OW 2 Spotlight 2025 (No Hype Just Facts)

This post is basically just a PSA for players who don't want to sift through all the marketing fluff and just want to find out what is actually happening and when.

I broke things up into two sections, gameplay changes and cosmetic only changes, and organized them by when they will actually launch. I'm leaving out the OWCS stuff as I feel like that is out of scope for what I'm trying to do here.

Gameplay Changes

Season 15 (February 18th)

  • Game will again become accessible to Chinese players after 2 year absence. (February 19th)

  • Perks - Two unlockable ability bonuses (out of 4) that can be chosen each game (one minor, one major). Unlike the mutations from Junkenstein's Lab, these appear to become available during gameplay (not chosen in advance). Not clear what you have to do to level up to earn these upgrades.

  • Soft Rank Reset in Competitive (not much detail, probably like previous resets)

  • 6v6 Competitive Queue - Open Queue with max 2 Tanks (Mid Season)

  • Overwatch Classic - GOATS Meta (Mid Season)

  • Freja Play Testing (Late Season)

Season 16 (Late April)

  • Hero Bans (Competitive Only)

  • New Hero Freja - High Skill DPS hero with verticality focus and a Crossbow weapon.

  • Stadium Game Mode - A 5v5 game mode with a best-of-7 round format combining different existing map modes with hero Mod customizations (like Perks but chosen during what appears to be a "buy" phase where you "purchase" them). Sounds something like OW crossed with Valorant/CSGO... Only 14 heroes initially (not the full cast) but more heroes and maps will be added over time. Not clear if this will be an actual competitive mode or not.

Season 17 (July)

  • Map Voting (Competitive Only)

  • Map Rework - Either Suravasa or New Junk City

  • New Flashpoint Map "Aatlis" (weird name but that is what it said)

  • Aqua Play Testing (late season)

Season 18 (Oct)

  • New Hero Aqua - A water ability based hero (likely a Support but not entirely clear confirmed support)

  • Map Rework - Either Suravasa or New Junk City

Season 19 or After

  • New Map - Atlantic Arcology

  • New Map - Tokyo

Cosmetic Changes

Season 15 (February 18th)

  • Mythic Pixiu Zenyatta Skin

  • Rank Icons will now be visible on your hero portrait while in competitive games (assuming only your own will be visible but not 100% clear).

  • Galactic weapon skins

  • Return of Loot Boxes

  • End of Season Weapon Charm reward w/rank icon (Platinum and above)

  • Mythic Widowmaker Weapon (Mid Season)

  • Another LE SSERAFIM Colab (Mid/Late Season)

  • New competitive drives (no idea when, probably mid and/or end of season)

Season 16 (Late April)

  • Doki Doki Juno Mythic Skin

  • Doki Doki Mercy Mythic Weapon (Mid Season)

Season 17 (July)

  • Siberian Tiger D.Va Mythic Skin

  • Reaper Mythic Weapon with a distinct skin for each hand (Mid Season)