Already on October 4, the first phase of Overwatch 2 gets underway. The successor to Blizzard’s successful hero shooter Overwatch, which is to integrate seamlessly in multiplayer with the 1st part. In doing so, the developers want to focus on more heroes in the future, with whom you won’t have to hit at all.

Where does the statement come from? In an interview with Dexerto, Lead Hero Designer Geoff Goodman talked about the future of Supporters in Overwatch 2, among other things. A big point also falls on the actual targeting in the well-known Blizzard shooter.

Namely, this is not supposed to become so important anymore, especially for support classes. According to Goodman, future support heroes will be based more on heroes like Mercy and Moira. Their abilities are mostly target-seeking, and as Mercy, for example, it’s enough to just look in the rough direction of the target with the healing beam.

Why is this important? In the interview, the Hero designer goes on to explain that in Overwatch, it should also be important to execute strong moves without really good aim. According to him, a player’s “skill” is not only defined by how well he actually hits.

Much more, personal skill is also defined by how you position yourself, what decisions you make, and when you revive whom: “We’re supposed to make sure that there are more ways to demonstrate your skill than just aiming well. Mercy was just a very early example of that.”

He goes on to explain that these heroes will then be more focused on their own team than on doing damage to the enemy. Nevertheless, they should be able to make “big plays”. Goodman says he wants to make such heroes much more common in the future and not place them exclusively in the support role.

Ban system for heroes is not yet off the table

What else does he say in the interview? Dexerto had also asked the designer about the topic of hero bans. This is a system that could be used to ban certain heroes before the match. League of Legends, for example, uses such a mechanism in its rated games. However, this has not yet been possible in Overwatch.

A similar concept was already in Overwatch with the Heropool, but was then removed again. Goodman says, however, that the basic idea of banning heroes has not yet been fundamentally discarded, even if game designer Aaron Keller would be fundamentally opposed to implementing such a system.

“It comes up every now and then, so I don’t think we’ll ever completely throw it out. There are problems with the system, and we’ve been thinking and talking about how to design it to make it work.” He also refers to the poorly received Heropool.

What are the problems? One of the biggest problems, he said, is that on a competitive level, players could be targeted and have their Main Heroes locked out as a result. Aaron Keller also said in an interview with GameSpot that he is against removing characters from players. Mainly because some players can identify with the heroes.

So while hero bans aren’t something we should expect from the start in Overwatch 2, it’s possible that the feature will be implemented later on.

What do you guys think about this? Are you looking forward to having heroes that you don’t have to aim as much with, or do you rather think that only players who can also hit well should be able to get far? What do you think about Hero bans?