Overwatch 2’s seventh season goes live today and included in the patch notes were changes to how respawns work. Blizzard is making teammates who die in quick succession respawn at the same time in the hope of getting them to group up ahead of the next fight.
Here’s how that works, according to the devs:
- Heroes who die within five seconds of each other will respawn together, resulting in some players having either a slightly longer or shorter queue than the standard 10 seconds.
- Heroes who die more than five seconds from another player eliminated will still respawn in 10 seconds on their own.
For now, the group respawn change does not apply to Competitive modes. Blizzard plans to test this update out in Unranked modes in Season 7 before determining whether to apply the retooled respawns to ranked play. The devs may also modify how group respawns work and test them further before bringing them to Competitive down the line.
“We think that team fights are some of the most enjoyable moments in our game, but we’ve all been in matches where team cohesion — or lack thereof — makes these moments a rarity,” Team 4 wrote in its developer comments. “These matches often turn into stomps for the team that can’t group up, and preventing stomps is a high priority for us.”
This seems like a smart idea. It can feel futile to try and get certain players to group up at times. It can be demoralizing if your side gets dunked on because your teammates ignore the fact this is a team-based game.
Hopefully, this plan works as intended, but there’s still every chance that teammates who respawn together will split up and go their separate ways. The change may not do much to deter lone wolves who are on a different respawn cadence from the rest of the team either. At least Blizzard’s trying something. Fingers crossed it’s a step in the right direction.
For more news and updates on Overwatch 2 and other games, follow my Forbes blog! You’ll get a weekly round-up email that includes everything I publish. You’d be doing me a solid, too — it’s a great way to support me and my work at no cost.
Read the full article here
