It’s been about a month since Overwatch 2’s Season 4 was released, and you know what that means – some details about Season 5 have been announced! Season 5 sees fan-favourite events like the Summer Games making a return, as well as a whole slew of new features.
While Blizzard has not announced an official release date for Season 5, it is tentatively 13 June (Tuesday), a consistent nine weeks since Season 4 began.
We do have to address the elephant in the room: Blizzard’s decision to scrap PvE (player versus environment) Hero Mode. PvE was initially promised as part of 2023’s seasonal content release, and was meant to be the key new factor differentiating Overwatch 2 from its predecessor. This news may be disappointing to fans who have been waiting for PVE, but Blizzard has stated they will continue working on other PvE features – and Season 5’s exciting new features make up for the letdown!
Returning features
In Season 5, Summer Games will make its debut in Overwatch 2 for the first time. The Games was an event that began during the 2016 Olympics, and has returned every year since. Fans can expect new sports and summer-themed skins, as well as the return of the popular Lucioball game mode. Lucioball involves participants in two teams of three players playing as Lúcio while trying to shoot a ball into the goal,
Season 5 also sees the return of a staple feature: the ‘On Fire’ meter system, in which the player’s icon lights up during an impressive play, helping them measure their in-game performance.
There will also be a ‘Creator Workshop Mode’, similar to ‘The Workshop’ update from Overwatch. Although there is not much information on the mode thus far, people with programming or scripting backgrounds will likely be able to create and share custom game modes.
Lastly, there will be a new cinematic of former Overwatch Captain Sojourn and her dog Murphy.
New additions
As heroes only arrive in alternate seasons, there will not be any new heroes – but there will be some updates to existing support hero Lifeweaver. Blizzard stated that they “buffed him across several different categories”, including increasing his healing ammo capacity and ult.
However, players criticised the new changes, stating that the game developers were too focused on the Lifeweaver’s statistics and they would still prefer to play with other healers.
Additionally, Season 5’s new limited-time event, Mischief & Magic, will include fantasy-themed reskins of characters. Like with the previous theme, Starwatch, players can expect Overwatch to expand on the in-game lore through this event.
Not much is currently known about the remaining additions to the game. For now, it is only known that there will be another limited-time event Questwatch, as well as a new map.
With a plethora of new features, it is hard not to be excited about what Overwatch’s 2 Season 5 will have to offer. Still, let’s hope that these new features manage to counterweigh the disappointment of losing PvE Hero Mode.
