Overwatch 2 has had its share of issues, from controversial decisions regarding the Season 1 battlepass to day 1 DDOS attacks that marred gamers opportunity to enjoy the new rendition of the beloved hero shooter, but a new leak indicates the strangest may yet come. One of the changes that was introduced in beta and made its way into the final game is the decision to effectively eliminate so called “crowd control” abilities. Abilities that slow or mildly disrupt still exist but with the exception of Ana’s sleep dart, fully disabling abilities changed entirely. The purpose of this change has been stated by staff and community managers on the forums as a method of reducing the strength of “hard counters” in the game. This is referring to when a specific character is particularly well suited to shutting down another character. This can be especially frustrating for players like me who are Genji mains and have had their forthcoming Play of the Game cancelled by a random stun grenade. One Blizzard Activision developer alluded to in a now deleted tweet that the change was partially influenced by an attempt to make the American cowboy character, Cassidy, who was originally named after shamed Blizzard playboy Jesse Mcree, less popular and quietly phase him out of the game.

However, a reputable leaker, who is presumably very close to the development team, revealed that other changes may be coming. Data from the latter days of the beta and earliest days of the “early access” release of Overwatch 2 show that the lack of hard counters is causing significant lopsided dominance from long time iconic favorites like Tracer and Genji. Lacking strong cancels and stuns has resulted in enormously exciting Play of the Game from top tier flanker-type heroes and many players have been in uproar about it. In order to keep as many people happy as possible, the team is now conducting internal playtesting on map-based bans for specific heroes. For example, maps that lack cover and have wide open sky such as Colosseo and Circuit Royale have seen teams dominated by excellent Pharah and Echo players and this creates an unwelcome experience for players who want to enjoy indirect fire or close range heroes like Junkrat and Doomfist. In the current testing build, Genji, Ana, and Widowmaker are banned from Midtown due to Grand Central turning into an inevitable killzone with long sight lines for snipers and ranged healers that keep their damage dealers alive like lethal juggernauts.

While details are still difficult to lock down, here is a breakdown of the known bans from the internal test build:

Circuit Royale BANS: Echo, Junker Queen, Pharah

Colosseo BANS: Ashe, Echo, Pharah

King’s Row BANS: Mei, Winston, Reinhardt, Doomfist

Midtown BANS: Genji, Ana, Widowmaker

This is great news for balancing the game of Overwatch 2 ahead of the true competitive scene that is soon to follow. What bans are you excited to see in the future? Share in the comments!