The Overwatch 2 devs have dropped a big hint about future hero designs after Lifeweaver launched with a very complex kit.
Lifeweaver, the newest Overwatch 2 support, has been out for over a week now and players have gotten to learn the ins and outs of the hero’s powerful abilities.
As players prepare for him to be activated in ranked play with some major buffs and revamped changes to his controls, the Overwatch 2 devs have admitted that his design is a “bit of a departure” from other heroes.
In a new blog post, Game Director Aaron Keller addressed packing so many abilities into one hero and teased the possibility of releasing more characters with such “complex” kits.
Overwatch 2 devs tease basic and complex heroes after Lifeweaver
According to Keller, Lifeweaver’s release has given the team “a lot to think about for hero development” and their complexity.
“The number of unique/high-impact abilities on Lifeweaver can be seen as a bit of a departure for Overwatch hero design. In the past, we might have spread these abilities among more than one hero – this is how Genji and Hanzo were created,” he said.
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That said, the team is excited about how many big plays he can make with a very wide range of possibilities thanks to his Petal Platform, Life Grip, and Tree of Life ultimate. So, while he’s difficult to play, the devs think learning to play is a fun experience.
He went on to touch on upcoming heroes saying, “While we won’t make every Overwatch hero this complex, we think there’s room to make more heroes like Lifeweaver in the future.”
We already know that the next OW2 hero will be a support with the team at Blizzard looking to release two healers for every pair of DPS and tank to help balance the roles.
Whether or not the next hero ends up being this complex remains to be seen, but Keller also added that both Lifeweaver and Ramattra were released “softer” than they would have liked from a balance point of view.
Although the team doesn’t want heroes to be OP at launch, they don’t want them to be too weak either, so expect the next hero to be tuned up a bit when they release in a few months for Season 6.
