Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller has revealed what the game’s latest hero, the plant-wielding support Lifeweaver, means for future additions to Blizzard‘s shooter.
Lifeweaver was added to Overwatch 2 on April 11, and introduced a number of new mechanics to the game — including the ability to heal enemy players, bounce friends and foes across the map, and reposition allies.
In a blog post, Blizzard’s Aaron Keller revealed that Lifeweaver’s win rate has climbed quickly since launching, despite the fact that he launched with a considerably more complex kit compared to other characters in the game.
On that last point, Keller shared that Lifeweaver has given Blizzard “a lot to think about for hero development,” including how complex heroes and their abilities can be, and how strong they should be at launch.
“The number of unique/high-impact abilities on Lifeweaver can be seen as a bit of a departure for Overwatch hero design,” wrote Keller. “In the past, we might have spread these abilities among more than one hero — this is how Genji and Hanzo were created.”
“However, there’s so much to dive into with the hero, and the learning process of how to play him is fun in and of itself,” continued the director. “There’s such a big range of possibilities of what he can potentially do in a match.”
“There are two sides to this coin, and there has been a lot of player excitement around his kit. While we won’t make every Overwatch hero this complex, we think there’s room to make more heroes like Lifeweaver in the future.”
On the topic of launch-day balance, Keller noted that while Blizzard was not entirely “shifting our philosophy” on the topic, the studio does want heroes to get off to a stronger start than Lifeweaver and the game’s previous addition, Ramattra, received.
Earlier in the year, Keller sat down with NME to explain why “a lot of nuance” goes into balancing heroes in Overwatch 2.