So Overwatch 2 is out and, sort of, running. The game has been plagued by a variety of launch issues from server queues to broken hero abilities, but for the most part players are now getting stuck into matches and experimenting with the new meta. And although there may be some that think one or two heroes are broken (overpowered) or broken (terrible) Blizzard hasn't got any plans to rework or rebalance any heroes just yet.
In a post-launch blog update the first order of business was to address heroes and their win rates. The post says that although there are some heroes with higher win rates across different skill levels, there is not one hero that is in desperate need of balancing. All heroes have a win rate within 45 to 55% at the moment, which is pretty good, despite some players feeling like some heroes are far too prominent.
The only exception is that Zarya will be altered for one mode in the next major patch on October 25. Total Mayhem is Overwatch 2's most chaotic mode and allows players to use their abilities much more often, making Zarya seemingly unstoppable.
There will eventually be changes made to Overwatch 2's heroes but it seems they're going to be held off until season two. Whatever these are will keep in mind the "design goal of ensuring the overall game feels balanced and fair while giving each season a more distinct identity." That's now a little bit more difficult considering many effects have been scaled back to just do damage, right Blizzard?
A game with that many characters coming out and only having a disparity of a 10% win rate is quite impressive, though. It helps that some of these characters have been finely tuned in the previous game, but with new heroes and a few big reworks it could have been significantly worse. As new players get the hang of the game and understand the abilities of the heroes more there might be a little more movement in what heroes are obviously over or underpowered. It will take time and a meta to evolve for those details to become clear.
