Members of the Overwatch 2 development team have recently been spotted on Reddit, answering questions about the game that touch on everything from plans for a beta, to cross-play, to the possibility of a ping system.
In the AMA (or AUA) on the Overwatch subreddit, the team invited fans to ask questions and, though they said they didn’t have “any announcements to make about the future” and asked participants not to ask about “unreleased content”, they did give some answers, albeit vague ones, about Overwatch 2.
When it comes to introducing cross-play and cross-progression in Overwatch 2, Blizzard technical director, John Lafleur couldn’t be drawn on making any firm announcements but he did say that the team is “pretty excited about the possibilities of cross-play and cross-progression.”
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As far as how these features might look in Overwatch 2, he added that “if we go this route” then the team would tackle cross-play first, “given the additional complexities of cross-progression”.
Perhaps a less-surprising but still-interesting answer related to plans for an Overwatch 2 beta. When asked about the possibility of a beta, Lafleur said “almost certainly, yes.” However, he wasn’t open to giving rough date for when it could be expected to take place, adding, “If I knew when, I couldn’t tell you. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
A final point of interest in the AMA relates to the introduction of a ping system for player communication, popularized by Apex Legends, which Game director Aaron Keller said the team has “definitely considered”. Not only that, he admitted there’s a “prototype of it running internally right now”.
As for whether Overwatch 2 will actually have a ping system on release, Keller couldn’t say: “We don’t make a habit of promising things to players until they are actually announced and I’m not going to break that tradition right now…but it is something we are excited about as a team and are working through issues currently.”
These are only a few of the topics touched on during the AMA and you can find the whole thing to peruse at your leisure on Reddit.
When will we see more?
This AMA comes not long after Blizzard hosted an Overwatch 2 livestream on May 20. Over the course of the two-hour livestream, a bunch of new details on the game were shown off and revealed, among them 5v5 PvP teams, a brand new map and more.
At the moment, Overwatch 2 doesn’t have a release date and now that Blizzcon 2021 has ben cancelled, we probably won't get one for a while. What we do know is that Overwatch 2, like Diablo 4, won’t launch in 2021, so the earliest we can expect to see it is in 2022. When Overwatch 2 does release, it’ll be playable on PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PS5 and PS4.
