Hidden Overwatch 2 update adds highly-requested feature players have waited ages for

The Overwatch 2 devs added a secret new feature in the game’s latest update that wasn’t included in the patch notes – and it’s something players have requested for a long time.

Back in Overwatch 1, the game had three unique PvP story events. These events contained a special feature that allowed players to see the health and status effects of everyone on their team at the top of their screen.

This allowed support players to instantly see how their teammates were doing HP-wise and assist them.

When Overwatch 2’s PvE story content was released in Season 6, this feature returned, but it was refined. Instead of being at the top, the devs moved the team’s HP to the bottom left side.

The PvE campaign was ultimately reportedly canceled due to poor sales, but the teammate feature was a hit… So much so that players instantly requested that it be repurposed for the main PvP portion of OW2.

Now, after years of waiting for this mechanic to be added to PvP, players have finally got their wish. Sort of.

Overwatch 2 finally adds long-request UI feature, but there’s a catch

As spotted by OW Cavalry, the latest Quick Play: Hacked event dubbed ‘Kingmaker’ has introduced this PvE feature, and it’s available in the game’s options settings.

Players can enable it by going to their settings and selecting ‘PVP Team Overlay.’ This lets users see teammates’ health and status effects right above their own health bar.

Fans were quickly in favor of the option, with many insisting that it would be an extremely helpful quality-of-life change for support players.

“I think it’s a great addition to the game and will help everyone in the team,” one said.

Another chimed in: “Been wanting this since I started playing support, my situational awareness is not ready for a mute team bro.”

“Would also be nice to have a bit of customization with size and opacity, but for now this would be awesome to have so I don’t have to look at Leaderboard as much to tell if we’ve got numbers,” someone else suggested.

Interestingly, this change wasn’t included in the Kingmaker patch notes. Instead, they simply explain that Kingmaker is a limited-time mode that caps a role at two players. However, the role that only has one player receives a bonus effect, such as reduced cooldowns or a health buff.

We’ll have to see if Blizzard decides to make this a permanent feature once Season 14 launches on December 10 alongside the latest tank hero Hazard.