Summary
Overwatch 2has officially revealed the patch notes for the spellbinding 13th season of the first-person shooter. These Competitive Play and interface improvements, hero balance, and other changes are all live inOverwatch 2right now.
The penultimate season ofOverwatch 2has finally arrived. Titled Spellbinder, Season 13 inOverwatch 2features a Battle Pass full of bewitching cosmetics, and introduces tons of quality-of-life improvements, including tweaks to several iconic maps.
Now, Blizzard has revealed the full content update notes for Season 13, including before-and-after comparisons for all theOverwatch 2map changes. Circuit Royale, Dorado, Havana, and Numbani have all received a fair number of adjustments across all of their points, largely focused towards improving the flow of battle, adding extra cover for attackers at brutal chokepoints, and other tweaks to even the odds at difficult junctures. Additionally, the Clash game mode has received some adjustments to point capture speed and respawn times to help prevent stomps in the newer game mode.
Of course, a newOverwatch 2patch also means balance updates for its cast of heroes. In addition to the buffs to Mauga and Sojourn, nerfs to Ramattra and Juno, and therework of Sombra’s kit, Blizzard introduced a small buff to Baptiste and nerf to Brigitte. The recoil from the former’s Biotic Launcher primary fire has been reduced, while the cooldown on the latter’s Repair Pack has been increased by half of a second.
To help improve quality-of-life, theOverwatch 2scoreboard now has interactive buttons that let fans swiftly adjust their mic, voice chat, and text chat settings, and also lets players quickly report and mute problematic players. Various adjustments have also been made to Competitive Play inOverwatch 2, including upgrades to matchmaking efficiency and requirements to appear on the Top 500 Leaderboard.
Fans will also have plenty of in-game events and game modes to enjoy in Season 13.Halloween Terror has returned toOverwatch 2, featuring the brand-new Junkenstein’s Laboratory Team Deathmatch mode that introduces customizable hero talents, alongside the classic PvE experiences in Junkenstein’s Revenge and Wrath of the Bride. TheMy Hero Academiacollaboration also begins on October 17 and runs through October 30, featuring five new skins inspired by the popular anime. Then, starting October 31, players can challenge Hero Mastery courses for Cassidy and Brigitte – and can complete exclusive challenges on them through November 12 to earn exclusive rewards and Battle Pass XP.
Overwatch 2 Season 13 Patch Notes – Aug 03, 2025
SEASON 13 - SEASON OF SPELLBINDERS
Haunt your foes in Season 13 with Mythic Spellbinder Widowmaker, a master of witchcraft with stylish animations and enchanting effects. Then battle it out in Junkenstein’s Laboratory, the spooky new Halloween Terror PvP game mode with mutations that turn heroes to horrors! Plus, heroes and villains watch their ideas of justice collide in the My Hero Academia collab featuring exclusive cosmetics inspired by the anime’s iconic characters. Get ready for a season filled with magic, might, and macabre moments!
OVERWATCH 2 X MY HERO ACADEMIA®
Choose heroism or villainy with the latest Overwatch 2 collaboration featuring exclusive skins inspired by My Hero Academia’s iconic characters. Battle as a hero of justice with Tracer as Deku, Reinhardt as All Might, and Juno as Uravity, or create chaos with Reaper as Tomura Shigaraki and Kiriko as Himiko Toga. Don’t miss the Mega Bundle for the ultimate My Hero Academia collection—available for a limited time only, October 17-30.
© K. Horikoshi / Shueisha, My Hero Academia Project
HALLOWEEN TERROR 2024
This Halloween, the Halloween Terror event delivers a spooky good time with both brand-new and returning game modes. Experience the eerie madness of Junkenstein’s Laboratory, a fast-paced Team Deathmatch where you can enhance your heroes with powerful cursed talent cards. Then return to the chilling co-op adventure of Junkenstein’s Revenge, battling hordes of zombie Omnics and monstrous bosses. Finally, uncover the terrifying secrets of Adlersbrunn in Wrath of the Bride, a gripping PvE experience filled with puzzles, haunted castles, and jump scares. Face the frights and conquer the terror!
HERO MASTERY MODE - CASSIDY & BRIGITTE
Two new heroes will test their skills in Hero Mastery. Starting on October 31st through to November 12th, you’ll have a chance to perfect your skills with Cassidy’s Peacekeeper or bash bots off the edge with Brigitte’s Shield Bash. Complete exclusive challenges to earn new exclusive rewards and bonus Battle Pass XP as you test your skills in these new courses.
GENERAL UPDATES
Interactive Scoreboard
To give players easier access to social features, especially on controllers, we’ve added the ability to interact with the Scoreboard. The Interactive Scoreboard is intended to make reporting faster and easier, but also to improve your social experience through whatever channels you prefer to communicate in or avoid entirely. The following features are now accessible via Interactive Scoreboard:
Matchmaking Updates
Developer Comments: We’re not seeing any measurable impact from this tech in preventing loss streaks and we’re concerned it might be making queue times longer. So we’re scaling it back for now.
Developer Comments: We believe that match quality improves significantly when you are matched closely with one of the members on the opposing team in the same role. We believe we can tighten this preference without significantly impacting queue times.
Developer Comments: We’ve been thinking about how to improve the Tank experience from every angle, to give them more even matchups and reduce 1-sided matches for the whole team further.
Developer Comments: At our highest ranks these modifiers could sometimes allow very high skill players playing on new accounts to get lucky and surpass their peak ranks considerably, without actually earning their new rank like other players that have played more on their accounts.
Developer Comments: At the highest ranks, groups have had noteworthy advantages against teams composed of all solo players for some time now. Our aim with this addition isn’t to remove the advantage of grouping at higher ranks entirely, but we’d like the advantage of grouping at higher ranks to be less extreme.
Public Custom Games
Developer Comments: A reminder that we’ve been actioning accounts that post disruptive content in the Game Browser and we’re serious about removing problematic players that don’t follow our Code of Conduct. Whenever an account is actioned for a social penalty, they’re reduced to Endorsement Level 0, so the combination of social actions and this feature will allow for one chance to change their behavior before they’re permanently banned. Anyone that is below Endorsement Level 3 can still host games with the “Friends” or “Invite Only” settings, but they will not have access to the “Everyone” setting.
Streamer Protect
Developer Comments: We’ve been listening to community feedback that newer accounts should be required to earn access to the feature, but it’s important that this feature can’t be abused by various types of disruptive players that tend to play on very new accounts. As a reminder, the “Hide My Name” feature does not prevent disruptive players from being punished when they’re reported since we know their actual battle tag behind the scenes.
Challenge Updates
Developer Comments: Challenges are now in the main menu to highlight their rewards, primarily for new Event Challenges.
SHOP UPDATES
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
The requirements to appear on the Top 500 Leaderboard have changed:
HERO UPDATES
General
Developer Comments: This change adds a more friction to counterswapping, especially in the extreme case where two players on opposite teams are both sitting in spawn with the scoreboard open and rapidly switch their heroes in response to each other’s choices.
TANK
Mauga
Developer Comment: Increasing the duration of Mauga’s burn effect will help better reward going for the smaller, harder to hit targets.
Ramattra
Developer Comments: Ramattra’s Pummel projectiles passing through barriers was a source of frustration for players trying to protect themselves or their allies. With these changes enabling Ramattra to deal critical damage to barriers, he will still be a valuable hero choice against barrier mechanics, but won’t immediately apply damage to players on the other side.
Reinhardt
Developer Comments: This is just some fine tuning for the barrier health and regeneration rate as it had become slightly too tough to break through.
DAMAGE
Hanzo
Developer Comments: We are reverting Hanzo back to his previous health now that it’s possible to take out an opposing Hanzo with a well-aimed headshot thanks to the weapon damage changes.
Sojourn
Developer Comments: These Railgun changes swap out the 25 minimum energy it decays to for a longer time before it begins to degenerate which alleviates some of the pressure to quickly use the secondary fire. Disruptor shot is getting a damage increase to helps its effectiveness as an area denial tool, along with additional utility through generating a small amount of Railgun energy to make it more broadly useful.
Sombra
Developer Comments: This is a significant change to Sombra’s playstyle in the hopes of making her more interactive for the opposing team and shifting some of her power from the utility of Stealth and Hack into increased lethality.
Stealth having a limited duration less than the Translocator cooldown is intended to create brief windows of vulnerability. It still enables Sombra to cross through dangerous areas unseen, but to really hang around in the enemy backline will require moving from cover-to-cover similar to other flanking heroes. No longer having the stealth movement speed removed upon taking damage also enhances its usefulness as an escape tool.
SUPPORT
Baptiste
Developer Comment: This change is aimed at reducing the fatigue resulting from controlling the recoil over longer periods of play more than trying to add power to Baptiste’s primary fire.
Brigitte
Developer Comment: Brigitte’s healing output over the course of a match is quite high, so this is just a slight adjustment to help bring that in line.
Juno
Developer Comments: Juno’s healing output is too high for how much mobility she possesses so we’re shortening her falloff range to increase the importance of positioning well with her mobility abilities.
MAP UPDATES
CLASH
Developer Comments: We want to reduce the number of one-sided stomps occurring in the Clash game mode. We also want to address the difficulty of securing at least one segment on the final objective points as attackers. So, we tweaked the capture time for the defending team to make the fight for objective points B and D a bit more favorable for attackers.
Overwatch 2
WHERE TO PLAY
Overwatch 2 is an always-on and ever-evolving free-to-play, team-based action game set in an optimistic future, where every match is the ultimate 5v5 battlefield brawl. Power up your railgun and disrupt the battlefield as Sojourn, or yield your axe and command attention as Junker Queen. Battle to take control of a robot and move it toward the enemy base in the new Push Mode. Bring the fight to new destinations across the globe in iconic locations like New York, Rome, Monte Carlo and Rio. Daily challenges and frequent updates mean there is always something new to play.
