What you need to know
- Blizzard Entertainment has recently disclosed the patch notes for Season 9 of Overwatch 2.
- The patch notes reveal significant gameplay changes, including a new co-op mission called Cosmic Crisis, reworks for the Competitive Play game mode, balance updates for the playable Heroes, bug fixes, and more.
- Overwatch 2 is a competitive hero shooter where players play as the mighty heroes or villains of the Overwatch universe, compete in intense PVP matches, or work together to defeat hordes of enemies in PVE co-op missions.
On February 13, 2024, Blizzard Entertainment published the patch notes for Season 9 of Overwatch 2, titled 'Champions'. This long-running, competitive hero shooter has received many updates during its lifetime, and this one may be one of its biggest yet.
The patch notes reveal that Season 9 will add many balance changes to the roster of Heroes, reworks to the game's Competitive Play PVP mode, a co-op mission called Cosmic Crisis, bug fixes, and more.
Full patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 9 are available at the game's official website.
Overwatch 2 Season 9 patch notes - New Event: Cosmic Crisis
Overwatch 2 is getting a new PVE co-op mission called Cosmic Crisis. The premise is that four players have crash-landed into the ruins of Ecopoint Antarctica and must find a way to repair their ship to escape. The players will have to fend off the enemy hordes of Null Sector and an ancient, eldritch force that seeks to corrupt our heroes and betray each other.
Overwatch 2 Season 9 patch notes - Competitive Play Updates
Developer comments: "With your feedback, we’ve made new improvements to Competitive Play that aim to provide more transparency into your progress after every match, plus we introduced a new skill tier and new Competitive Rewards to earn."
Overwatch 2 Season 9 patch notes - General Updates
Overwatch 2 Season 9 patch notes - Hero Updates
Developer comments: "Season 9 features changes to the fundamentals of Overwatch 2 gameplay that affect every hero. We’ve heard the community feedback around some gameplay pain points, and these changes are in response to many of those."
General Hero updates
Tank Hero updates
Damage Hero changes
Developer comments: "Pharah has a significant update that empowers more individual plays and shifting her movement capabilities from high up in the air to more horizontal movement that can cover distance quickly."
Support Hero changes
Overwatch 2 Season 9 patch notes - Map Updates
Developer comments: "We’ve added more cover—including new structures—to help counter some of the long sightlines around the first checkpoint. Additional changes in the third area allow attackers to push through certain chokes more easily."
Overwatch 2 Season 9 patch notes - Bug fixes
General bug fixes
Map bug fixes
Hero bug fixes
Overwatch 2 Season 9 - Hero Mastery: Gauntlet
Overwatch 2 Season 9 will introduce a match type for Hero Mastery, a game mode where players can learn how to play the game and hone their skills with their favorite characters. This new match type is Hero Mastery: Gauntlet, a team-based match type where players work together to defend tower objectives from increasing waves of enemies.
Each Hero Mastery: Gauntlet match will feature different enemy types, objectives, and upgrade options to fortify your objectives to ensure that no matches are alike.
Overwatch 2 Season 9 - Battle Pass
In addition to gameplay changes and new game modes, Overwatch 2 - Season 9 will include a new Battle Pass, with over 80 tiers of rewards to fight for. These rewards include the new Survivor Soldier: 76, Tentacle Horror Torbjörn, Horror Hog Roadhog, and more.
Once you have cleared 80 tiers of the Battle Pass, you will unlock Moira's Mythic tier, Ancient Caller skin. If you purchase the Ultimate Battle Pass bundle, you will also be able to get your hands on the Beholder Sigma Legendary Skin, the Harbinger Lifeweaver Legendary Skins, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and 20 tier skips.
Overwatch 2 Season 9 - New cosmetics to buy in the shop
Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and Overwatch is celebrating the occasion with new Valentine's Day-themed cosmetic skins to purchase in the in-game store. These new hearty cosmetics skins include Rosahardt Reinhardt, Rose Lily Widowmaker, Cherry Blossom Kiriko, and Valentine's Reaper. In addition, the classic Cupid Hanzo skin will be making a return.
Keep an eye out for new frightening Legendary Skins coming soon to the store, like Fiend Orisa and Dark Fawn Lucio, and new Weapon Skins based on the graffiti drawn by the infamous Loes Muertos gang of Dorado. In addition, another crossover collaboration event will be coming later this season.
Cosmic horrors and gameplay reworks await in Overwatch 2 Season 9
As you can see from the patch notes, a mountain of gameplay changes is coming to Overwatch 2 in Season 9. The most prominent ones are the reworks to Competitive Play ranking progression and rewards, reworking the Junkertown map, increasing the size of projectiles, increasing the HP of every hero and giving them all regenerating health, and introducing new role passive traits for Tank, Damage, and Support heroes.
These changes will no doubt shake up Overwatch's gameplay formula completely. Regenerating health on every character will allow players who main the more fragile heroes to survive in the fight longer and encourage players who play damage-dealing heroes to be more aggressive to stop the enemy team from naturally regaining their health back.
These drastic reworks to breathe new life into one of the best PC games and best Xbox games are bold, to say the least, and ones that could run the risk of alienating long-time fans who are used to the old ways of Overwatch gameplay. Will fans readily accept and adapt to the changes of Season 9? Well, we won't have to wait long to find out as Overwatch 2, Season 9 'Champions', is scheduled to go live on February 13, 2024, at 11:00 AM PST / 2:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM GMT.
