Blizzard is finally doing it: Overwatch 2 will try 6v6 again, reversing the single biggest change of the sequel

One of the most contentious changes in Overwatch 2 was its shift to a 5v5 format. The loss of a tank hero on each team fundamentally changed how it's played, and debates over whether or not it should go back to 6v6 have gone on since its release. In a new blog post, game director Aaron Keller laid out plans to try 6v6 again, along with other format changes, in a series of experimental modes coming later this year.

A 6v6 mode won't happen immediately though because 12-player games could «underperform on older systems,» Keller says. Blizzard will need «at least several seasons» to ready the game for that, so it's going to try other format changes first.

«When you look at the changes to Overwatch since its inception, it’s clear that many of those have reduced some of the variety within an Overwatch match,» Keller said. «We get feedback from some players that Overwatch can feel 'the same' from game to game. While much of this gets attributed to 5v5, we feel that there is more at play here.»

Later this year, in season 13, Overwatch will have a limited-time 'Quick Play: Hacked' mode that will let you bend the current one tank, two damage dealers, and two healers team composition restriction. The goal is to bring «some of the freedom back to an Overwatch match without the severity of issues that accompanied [6v6]», namely long queue times due to a lack of tank players.

One of the original goals with Overwatch 2's 5v5 format was to significantly reduce the amount of time you'd have to wait to find a match, and Keller includes a graph in the blog post that illustrates just how effective it was at fixing that. By kicking a tank off of each team—the least played role—wait times were more than halved. A return to 6v6 could mean you'd be waiting longer to find a match than it would take to finish it, a risk that «still gives me anxiety,» Keller says.

But the debates over Overwatch 2's current format were too persistent to ignore, so Blizzard wants to try stuff out and see what