Overwatch 2’s 6v6 playtest is a success, but tank player numbers are waning in the experiment, leaving many in the community confused as to where they may have gone.
6v6 has taken the spotlight in Overwatch recently, triumphing over Hazard’s release and much of Season 14’s other content. Early player reception seemed to be completely over the moon for 6v6, including from tank players who felt as if the mode overall made tanking an enjoyable experience again.
The tank experience in 5v5 is wrought with counterpicking, as there isn’t a second tank to cover any weaknesses, and mismatched expectations as tanks are the only contributor to that role. As a result, many in the community anticipated the role to increase in popularity during the 6v6 playtest.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case and some Overwatch 2 fans aren’t sure why.
Where have all the good tanks gone?
According to Aaron Keller, queue times were a significant reason why the team decided to pivot the format into 5v5 instead of 6v6. As this issue is still a concern as evidenced by Keller’s latest blog post, waning tank queues could prove to be an issue for the longevity of 6v6 going forward. Unfortunately, some players have noticed that tanks in 6v6 have become unpopular again.
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“The reality is that tank is an unpopular role most people do not enjoy playing,” said one player. “It has always been, and it will stay this way in the future. Many people would claim tanking is fun in 6v6 is to maintain their agenda but wouldn’t actually play that role when logged into the game.”
A common sentiment is the returning dynamic of the “main tank” and “off tank,” where the main tank is more responsible for soaking up the damage from the enemy team and making space. “You are basically at the mercy of your duo,” stated another player.
It’s worth noting that queue times may differ based on what server you are playing in, as some servers report longer queue times for tank, indicating that the tank queue has more players than other roles.
Regardless of current tank queues, the team will initiate another 6v6 playtest later next year, which will allow players to have a maximum of three characters per role but a minimum of one per role. This would eliminate many queue time issues by creating an “open queue,” where players do not queue for one particular role.
