Blizzard Entertainment recently held an Overwatch 2 "What's Next" livestream which unveiled several details about the upcoming hero shooter. Overwatch 2 will feature several changes from the original title, including a smaller 5v5 team composition.

Teams in Overwatch have been composed of tank, support, and damage roles since the game released back in 2016. Several changes have been implemented into Overwatch through countless updates since, but Overwatch 2 is bringing a lot more content to the table whenever it releases.

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The 5v5 team structure will continue to use a role queue system as it groups together one tank, two support, and two DPS players per team. Most teams that succeed in Overwatch are composed of two of each of the roles, or will swap the second DPS for a third tank in some cases. Casual PvP players may not notice as much of a difference in gameplay when Overwatch 2 shrinks team composition down to 5v5, as being minus one player may mean the difference between touching the objective to go into overtime or getting a big multi-kill from ultimate abilities.

The recent Overwatch 2 What's Next livestream also unveiled the New York City hybrid map, which includes key landmarks such as Grand Central Station. New Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller cohosted the What's Next stream with associate art director Dion Rogers and lead hero designer Geoff Goodman, who all gave new details about the upcoming shooter.

Blizzard has “always tried to make our combat easy to read and very understandable," according to Keller. "Sometimes it’s just hard to track what 11 other players are doing on the battlefield. Removing two of those simplifies everything and it allows players to understand everything that’s happening around them and make better choices because of it.”

Part of Blizzard Entertainment's inspiration to shrink the size of teams in PvP is the clunkiness of tanks, while reducing the amount of players on the battlefield may also help players keep track of what's going on. Developers at Blizzard have reportedly tested various team dynamics from 4v4 to 7v7, and 5v5 seemed the right number for Overwatch 2. The new 5v5 team size will apparently extend to Competitive, Quick Play, and new Push PvP game modes in Overwatch 2, according to Blizzard.

Since Overwatch 2 will prominently feature PvE elements, players who don't want to try the new 5v5 competitive dynamic can simply keep to NPC enemies. These changes to Overwatch 2 may end up changing the original game's PvP, but until the release of the sequel fans can expect teams to remain the same 6v6 size.

Overwatch 2 is in development for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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Source: GameSpot