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Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller has posted a lengthy blog on Steam about the transition from 6v6 player matches in the first Overwatch to 5v5 in the poorly received free-to-play sequel. It’s a juicy read for armchair designers and lapsed Overwatchers like myself, packing in analysis of class roles and the shift from the free choice of heroes to single hero picks and enforced team compositions.
In broad strokes, Keller summarises how the Overwatch experience has drifted away from “player freedom and creativity in order to create a more balanced, consistent and competitive experience for players”. It’s possible, however, that Overwatch 2 will swing back in the other direction, as Blizzard are now “exploring how we can test different forms of 6v6 in the game to gauge the results”, with a view to restoring some of the joyful chaos that saw entire teams of Reinhardts charging the objective in formation.
“The community has, juuuust once or twice, suggested a test,” Keller writes in the post. “Why not put various forms of 6v6 in the game in order to gauge the results? We agree, and based on your feedback, we’re exploring how we can test different forms of 6v6 in the game to gauge the results.”
Don’t expect those tests to begin anytime soon, however, as there are a number of obstacles. “The first, and honestly largest, reason is the need to do this in a way that allows the game to have optimized technical performance (I’m referring to framerate and memory constraints) with 12 players in a match,” Keller goes on.
He notes that Overwatch 2 has seen several upgrades and additions that impact performance, such as HUD outlines for allied heroes and fancier map fixtures. “In a 6v6 setting, these upgrades can have significant impacts for our players, causing the game to underperform on older systems. Overwatch is a fast-paced game, and maintaining a game that runs smoothly across all our platforms is important for the player’s experience.”
As such, “while a limited time test could arrive sooner, the team is still investigating exactly how long it would take to permanently increase performance across the game,” Keller writes. “This would be a large effort that would most likely take at least several seasons to accomplish.”
The bigger issue, however, may be the effect of a return to 6v6 on the game’s multiplayer queue times. A fair chunk of Keller’s blog is devoted to explaining how the combination of role queues and the original 12-a-side format led to delays finding a match. Blizzard were not able to really address this problem in the first game, Keller comments, hence shrinking the headcount in Overwatch 2. He’s not 100% confident they’ll fare better second time around.
“Another issue, and one that still gives me anxiety about opening this Pandora’s Box, is what to do with queue times if enough players prefer 6v6 to keep some form of it around,” the post goes on. “The team was not able to solve this issue previously. While we have some ideas now, there’s no guarantee that they will work.
“Is there a world where people are willing to live with long queue times to play this format? Maybe, but that’s a pretty risky move to make. We also have tens of millions of new players that have only played 5v5. We want to be openly mindful not to frustrate those who like the game as it is today.”
In the event that Blizzard do host some 6v6 tests, these would likely run for a few weeks, with the results being compared against regular Overwatch 2 modes. “We would reflect carefully on the learnings from whatever test we run and explore how to best give players what’s being asked for,” Keller says. “Whether that’s a world of 5v5, 6v6 or even both, is for future us to figure out.”
Keller is upfront about the fact that the evolution of Overwatch into Overwatch 2 was a trade-off that has alienated much of the first game’s audience. “The game started its life with six players on each team,” he writes. “I discussed why we moved away from 6v6, but that doesn’t mean it’s without any merit. There were moments and madness that could happen with twelve players in a match that just don’t quite coalesce when there are ten.”
The occasional feeling of overwhelm was “part of the charm”, Keller adds. “There are big moments in Overwatch 2, but they don’t quite have that same chaotic, over-the-top feeling to them.” More specifically, having two tanks in the mix per side “had a stabilizing effect on gameplay” whereby “teams would fold a bit slower than they do now”.
The sequel is a more focussed competitive experience and perhaps, the superior esport, but it doesn’t have the same sense of abandon, Keller acknowledges. “When you look at the changes to Overwatch since its inception, it’s clear that many of those have reduced some of the variety within an Overwatch match,” the post concedes. “We get feedback from some players that Overwatch can feel “the same” from game to game.”
“While much of this gets attributed to 5v5, we feel that there is more at play here. Besides running experiments with 6v6, we’d like to run some that re-examine the ways we tried solving previous problems, specifically with the goal of bringing some of the freedom back to an Overwatch match without the severity of issues that accompanied it.”
The on-going dislike for Overwatch 2 (it still has a Mostly Negative user review consensus on Steam) is about more than 5v5, of course. Take your pick: the first game no longer being available, making the sequel a forced replacement; the retiring of certain grand plans for story modes; nickel-and-diming players with the battle pass. Still, there’s a great hero sandbox in there somewhere, and the prospect of a tentative move back toward the first game’s looser, wildcard ethos is encouraging.