Overwatch 2 Is Getting 6v6 Again

Here is what the future of 6v6 will look like in Overwatch 2.

6v6 is back in Overwatch 2, baby.

It's been a long time coming, but Director Aaron Keller has finally released his blog post regarding all of the ongoing tank and 6v6 discourse. Ever since Overwatch cut to one tank and started shaping heroes for a new aggressive gameplay style, players have voiced a lot of frustrations. Now, Keller is hoping to make it right.

Overwatch has changed its formatting throughout its lifetime. You may recall that multiple of the same heroes were even allowed in the game's early days. Then, developers implemented role queue to limit teams to two heroes for each role. This balanced out teams but increased queue times. A solution was eventually found: 5v5.

Cancel your plans, put on your thickest socks and settle in to your cozy spot... you know the one. The 6v6 Director's Take is live now.https://t.co/Uk7F4QT28Y

— Aaron Keller (@aaronkellerOW) July 25, 2024

According to Keller, 6v6 was leading to very long team battles that often didn't end until ultimates were unleashed. Crowd control was starting to take over the game in an unhealthy way so Keller wanted to focus more on FPS and faster matches. To do so, tanks couldn't be as oppressive.

"Tank synergy wasn’t always fun. It slowed the game down, and stabilized it, but sometimes it absolutely ground it to a halt. People point to the double shield meta as an example of this. It wasn’t just about double shields, though. The ability to stack a very defense heavy lineup, especially in game modes that required a team to push through a small choke, caused a lot of matches to feel like there was no progress at all," Keller wrote.

• Related: OW2 Devs Address Tank Problem

On top of alleged gameplay improvements, 5v5 also reduced queue times for all roles. This is because a lot of players don't really want to play tank so it took a long time to find two back in the 6v6 days.

Does That Mean 6v6 Is Not Coming to Overwatch 2?

 Despite standing up for 5v5 in his blog, Keller didn't shut down the possibility of 6v6 returning. Tanks are having issues with balance and oppressiveness even with 5v5, meaning it hasn't truly solved everything perfectly.

To see if 6v6 is possible with the most recent heroes and their aggressive kits, Keller has decided to run a series of events to test it all out. Some 6v6 tests will be coming to Overwatch 2 based on player suggestion. This will allow developers to see how new upgrades and additions will impact 6v6, since many may become too powerful or even making the game underperform due to its pace.

"While a limited time test could arrive sooner, the team is still investigating exactly how long it would take to permanently increase performance across the game. This would be a large effort that would most likely take at least several seasons to accomplish," Keller wrote.

Keller's biggest fear, if 6v6 remains popular after the tests, is how to fix queue times. It wasn't possible to do it the first time the game was 6v6. Can it be done this time around?

Said Keller: "The outcome of these tests would give us a lot of valuable information to consider moving forward. We’d run the test for a few weeks and gauge interest from the community. Then we’d measure the impact it had on the other experiences in Overwatch 2, like 5v5, Arcade, etc. We’d take the lessons from this playtest to see what we can learn about the mode within the current game ecosystem and for the future of Overwatch. We would reflect carefully on the learnings from whatever test we run and explore how to best give players what's being asked for. Whether that’s a world of 5v5, 6v6 or even both, is for future us to figure out."