By Jacob Miller | Feb 11, 2026
At the centre of the Update is the Conquest Event, a five-week challenge in which players must choose between being an Overwatch agent or being a Talon agent. Each week, players will pledge allegiance to one or the other faction, and will be given faction-based challenges to complete throughout the week and will also earn rewards by completing a seasonal Battle Pass event. Upon completion of your faction's Battle Pass, you can choose to either remain loyal and continue to earn additional Loot Boxes through the Prestige Pass, or you can switch factions as a Double Agent and earn rewards from the other faction.Progress will be tracked globally each week to determine which faction will 'win' the event. At the conclusion of the Conquest Event, players will have been able to earn almost 100 Loot Boxes, including Epic and Legendary versions of the Loot Boxes, and over 40 Cosmetic and Customization items, as well as unique Voice Lines, Charms, and Echo Skins for both factions. Following the conclusion of the Conquest Event, will be the Lunar New Year celebration, which will take place from February 13th - March 2nd, and will feature Roadhog's Catch-a-mari withSome of the story elements will be represented by the environment too. For example, the Watchpoint: Gibraltar map has experienced damage from a Talon attack (i.e. broken bridges, new paths to navigate, environmental hazards, etc.) so this is reflected through the design of this map. The Rialto and Colosseo maps have also had Talon posters and statues added and with the introduction of another Push map called Serenza which depicts a Talon stronghold located in Italy.
In order to provide a more entertaining Overwatch 2 experience, communication and interface systems have been updated across the board; as part of this update, all players will have access to a new feature called Praise that enables players to praise their teammates through hero-specific voice lines in the Comms wheel. New contextual alerts will also notify players of team members back-capping or being invisible (i.e. Reaper) on the battlefield. Other enhancements include improvements to the Ping system and Advanced Information Panel, notifying users when one of their defined in-game teams returns to their natural position; as well, a proficiently modernised user interface has been developed that emphasises social interaction rather than promoting direct gameplay interactivity.
Significant balance changes across a majority of the heroes will continue to change Overwatch. 11 heroes (i.e. Roadhog, Sombra, Baptiste, and new hero Anran) will receive buffs and 18 heroes will receive new abilities with new perks (i.e. Electric Charge for Winston, Rollin' Round-Up for Cassidy, and Sow The Seed for Lifeweaver) while D.Va, Reaper, Wuyang, Vendetta, and Zarya will receive nerfs (they each received some degree of compensating buff). The heroes in the Stadium mode were also adjusted for balance including Doomfist, Reinhardt, Genji, Reaper, Sojourn, and Lucio who were balanced upwards while Winston and Freja were balanced downwards.
The competitive gameplay mode has been overhauled; thus, all players will experience an entire rank reset in both Role Queue and Open Queue. Every player will begin as rank 0 after completing 10 placement matches. The Hero SKR's will also be reset but will allow for softer ratings after being placed in their correct rankings, and all players will continue to maintain the same approximate disbursement. Lastly, a new Competitive Weapon Variant called Crimson Wolf will replace the previous Galactic variant and may be earned/collected through earning CPs; players that reach the Diamond rank or above will earn the Doomfist's Crimson Wolf skin.
There is an updated Leaderboard System in place that includes a new Top 500 Challenger which has had an updates to rule, new method of score calculation, and an updated eligibility/list of requirements to be on the leaderboard. The former statute of qualifications to be on the leaderboard has been eliminated and there is currently no limit on the number of player's that may obtain Competitive Weapon Variant badges through placement in the top 500 players. The calculation of Challenger Score Payouts will also now favour the higher ranked players (i.e. ideally Master through Champion 1).
In addition to system improvements, a number of newly released content has either been added or updated including Vendetta replacing Talon's ex-leader (therefore, bringing her full set of Powers and items into the Stadium), Ashe receiving a complete rework (including new burning focused mechanics and redesigned abilities), and/or introduced a new Push map, Serenza, into the Stadium map rotation. Lastly, there are several new characters, new voice actress' have been added with each season's content, enhanced the ability for players to form social bonds, new seasonal cosmetic items from Season 15-20 have been added, and most importantly, the concurrent players have substantially increased as a result of all of the simultaneously implemented changes due to the resurgence of Overwatch 2 by the player community.
