outlier. Season 2 will also add a Random Map button, show Attack or Defense icons during the voting phase, and tweak the background recency system so maps that received votes are not buried as aggressively as maps that got none.

Competitive players are also getting a softer penalty on unfamiliar terrain. Blizzard said that on new or reworked maps in Competitive mode, players will lose less competitive progress for a defeat, while wins will still award the normal amount of progress. Together, those changes suggest Blizzard is trying to reduce two common complaints at once: lobbies being pushed onto unpopular maps and ranked players feeling punished for learning fresh layouts.

For readers interested in where game visuals are heading behind the scenes, that conversation also stretches well beyond crossover events and content drops. Notebookcheck recently spoke to veteran artist Mark Linington, whose credits include Mass Effect, Halo, Far Cry, Overwatch 2, and Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, about Nvidia’s DLSS 5 push and the growing debate over AI-assisted rendering, creative control, and how much of a final image still belongs to the artists who built it.