There is big news this week in Overwatch, beginning with the recent Developer Update video below. Jeff Kaplan has announced that the Competitive Open Queue is moving from the Arcade to become a full game mode. The mode is the second most-played in South Korea, yet surprisingly played less in North America than the Mystery Heroes mode, something that the developers did not expect.
This means that when Competitive Season 22 wraps up and 23 begins, players will be able to select the new cart for Competitive Play from the menu, choosing between Open Queue and the standard 2-2-2 composition.
Apart from this addition of permanent modes, there are also several balance changes being tweaked that should go live in their current forms soon, or with minor adjustments. These mainly deal with reducing the potential healing output of Ana, while buffing Mercy in the same regard. Zenyatta and his Damage Orb debuff have been reverted to 30%, and Bastion will be seeing some changes to see more play across all skill ranks.
The Hero Pool bans have also been determined for this week, with Mei, Tracer, Orisa, and Moira out of commission. This leaves D.Va up for grabs, sporting a massive pick rate recently with 61.2% of games. Finally, competitive play resumes this weekend with the Overwatch League on May 16 and 17.
