Hello everybody! We have beloved listening to your enthusiasm for Stadium and most of all, we have beloved watching you all play it. There’s already been a lot creativity with builds. Not that we had been shocked by that—we knew you wouldn’t disappoint!
Earlier than I get into present modifications and future developments, I might like to provide just a little historical past of Stadium in hopes that it offers you some context as to the place it’s headed. Plus, I just like the title “Previous, Current, and Future”!
Previous
Stadium emerged as an thought earlier than Overwatch 2 launched. In truth, earlier than it was introduced to the workforce, considered one of my children created the primary pitch doc with a pattern degree and introduced it to me! Stadium has come a great distance since then, however I all the time consider my son when enjoying.
Early variations seemed just a little totally different from the mode you’re enjoying immediately. Stadium was initially centered on offering as a lot selection as doable. It was arrange as an eight-team event. Every spherical, gamers picked from random upgrades to make use of in fight phases of Group Deathmatch or versus AI, shedding well being in the event that they misplaced the spherical. But it surely was troublesome to create a coherent technique or builds to counter opponents when the selections had been made by means of random choice.
This transformation into the format you see immediately displays a shift in our pondering: we nonetheless need there to be selection from match to match in Stadium, however selection is not the very best precedence. We wish you to really feel balanced and aggressive, whereas making epic builds by means of strategic selections primarily based on the efficiency and Hero compositions of everybody within the match.
Current
Talking of maintaining issues balanced and aggressive, the workforce is already planning tweaks primarily based on the suggestions and information we’ve acquired since launch.
Whereas we frequently see an enormous spike in play time shortly after a shiny new occasion launches, play time in Stadium has been a bit stickier. In its first week, roughly 50% of all play hours in Overwatch 2 had been dedicated to Stadium!
Relating to builds and Hero stability, we’ll be accumulating information over the following few weeks to see what modifications must be made for the midseason stability patch, if not earlier.
There are a lot of gears turning behind the scenes relating to Stadium. The event workforce answered a few of your burning questions in a Reddit AMA earlier this week and we’ll be sharing extra insights and Stadium information in a particular Director’s Take subsequent week!
Future
If you happen to like enjoying Stadium, you may be blissful to know that we’ve lots of huge plans for it. There will likely be seasonal updates to Stadium which can embrace the discharge of recent Heroes, maps, sport modes, techniques and options, in addition to the same old care we put into different modes of Overwatch.
What’s coming to Stadium over the following two seasons? Rather a lot!
The workforce simply put out an in depth roadmap for Stadium that exhibits extra of our future plans for the mode.
Heroes: Our latest addition to the Overwatch roster may also be the primary new Hero added Freja is headed to Stadium and he or she’ll arrive with the Season 16 midseason patch. However she’s not the one Hero on the best way! We’ll have new Heroes added each Season, since we expect including new heroes is critically necessary for Stadium. Every time we have launched a brand new addition internally, they’ve completely shifted the meta and the best way we considered placing collectively a construct.
Recreation Modes: We’re planning on releasing a brand new sport mode inside Stadium named Payload Race and two brand-new maps will launch with it. On prime of that, we’ll be integrating a brand new mechanic that we’ve been calling “Quests” internally. At the beginning of every match, gamers will choose from a random set of quests that can dole out rewards as soon as targets are accomplished.
Programs: Whereas we’re actually excited for brand new content material in Stadium, we expect techniques that affect the best way you set a construct collectively can have a fair higher impression. In Season 17, we’ll be releasing a construct importer and exporter. This is not going to solely enable gamers to place collectively builds exterior of a Stadium match after which choose them inside a match, it is going to additionally enable gamers to pick from group builds as properly.
You’ve additionally made your voices heard on a subject that’s essential to all of us: Cross-Play! Since Stadium has a aggressive system, it follows the foundations of our core aggressive mode, which doesn’t enable PC and Console gamers to group. Since that is the one option to play the mode, we agree, and we’d love to do one thing about it. We’re presently investigating what it will take to make an unranked model of the mode. This could enable teams of mates to play collectively and would give us the power to make different modifications as properly, probably introducing a best-of-5 format to the mode.
Earlier than signing off, I might prefer to reiterate the workforce’s dedication to the opposite core modes of Overwatch. We’re nonetheless pouring as a lot time, power and fervour into these as we all the time have. Stadium is not competing for these assets: it’s giving us extra alternatives to ship Overwatch in a brand new, thrilling means.
We will not wait so that you can see what’s coming there, particularly Season 18. It is going to be a banger! Have enjoyable with Stadium and, as all the time, let’s make an important sport.
