If Overwatch 2 Can’t Keep Up With Marvel Rivals in One Way, It Can Be Close

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 29, 2025 131 Views 7 Min Read
If Overwatch 2 Can't Keep Up With Marvel Rivals in One Way, It Can Be Close



In the wake of Marvel Rivals‘ massively successful launch, Overwatch 2 finally has its first proper competitor. Fans have found it virtually impossible to avoid comparing the two games, and it does seem clear that NetEase took no small amount of inspiration from Blizzard when creating its own hero shooter. And though the “Overwatch 2 vs Marvel Rivals” fan debates are likely to rage as long as both games have active player bases, there’s one field in which Rivals has Overwatch soundly beaten: its hero release cadence.

At the time of writing, Marvel Rivals has been out for little over a month and the game has already added two new heroes in its first season with another two on the way. The game’s developers aim to release a new hero twice a season. Given each season will be three months long, that shakes out to a hero just about every month and a half. Overwatch 2, on the other hand, has long-held its release cadence of four heroes a year. Since the Overwatch franchise is coming up on its nine-year anniversary, Blizzard seems unlikely to match NetEase’s release schedule this late into the game’s lifecycle. But there might be something the developers can do to stay relevant in the midst of their primary competitor’s deluge of content.

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Blizzard Can Bolster The Pace of Overwatch 2’s Hero Release Schedule With More Focus on Reworks

Four heroes a year has been Blizzard’s average pace for Overwatch heroes since the game launched. From the earliest days of Ana, Sombra, and Doomfist, there have always been these lengthy gaps between Overwatch 2‘s hero releases. This has historically been worth the wait, as Blizzard tends to release content with an unrivaled (no pun intended) level of polish and attention to detail. This has worked wonders until recently; with Rivals on the rise, it’s clear that four heroes a year just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Being almost a decade old, certain characters on the Overwatch roster are showing their age in today’s meta. Characters like Mei, Reaper, and Symmetra are all struggling in the game’s current environment. Powercreep introduced by new characters like Hazard, Mauga, Juno, and Lifeweaver, as well as the progressive buffs and nerfs to the existing roster, has made some of the characters in the cast feel redundant and in desperate need of either massive buffs or, more usually, fundamental reworks.

Overwatch 2 Reworks Fundamentally Change Old Characters to the Point They Feel Brand New

These reworks, though they don’t add new heroes to the game, have the potential to change the character’s identity on such a core level that they might be as game changing as a new hero. Reaper, for example, has struggled with viability since the proper launch of Overwatch 2. The removal of the second tank slot greatly reduced how effective he was as “the tankbuster” and the hero has been flailing since trying to find a new identity. If Blizzard were to release a rework of his kit that gave him a revitalized identity in the game, he could find a new place in both casual and competitive play, effectively creating a “new” hero from the old.

Reworks obviously still take time, but the development turnaround will be significantly quicker than creating new Overwatch heroes from scratch. The developers save time on modeling, voice acting, lore write-ups, cosmetics, and the marketing around the new content drop. As much effort and forethought as a rework takes, all it essentially is essential boils down to creating a new set of abilities, coding them into the game, and balancing them in accordance to what the vision is for the reworked character.

Marvel Rivals has done a lot to challenge Overwatch 2’s seat as the undisputed king of hero shooters, a title it’s worn for nearly a decade. In just a month, Rivals has proven itself to be the heir apparent to the crown, but contrary to what some might be saying, there’s plenty of room at the table for both titles. Blizzard just needs to find its footing and find a more robust cadence for its hero releases and reworks and Overwatch will be neck and neck with Rivals in no time.

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