Competitive mode is returning to Overwatch, and a slew of other changes are also planned.
Jeff Kaplan has been remarkably transparent in regards to information about Overwatch's development past, present, and future. That trend continued on Wednesday as he responded to a question on the forums which simply read, "I mean, what you guys are planning. Where is overwatch going?"
In the lengthy response, which can be read in its entirety here, Mr. Kaplan revealed several key points to be on the lookout for in Overwatch's near future, and for further development cycles to come. In handy bullet-point form, Jeff Kaplan mentioned the following:
- Content patches into early 2017
- Improvement to Spectator/Broadcast Client
- Competitive Play Mode
- Public Test Realm
- New Heroes and New Maps
- Custom Games
- Improved Progression System
- More Social Features
There is plenty to be cautiously optimistic about, however, Jeff Kaplan warns that some of the features might not happen, so let us not treat this list of plans as gospel just yet. What is still disappointing, however, it the lack of mention of a replay or demo file system that most in the competitive community are begging for. Also, there is very little mention in the way of in-game support for different types of competitive gamemodes, namely stopwatch. So while Overwatch seems to be planning a great deal of features for the base game, and spectator improvements are always welcome, many of the features that the competitive Overwatch scene wants the most don't seem to be in the pipeline at all. Here is hoping they are simply omissions, and are so far along to being implemented that they simply slipped Mr. Kaplan's mind.
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