We’re thrilled that Venture is finally in the hero lineup, and it’s been fun to see you get your hands on their groundbreaking kit and mechanics. Today two developers who were part of our newest hero's strike team will share a behind-the-scenes look at how Venture, became Venture.

Hero strike teams consist of many different disciplines across Team 4. There is no one formula for how heroes come to life, but it always starts with assembling a group of developers who will embark on the journey of creating a new hero together. Today, we’re going to hear from two of those developers – one concept artist and one narrative designer - to talk about how Venture’s art and aesthetic were created, as well as how their character and personality came to life.

Let’s get into it!


Hi! I’m Daryl Tan, Lead Character Concept Artist on Team 4.

Being on the team that brought Venture to life was an incredible experience, and I’d like to share some of that with you! I’m going to walk us through some early concepts and talk about how we landed on Venture’s finalized artwork.

When we started the early concept phases for Venture, the only thing we knew about the hero was that we wanted this hero to dig underground – so, they needed a huge drill. Senior concept artist Kejun Wang tried multiple themes and configurations for the drill, including sound-based drills and exosuit setups. This early phase is where the concept team really gets to experiment and set the creative direction for the art of the hero.

Concept art is one piece of the puzzle when it comes to making a hero. Every hero has this taskforce (so to speak) that includes developers from hero design, concept art, animation, narrative—roughly, about 13-14 developers in total work on a single hero.

For Venture, narrative designer Miranda Moyer worked closely with us to land on the direction of a swashbuckling archeologist. We thought this was an awesome idea, so we started to lean into this overall aesthetic—a daring explorer with a big drill. This character background also inspired their development code name: ‘Miner’.

Their early concept combined a bunch of ideas from the blue-sky concepts above (a “blue-sky” concept is when you set no barriers for your creativity). If you look closely, you can see which elements we picked out from those thumbnails!

There are other elements we need to consider while creating new concepts. For example, we want our heroes to have recognizable silhouettes—not just for gameplay reasons, but also to solidify them individually and celebrate the uniqueness of all our heroes. We gave Venture a big backpack and longer coat because these elements felt unique to Venture’s identity, as well as differentiating their silhouette from other heroes’.

We were really excited by the drill concept and thought it was really cool, but we had to visualize what this would look like in 3D. We worked closely with our character art team to block out some of these early ideas for the drill to see how they resonate in-game.  

While we liked the vibe and presence of the drill’s initial concept, what we had on paper didn’t feel right in 3D from a first-person perspective. We needed the drill to be immediately recognizable at a glance, so we streamlined the shape of the drill head into a more iconic, conical shape.

We took these early 3D mockups to puzzle out all the complex moving parts on the Smart Excavator. You can see the two different states, drill and canon, and how we started to piece out their aesthetics, representing their respective functions.

This is an extremely collaborative process, including developers from modeling, animation, concept art, and many other teams. We enjoyed partnering together to juggle all the different shapes and movements of Venture’s various components, all while making sure everything was recognizable, looking good from the player perspective and feeling good in-game.

The way Venture holds their drill was inspired by motorcycle themes, which you can see manifest in the look of its overall shape looked and how loud the drill is meant to be. This inspiration also led to bike-inspired flame decals on the weapon and the flame tattoo on their neck. Another fun tidbit around the design—Venture's off-hand grip of their weapon was inspired by vacuum cleaners!

Putting together Venture’s finalized concept art was an extremely collaborative process for the hero strike team. We draw inspiration from unlikely places, as well as each other, which is why the team always feels empowered to try new things—however outlandish they might be sometimes!

We’re really happy with where Venture’s art landed. We think their overall aesthetic fits well with their personality and character, but I will let our awesome narrative designer, Miranda Moyer, tell you more about that!

See you in-game!

Darly Tan, Lead Character Concept Artist




Hi! I’m Miranda Moyer, senior narrative designer on Team 4. Venture’s story and background were interesting to craft because everything was inspired by their gameplay kit. Venture’s development name was ‘Miner’ because the team wanted to build around the idea of a giant drill.

We started exploring different archetypes that matched this gameplay and weapon, and this inspiration led us to archaeology. We asked ourselves what an archeologist looks like in the bright, hopeful future of Overwatch. Our story ignited this romantic idea that even the well-charted world of the future is still full of mystery and adventure if you’re willing to look for it.

We built on this idea to create their personality. To fit the archetype of an adventurous archaeologist, we wanted someone who was daring, passionate, and unabashedly themselves.

This personality ended up meshing really well with Venture’s gender identity. Venture is our first trans non-binary hero, and they use they/them pronouns. To ensure we would represent Venture’s identity as authentically as possible, the development team for Venture worked very closely with the LGBT Network at Blizzard as well as gender non-conforming developers on Team 4, gathering feedback and refining them over time. We even consulted with a queer fashion company to help us realize Venture in a way that felt most true to their identity and the queer community at large.

Venture overflows with enthusiasm for the world and all its history. Their hands-on personality shines in their animations, voice, and gameplay. Above all, Venture is willing to do anything it takes to solve whatever mystery they’re chasing (even if they might chomp on a few rocks along the way).

We hope you have as much fun playing them as we did bringing them to life. We’d dig that :D

Miranda Moyer, Senior Narrative Designer

Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes – April 16, 2024

Check out the latest patch notes for Overwatch 2!

Limited-Time Mode: Clash Trial
Clash is an upcoming core game mode in Overwatch 2. Teams must battle back and forth over 5 capture points, with each captured objective adding a point to the prevailing team's score. Teams can win in two ways: either by having control of all five objectives at once, or by scoring five points total before the other team. Clash will be available as a limited-time trial through April 29.
How Clash is played
• Five total objectives placed in a linear pattern on a mirrored map.
• Only one objective is active at a time.
• Matches start with the center objective active.
• Players capture an objective by standing on it and filling in a progress bar. Capture progress cannot be made if enemy players are contesting the objective.
• When a team captures the current objective, they are awarded one point to their total score and a new objective moving forward from the scoring team’s side is activated.
• Objectives can be secured multiple times. If a team is pushed off an objective and the other team successfully captures it, the next active point will be in the opposite direction.
Win Conditions
Complete one of these conditions to win the match:
• A team has successfully captured five objectives throughout the match to reach a total score of five.
• Regardless of score, a team manages to take the final objective (A or E) on the opponents’ side.

Hanaoka – New Map
Explore never-before-seen corners of Hanamura in the new map Hanaoka, inspired by the visual themes of the beloved Assault map. Explore the shops and restaurants around town or follow the scent of Sakura trees into the once-proud Shimada castle.
Mythic Hero Skin Updates
Mythic Hero Skins
• Mythic Hero Skins are now unlocked in the new Mythic Shop in exchange for Mythic Prisms.
• Mythic Hero Skins are unlocked for 50 Mythic Prisms with a starting set of customizations and then can be leveled up with 10 Mythic Prisms per level. You can unlock the skin and all available customizations for a Mythic Hero Skin for 80 Prisms.
Introducing Mythic Prisms
• Mythic Prisms can be earned in the Premium Battle Pass and used in the Mythic Shop to purchase the current featured Mythic Hero Skin for the season and select previous Mythic hero skins. You can earn a total of 80 Mythic Prisms when you complete Premium Battle Pass.
• Earning Mythic Prisms in the Premium Battle Pass is the easiest way to unlock a Mythic Hero Skin and all customizations each season. You can also purchase additional Mythic Prisms in game or in your platform’s store marketplace.

General Updates
Challenges
• Completing Weekly Challenge milestones will now reward additional Battle Pass XP.
• Overwatch Coins that were earned in the Weekly Challenges can now be earned in the Battle Pass for all players.
• Reduced the number of Weekly Challenges.

Developer Comments: The number of Weekly Challenges has grown over time, and we are simplifying what players can aim to accomplish, while also making earning Battle Pass XP more straightforward.
Endorsement Changes
• Players who are actioned for disruptive behavior and reduced to Endorsement Level 0 cannot use text or voice chat features until they return to Endorsement Level 1.
Developer Comments: Since we added the Endorsement system to Overwatch, players who have been actioned because of social reports (Inappropriate Communication, Gameplay Sabotage, etc) have had their Endorsement Level reduced to Level 0. That part of the system isn't changing, but going forward, Level 0 players will no longer be able to speak in voice channels or type in text chat in most modes.
Hide My Name
• Updated option in Streamer Protect, found in your Social Options.
• You are now able to hide your BattleTag from other players in your group and from your friends in the match as well.
• When enabled, anywhere your BattleTag is displayed to players during a match now displays a random anonymized BattleTag, instead of only to the player with the "Hide My Name" setting visibly enabled.
Developer Comments: "The "Hide My Name" setting in the Social Options now displays a random anonymized Battle Tag to all players in a match, instead of only to the player with the "Hide My Name" setting enabled. New settings have been added to "Hide My Name From Friends" and "Hide My Name From Group." Of these two settings, "Hide My Name From Friends" takes priority when group members are also friends. A large list of hand-crafted BattleTags have been created to support this feature. Could it contain easter eggs or silly references?"
Progression
• Added progression badges/sub-badges and rewards for Venture. Rewards can be found in Hero Challenges.
Leaver Penalties
Two new thresholds for Unranked Leave Penalties have been added:
• Leaving two out of 20 games will result in a 5-minute suspension from queuing for most modes.
• 10 or more out of 20 games will result in a 48-hour suspension from queuing for most modes.
• All other threshold tiers are unchanged.
Developer Comments: Overwatch 2 is a competitive game even for Unranked game modes, and the match experience for all remaining players is negatively affected when a player leaves before it is completed. Remember a penalty only applies when you leave games and not when you complete games.
By introducing a lighter 5-minute penalty, we aim to discourage players from deliberately leaving games they don’t want to play, while not impacting those who may have a technical issue or an urgent need to step away from the game which they can resolve by the time the queue suspension is finished. The larger 48-hour suspension aims to target a very small portion of players who are aggressively leaving games.
• Leaving 10 games in Competitive Play will now result in a season ban regardless of the number of games completed.
• Players can still get banned from Competitive Play in as few as 5 games if they leave very consistently and don’t complete enough games to get back into good standing.
• Games completed in Competitive Play now count toward the 20-game window of the Unranked Leaver Penalty.
Developer Comments: We already suspend players who leave a Competitive and increase penalties up to a season ban for leaving games frequently, but players can work their way back into good standing if they complete several matches. However, this new rule will stop players from gaming the system over time.


Competitive Updates
Competitive Role-Specific Titles
• End-of-season titles for Competitive Role Queue now include the role the rank was achieved in.
• Examples include Champion Tank, Champion Support, Champion Damage, and Open Queue Champion.
Competitive Progress
• Each Role Rank Card now displays the associated Competitive Role-Specific title.
• Role Rank Cards can now be selected to open the Match History for the selected role.
• Match history will display the following: Map / Game Mode, Heroes / Role, Date, Score, Results of the match
• Match History can now be selected to open the Game Report for a match.
Grouping Restrictions
• All previous Competitive Grouping Restrictions have been removed.

• All groups in Competitive Play are now classified as Narrow or Wide.
• Players between Bronze and Diamond must be within five divisions of each other player in their group to be in a Narrow Group.
• Players at Master must be within three divisions of each other player in their group to be in a Narrow Group.
• Players at Grandmaster and Champion cannot be in Narrow groups, regardless of how close their ranks are. This restriction ensures that our highest-ranked players have the highest quality Narrow matches.
• Narrow Groups will always be matched against other Narrow Groups or solo players. If a group has both Wide and Narrow configurations of players, the Narrow configuration will always be prioritized.
• Any group that does not meet the criteria is considered a Wide Group.
• Wide Groups of four players may not queue. This restriction exists so that solo players are never required to make a Wide match.
• Wide Groups have increased queue times and reduced match quality because it’s more difficult to find another group of players with the same ranks in the same roles to match against.
• The amount a player’s Rank Progress changes after each match is modified by the group’s width.
• The wider the group is, the less their ranks will change when winning or losing.
• The higher the rank of the highest-ranked player in a Wide Group, the less the ranks of all players in the group will change when winning or losing.
• Players will now be informed if the configuration of roles they have selected would result in a Wide Group.
• The Tier Legend has been updated, and a new banner has been added to explain the rules described above.
Rank Information
• New Modifier: “Wide”—this modifier reduces changes in Rank Progress when winning or losing matches. The wider your group, the less your Rank Progress will change with each win or loss.
• The modifier “Volatile” has been renamed to “Demotion.”
• Arrows displayed under the modifiers have been changed to point from left to right instead of right to left.
• New Modifier: Demotion Protection
• This modifier appears on the Rank Progress bar to denote when you did not go down in Skill Division because of a loss. If you lose the next match after, then you are dropped down to the previous Skill Division.
• Victory and Defeat have been added below the Rank Progress bar where modifiers are displayed.
Golden Weapons
• Golden weapons can now be purchased with either Legacy Competitive Points or 2024 Competitive Points. You cannot purchase weapons with a combination of both currencies.

Hero Updates
New Hero: Venture
• Venture has been added to the line-up.
• Venture is immediately available to play in Competitive Play.
Developer Comments: This is a pretty major change from past heroes, but we’ve always wanted to allow new heroes into Competitive when a new season for Overwatch 2 launches. In the past, we wanted to make sure new heroes were free of any bugs or outstanding balance issues, as well as giving players enough time to unlock a hero from the Battle Pass. Because of the recent hero trial, we’re confident Venture is ready to jump into the action right away..
Tanks
Doomfist
Rocket Punch
• The empowered punch is no longer consumed when the windup is canceled by using Seismic Slam or Power Block.
Developer Comments: This quality-of-life improvement streamlines the transition between charging up an empowered Rocket Punch and another ability by removing the requirement of pressing the cancel input first.
Junker Queen
Carnage
• Impact damage increased from 90 to 105.
Reinhardt
Earthshatter
• Knockdown duration increased from 2.75 to 3 seconds.
• Shockwave range increased from 20 to 25 meters.
Sigma
Experimental Barrier
• Movement speed increased from 16.5 to 20 meters per second.
Developer Comments: This change will improve Sigma's ability to protect allies that are further away from him.
Wrecking Ball
Grappling Claw
• Hold the jump input while the Grappling Claw is attached to terrain to retract it, pulling yourself towards the anchor point. This action can be rebound in his hero settings.
• Now has a one second cooldown if Wrecking Ball never reaches ramming speed before canceling the ability. Interrupting him with Hack, Hinder, and stuns will still trigger the full cooldown.
• The maximum duration timer no longer triggers unless he reaches ramming speed.
Adaptive Shield
• Can now be reactivated to redistribute up to 300 overhealth to nearby allies, capping at 75 per person.
• Enemy and ally detection radius increased from 10 to 13 meters.
Minefield
• Health increased from 50 to 60.
Developer Comments: The general goals here are to add a direct way for Wrecking Ball to support his allies aside from purely enemy team disruption, make the hero more approachable while also adding more avenues for skill expression, and improve quality of life around the grapple.
Damage
Sombra
Virus
• Total damage over time decreased from 100 to 90.
Tracer
Recall
• Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds.
Pulse Bomb
• Base projectile size decreased from 0.2 to 0.1 meters. The total projectile size is now 0.25 meters.
Developer Comments: There is now more downtime before Tracer can safely reengage after driving her away and Pulse Bomb will require more precision.
Venture
Drill Dash
• Impact damage decreased from 60 to 40.
• Damage over time increased from 40 to 60.
Clobber
• Impact damage decreased from 40 to 30.
• Damage over time increased from 30 to 40.
Tectonic Shock
• Vertical knockback decreased by 30%.

Developer Comments: We are redistributing the damage on some of their abilities so that positioning relative to the enemy and tracking a target are more important for dealing maximum damage.


Support
Illari
Solar Rifle
• Primary fire recovery increased from 0.2 to 0.25 seconds.
• Secondary fire heal-per-second increased from 105 to 115.
Lúcio
Sonic Amplifier
• Damage per projectile decreased from 20 to 18.
Soundwave
• Damage increased from 35 to 45.
Lifeweaver
Rejuvenating Dash
• Heal increased from 50 to 60.
Tree of Life
• Pulse healing increased from 75 to 90.
Moira
Biotic Grasp
• Damage per second decreased from 65 to 60.
Coalescence
• Self-heal per second increased from 50 to 55.

Bug Fixes
General
• Hero Mastery Gauntlet - fixed a bug that could cause more AI teammates than intended.
• Fixed a bug with Wall Climb that could allow Heroes with the passive to climb infinitely.
• Fixed a bug with Diamond, Masters, and Grandmaster not playing any effects when entering the Top 500.
• Fixed a bug with duplicate entries on the Leaderboard.
• Fixed the missing flash notification on taskbar when joining a game as a backfill.
Maps
• Fixed in a previous update - resolved an issue where jump pads could become deactivated.
Circuit Royale
• Fixed an issue with the payload tires launching players unexpectedly.
Paraiso
• Fixed an area near the second point where the payload dock could negatively impact Earth Shatter and Tectonic Shock's ability to hit larger heroes.
Heroes
Echo
• Fixed an issue with Duplicate that could prevent a death being counted if it was used as Echo falls off the map.
Doomfist
• Fixed an interaction with Mei's Ice Wall that could allow you to get under the map.
• Fixed a bug with Power Block sounds triggering even if it was not blocking damage.
Illari
• Fixed an issue with Captive Sun affecting targets through floors and ceilings.
Junkrat
• Fixed a bug with Riptire receiving the self-healing passive.
Lifeweaver
• Fixed a bug where some un-targetable heroes could be healed by Tree of Life.
Mauga
• Fixed an interaction with Overrun and Brigitte's Shield Bash that resulted in Mauga being knocked down with Overrun active.
Mercy

• Fixed a bug with the Caduceus Staff not opening up with the Parasol emote and Pose.

Venture

• Fixed a bug that would prevent Drill Dash from activating while underground if the input was pressed while falling through the air and Burrow was active.
  
• Fixed a bug where Drill Dash could deal damage multiple times with the initial impact and instantly kill targets or knock them back exceedingly far.
  
• Fixed a bug where certain heroes were still being pushed back even if they escaped from Drill Dash.
  
• Fixed a bug where Venture would sometimes launch very far if using Drill Dash off a ledge while Burrowed.
  
• Fixed a bug where attempting to emerge during Burrow near ledges would sometimes end the ability prematurely.
  
• Fixed a bug where the third-person camera would snap back to first-person instantly if you were in the air when burrow ended.
  
• Fixed a bug where UI prompts for emerging and Drill Dash were not visible during Burrow.
  
• Fixed a bug that could allow players to prevent footfall audio from playing.