What we know about the Overwatch development road map

We’re over halfway through 2018, and Overwatch has already received two new heroes, a revamp to the Uprising event, improved seasonal events, new maps, hero reworks and more. While the pace of Overwatch development can be slow and steady compared to a faster-paced game like League of Legends, there’s still a lot to look forward to.

The first thing is the release of the Summer Games. The August Summer Games event kicks off in the first week of August (Aug. 2 for 2016 and Aug. 8 for 2017), and was the first event to ever debut in Overwatch. This will be the first time we see the third iteration of an existing event, so we may get some new changes to the format. If not, we can enjoy a selection of summer-themed skins and the return of Lucioball.

As for reworks, the last time we looked at the schedule in April, Hanzo, Symmetra, “someone else”, and Torbjorn were all due to be overhauled. Three out of four of those reworks are done. Hanzo, Symmetra, and Sombra have all been reworked in recent months. Symmetra’s rework was a fundamental change to nearly every aspect of the hero, while Hanzo and Sombra received smaller scale (but still substantial) changes.

Next up is Torbjorn. We don’t know when the new rework will be released, but it will have some big changes to his current turret system and most likely a whole-new ultimate.

Chances are, we’ll receive the Torbjorn rework before the October-November Halloween Terror event, which kicks off in the beginning of October (the 11th in 2016 and the 10th in 2017) and runs through the beginning of November. Halloween terror brings Junkenstein’s Revenge and fun, seasonal costume skins.

Right after Halloween Terror will be BlizzCon 2018. If last year is any indication, we can probably expect Hero 29, a new map, and a bundle of cosmetics. If we’re really lucky, we may get a cinematic or two in the meantime.

Finally, Winter Wonderland will kick off in the first half of December and run until the new year. Mei’s Snowball Offensive and Yeti Hunt have both run as special events during this seasonal event, and we’ll also get some winter-appropriate skins. We may also receive a new comic; the lore-heavy Reflections was published in 2016, and Yeti Hunt had the considerably lighter Yeti Hunt.

There may be some surprises along the way, and more developer plans will come to light as the weeks progress, but this should serve as a roadmap for Overwatch’s development throughout the remainder of 2018.