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Hero bans are coming to Overwatch

Hero bans are coming to Overwatch

Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has confirmed hero bans are being implemented.

In a developer update video (below), Kaplan explained that while the team has agreed to the bans it will be Blizzard that selects the banned heroes each week.

The Hero Pool will only be featured in competitive play, Arcade mode and Quickplay will continue to have access to all heroes at any given time.

"The Hero Pool will only last for one week, and then there will be a new Hero Pool," said Kaplan.

"There will be some heroes that will not be included in the Hero Pool. For example, in the first week of the Hero Pool, let's say Season 21 had just started, maybe Orisa, Sigma, Mei, and Moira are not in the Hero Pool.

"Players will have to think of a new strategy that doesn't involve those heroes, and that will last for one week, and then the Hero Pool will change."

Another key change that is coming is the new "Experimental Card", fans of the online shooter have always complained that the development team takes too long to fix problems such as balance issues - this new card will be used to carry out testing to fix various problems.

"This Experimental Card will be some number of changes - they might be related to hero balance, they might be related to other things. We might be testing changes to the way one of our game modes works, like the Control game mode and how it works in Competitive," said Kaplan.

"It doesn't have to be balance related, but the Experimental Card will come up every now and then when we want to test something. And it will give all players of Overwatch, not just players who want to go to the PTR but all players including console players, will be able to use the Experimental Card to test changes out."

Overwatch 2 was announced at Blizzcon 2019. In the lead up to the event, multiple leaks were released - ruining the surprise. Kaplan described the leaks as demoralising, as they left the team feeling deflated.

Earlier this week, it was confirmed that all upcoming Overwatch matches in China have been cancelled due to the Coronavirus.


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Kayleigh is the Staff Writer for PocketGamer.biz. Besides PGbiz and PCGI she has written as a list writer for Game Rant, rambling about any and all things games related. You can also find her on Twitter talking utter nonsense.