“Because we operate as a service to our players, we always remain open-minded to re-evaluating our decisions based on your actions and feedback,” says director Aaron Keller.
Overwatch 2 has been a controversial game among fans of the Blizzard property for a number of reasons, and the fact that it dropped its predecessor’s 6v6 gameplay core in favour of 5v5 matches is surely high on that list. It turns out, however, that following strong and consistent demands from the player base for a return to 6v6 matches, Blizzard Entertainment has said that it’s going to start testing 6v6 variants soon.
In an update published on the game’s official website, director Aaron Keller dove deep into the merits of 5v5 matches versus those of the 6v6 matches of the old, recognizing that though there is obviously strong demand for the latter, the former, in spite of its controversial nature, has brought tangible improvements for the overall experience- such as role queues better reflecting the format of each match, which allows two Damage heroes, two Support heroes, and one Tank hero per team.
That said, given how heavy the demand for a return to 6v6 is, Keller says that, in the spirit of Overwatch 2 being an evolving live service product, though Blizzard Entertainment will continue polishing and optimizing the 5v5 experience, it will begin testing various different variants of 6v6 matches in the future as well.
“Because of the challenges mentioned previously we are focused on making 5v5 the best experience that it can be,” Keller wrote. “However, because we operate as a service to our players, we always remain open-minded to re-evaluating our decisions based on your actions and feedback, to give you the best game experience we can. Rather than introduce a disruptive, permanent change to the game, we’d prefer to explore the space further and make changes based on that exploration.
“With that said, we’re looking at running a series of events to try out different core team composition formats in Overwatch 2. The community has, juuuust once or twice, suggested a test. Why not put various forms of 6v6 in the game in order to gauge the results? We agree, and based on your feedback, we’re exploring how we can test different forms of 6v6 in the game to gauge the results. This is taking some time, however, for reasons that may not be readily apparent.”
How long will it be before these tests kick off, then? Keller says it may be a while, with some key issues in particular needing some attention from Blizzard first. One of them is figuring out how the re-introduction of 6v6 could impact performance, and how to make further improvements on that front.
“Overwatch is a fast-paced game, and maintaining a game that runs smoothly across all our platforms is important for the player’s experience,” Keller explained. “While a limited time test could arrive sooner, the team is still investigating exactly how long it would take to permanently increase performance across the game. This would be a large effort that would most likely take at least several seasons to accomplish.”
Keller says that Blizzard intends to run these tests for a few weeks, after which, based on data and feedback from players, it will decide how to proceed in terms of 5v5 or 6v6- if not even both.
“The outcome of these tests would give us a lot of valuable information to consider moving forward. We’d run the test for a few weeks and gauge interest from the community,” he said. “Then we’d measure the impact it had on the other experiences in Overwatch 2, like 5v5, Arcade, etc. We’d take the lessons from this playtest to see what we can learn about the mode within the current game ecosystem and for the future of Overwatch. We would reflect carefully on the learnings from whatever test we run and explore how to best give players what’s being asked for. Whether that’s a world of 5v5, 6v6 or even both, is for future us to figure out.”
Overwatch 2 is available on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
