It might not seem like much, but Overwatch 2 just made a major casual-friendly change.
Overwatch 2’s newest patch details some of the sweeping, game-changing adjustments included in Season 15, but Blizzard Entertainment also hid a seemingly small change that’s actually a pretty major win for casual players. “Emotes can now be cancelled mid-animation shortly after they are activated,” the developer explains.
Everyone knows what emotes are, of course. You press a button, choose from a weapon-wheel-like menu, and make your favorite character Moonwalk. In Overwatch 2, though, you’d only really activate the cool animations in the waiting rooms before a match starts or if you’ve just wiped out the entire enemy team and are certain they won’t ambush you mid-pose. That’s because the second you clicked on an emote, you were locked into the animation until it finished (unless it was one of those ‘sit’ animations that you could jump up from after a few seconds, but I digress.)
The latest Overwatch 2 patch changes that and is unironically the best casual-friendly adjustment the game’s gotten since it launched over two years ago. It now feels a bit closer to the party-game vibes the original had.
Cancellable emotes are definitely not the most major change overall in Overwatch 2 Season 15, however. Blizzard just inserted upgradeable perks for every character in the game, borrowing from one of Paladins’ most unique ideas and letting you buildcraft mid-match. Loot boxes are also back, and you can see a transparent break down of the drop rates in the latest patch notes.
Marvel Rivals’ success is actually “really great” for Overwatch 2, and the FPS’s director says the “pressure” that Blizzard feels is mostly “internal”
