“Marvel Rivals positively had an influence on us in a number of other ways,” Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller stated throughout a panel on the 2026 Sport Builders Convention on Friday. Whereas Keller did not point out the favored Overwatch 2 competitor whereas speaking about Blizzard’s efforts to revitalize its multiplayer shooter, a fan introduced it up within the Q&A on the finish of the panel. And he gamely tackled the query.”I believe one of many greatest ones was seeing the quantity of pleasure that new gamers to Rivals had for this large drop of heroes,” Keller stated. “It received us speaking about, hey, what if we may simply drop 30 new heroes into Overwatch? What would the participant response to that be? As a result of it nearly felt like the discharge of that sport was one thing like that.”Blizzard did not go fairly that far, however Keller implied that NetEase’s competing shooter influenced its determination so as to add 5 new characters to Overwatch directly within the newest season: Domina, Anran, Emre, Mizuki, and most significantly, Jetpack Cat.Article continues beneath
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In comparison with most dwell service video games, Marvel Rivals’ launch roster and subsequent replace cadence have been intense—it has 47 characters as of this writing, simply three shy of Overwatch 2. Blizzard’s had a decade to hit that quantity; Marvel Rivals did not launch till late 2024.Overwatch’s revitalization effort has been going effectively. The brand new season, which additionally noticed the ‘2’ go away the sport’s title, noticed participant counts rise for 2 consecutive weeks, quite than peaking rapidly after which dropping, one thing Blizzard says hasn’t occurred for the reason that Overwatch 2 launch in 2022.One other 5 new Overwatch characters are coming earlier than the tip of the 12 months.Maintain updated with a very powerful tales and the very best offers, as picked by the PC Gamer staff.
