Overwatch 2 players are asking Blizzard to change the way new characters are introduced after how the team brought Mauga into the game.
Players think that introducing heroes through early access weekend will help to both increase excitement for the characters release and also help the developers see how it fits with the game as a whole.
Players would like Blizzard to introduce heroes differently in the future after the success of Mauga’s early access weekend
After the newest Overwatch hero, Mauga, was released for a single weekend at the start of November, players are asking Blizzard to use the early access weekend model for future character releases.
In a post shared to the Overwatch subreddit, user celalith shared a post advocating for hero releases to be done in a similar way to Mauga’s in the future, which said: “Blizzard must have gathered orders of magnitude more data than they normally would have with internal playtests, thanks to the Mauga early release weekend.
“Hopefully he’ll release in a good state because of that, but is there any reason not to continue this for future heroes? I feel like Lifeweaver might not have released in such an awful state, and Illari might’ve been tuned down a little bit if the wider player base had some time with them before the full release.”
Mauga’s release came with an overwhelming consensus that the hero wasn’t quite ready to be put into play, whether because of his lack of armour, a large hitbox or limited range.
This has left some players hopeful that Blizzard will use the feedback from the early access weekend to improve the hero before launch, and that they could use a similar method in the future.
Players think early access weekends are a great idea
In answer to the question posed by celalith of whether or not early access weekends should continue, a Reddit user wrote: “Hell yes they should. It’s an easy way to hype people for a release, and an easy way to test the hero out themselves so they can make adjustments before it goes live.”
Another Reddit user said: “I think it’s cool, and more fair and effective than using something like the old PTR or closed testing. Both players and Bliz get tons of real time, real world information about the new hero’s kit viability, synergy, environmental interactions, bugs, and “not a bug, it’s a features”. Awesome tangible way to build hype for the majority of the player base that doesn’t interact or even hang around in forums.”
“Extra play testing is always a good thing,” another said. “It won’t guarantee that every kink will be ironed out, but the amount of data they can glean from across all skill levels, with enough time to implement changes is a good start.
“One of the best calls they’ve made so far.”
With recent heroes like Lifeweaver falling short of players expectations, the ability for players to interact with the newest addition without having to put money into a battle pass, and to share their feedback with Blizzard could be invaluable.
We will have to wait and see as to whether Blizzard decides to make use of this option again with future hero releases.
