Is Overwatch 2 Killing The Tanks?

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Is Overwatch 2 Killing The Tanks?

It seems as though tanks won't be as prevalent in OW2.


During the Overwatch 2 Developer PVP Livestream, Aaron Keller mentioned that the game will see teams of five players fight for the win, instead of six players. The new format of Overwatch teams will now be one tank, two supports, and two DPS.

What this change ultimately means is that Overwatch 2 teams will have one less tank than the original Overwatch. With eight existing tank heroes and hopefully more to come, what will be the new place of tank players in Overwatch 2?

Overwatch League Champion and main tank player for San Francisco Shock Matthew “super” Delisi admits that the tank changes in Overwatch 2 are pretty scary for tank specialists. As many Overwatch players already left the game for Valorant months ago, like Overwatch League 2019 MVP Jay “sinatraa” Won, Blizzard is taking a risk in reducing the number of available tank spots in a team.

However, playing with only one tank could be interesting. The heroes will be balanced to adapt to this new team configuration. For instance, Winston can now hit enemies at a longer range and Reinhardt has two charges of Fire Strike instead of one.

An in-game screenshot of Winston using his Tesla Cannon in Overwatch 2 with an explanation of his weapon changes in a small text box.

Aaron Keller, Game Director of Overwatch, said that “tanks can be problematic”. And the team tried to make the combat system easier to understand. This shift from 6v6 to 5v5 could bring a new pace to Overwatch games. Especially with all the new techniques for tank heroes.

Overwatch 2 has no official release date yet, but more information should be available in the upcoming months.

Is Overwatch 2 Killing The Tanks?
Ophelie Castelot
Ophelie is both an esport and journalism lover. She is the former head of the CS:GO section for a major esport website. Ophelie has been analyzing Overwatch ever since its release in 2016.