Overwatch has ebbed and flowed in popularity over the past decade, and with the release of Season 1, it’s clear that the future has never looked brighter for Blizzard’s hero shooter. Not only is Blizzard dropping five new characters, but it’s also planning to launch new seasons every two months, each featuring a new hero, skins, and balance changes to keep the game fresh.
In hindsight, it’s fair to say that the release of Overwatch 2 was a disaster. The transition to a free-to-play live service multiplayer game arrived with many shortsighted kinks, alongside the promise of a PvE mode that never came to pass, tarnishing Overwatch’s reputation. To make matters worse, Marvel Rivals launched in late 2024, setting new standards for the hero shooter genre with character launches occurring every two months. To put that into context, after less than two years, the Marvel Rivals characters list is almost the same size as the Overwatch roster.
Blizzard really kicked into gear in 2025 by focusing on the elements that make Overwatch special. The addition of perks gave players ways to counter difficult match-ups on the fly, the three heroes released throughout the year were all positively received, and the introduction of the Stadium game mode is essentially a brand new game. The most difficult aspect that often gets overlooked is the game’s balancing, an area that Blizzard has worked hard on, to ensure that players aren’t just picking the same heroes every single match.
While I tried my best to convince my friends that Overwatch was legitimately good again, the damage had already been done. After all, even our very own Lauren Bergin highlighted the game’s inefficiencies when she marked the game with a disappointing 6/10 score in our Overwatch 2 review. “Do I still need to buy the battle pass to unlock the new hero?” and “Did they add back in 6v6?” are some of the questions I’m forced to answer, knowing deep down that it’s next to impossible to convince people who have made up their minds.
With the release of Season 1, it’s suddenly a lot easier to explain why Overwatch is worth playing again. All five of the new characters look like they have the potential to shake up the meta, and the fact that they’re launching at the same time means we’re going to see an immediate shift over the next month. I’m particularly interested to see what impact Jetpack Cat is going to have on our Overwatch tier list, given that she’s the first character who can disrupt fights by hauling players out of combat.
Overwatch Season 1 represents everything Overwatch 2 should have been when it launched back in 2023. The messaging is crystal clear this time around: Overwatch is a well-balanced PvP shooter with substantial updates arriving every two months. The sweeping changes in 2025 proved that Overwatch was truly back, and this latest season makes that message unmistakable to the wider gaming world as it kicks off the year with a bang.
Elsewhere on PixelArena.io we have the latest on the Anran controversy and a full Overwatch characters list with all the new heroes.