Ever since Marvel Rivals launched, it had been critiqued for being an Overwatch clone, but now it looks like Overwatch is the one copying from Marvel Rivals’ playbook.
Hero bans are coming to Overwatch 2’s Competitive Mode, and it should shake things up when it comes to team compositions and balance.
Hero Bans in Overwatch 2
In an official Overwatch blog entry, systems designer Gavin Winter writes:
“The system is designed to give players strategic agency without punching down at weaker niche picks… One of our main goals for implementing Hero Bans for Overwatch 2 is to encourage the banning of Heroes that you see as too strong or annoying without encouraging you to ban Heroes solely because enemy players enjoy playing them.”
Essentially, each team will be able to ban two heroes each during the Ban Phase. Unlike other games where players take turns banning heroes, each team will ban heroes simultaneously, with each player selecting three choices—the first choice will carry the most weight while the rest will affect the choice will be less impactful.
During the Ban Phase, players will also have the chance to pick their preferred hero, so your team will also have an idea of who you would want to play once the game starts. Voice chat will also be available during this phase so players can better communicate their strategy when it comes to banning heroes.
Copying Marvel Rivals? Not Exactly
click to enlargeThough Hero Bans had been available for Marvel Rivals competitive, the topic of Hero Bans coming to Overwatch have been discussed in the community for months--even before Rivals launched-- so we can’t say exactly that Blizzard is doing what Rivals is doing.
But to be fair, all these changes to Overwatch 2 like Perks and Stadium Mode have only been sped up because of the success of Marvel Rivals; so we can’t say that NetEase’s OW clone isn’t exactly doing nothing to the development of Blizzard’s hero shooter.
For now, it does seem like Blizzard is still going to be working out the kinks of Hero Bans, and they have confirmed that they will be looking at the info of which heroes are constantly banned in each rank, region, platform, and map.
Hopefully these changes manage to deliver the expected results when it comes to Overwatch’s declining popularity.
Season 16 for Overwatch 2 starts on April 22. The game is now playable for Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 4|5. Marvel Rivals is now playable for Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PS5.
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