Overwatch 2 director apologizes for the way self-healing heroes in Season 9 was announced: 'It was a mistake to talk about this lone change out of context'

Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller has apologized for last week's announcement of upcoming changes that will grant every tank and DPS hero a self-healing ability, saying that there's a whole host of changes coming to the game in season 9 and talking about this one out of context «was a mistake.»

The upcoming addition of self-healing for tank and DPS heroes represents a genuine sea change for Overwatch 2. Associate editor and Overwatch knower Tyler Colp said Blizzard is "taking a sledgehammer to the way Overwatch 2 is played," calling the new passive ability «the first explicit step toward untethering support players from focusing on their team, an essential reason why anyone would want to play the role in the first place.»

«Overwatch used to celebrate teamwork and now it's a nasty little burden that every balance change and hero release seems targeted to alleviate,» Colp wrote. «By minimizing the opportunities for support to step in, the distinction between all three roles blurs and the web that holds a team together dissolves with it. Instead of an arena for balletic expressions of teamwork, changes like this flatten Overwatch into a cartoony firing range.»

Keller's subsequent apology isn't for the planned addition of self-healing, but for the way it was revealed. «Clarifying a few things with the self-heal,» Keller tweeted. «It's one part of a much larger set of changes coming to the game in S9. Internally we're talking about, and targeting some of these changes at damage spikiness in game, the role of DPS in securing kills, and the strength of healing.

»It was a mistake to talk about this lone change out of context, since its a part of a much bigger set coming to Season 9. Sorry for that, and I look forward to