Overwatch 2 devs open to bringing Mirrorwatch abilities to the base game

Overwatch 2’s Lead Hero Designer, Alec Dawson, revealed that Blizzard is open to bringing over abilities from Mirrorwatch and April Fool’s into the main game. 

During a Reddit AMA where the community could pose questions to Overwatch 2’s Hero design team, a player asked the devs if they were secretly testing any upcoming heroes with Mirrorwatch’s reimagined abilities. 

Despite no secret testing, Dawson said that the team is indeed open to bringing some of Mirrorwatch, and April Fool’s changed-up abilities into the base game. 

“No secret testing of anything upcoming in the immediate! We do look at how some changes play out though when they become more real and get lots of games,” Dawson explained. 

The Overwatch 2 lead Hero designer further added that they have internally tested the new passive Reinhardt got in Mirrorwatch, Frenzy, which increases attack speed when dealing damage with Rocket Hammer, but they found it hard to translate in the base game.

He additionally said it would be “fun” to see Bastion’s reimagined ult from Mirrorwatch, which deployed four slicers from the sky instead of artillery shells, however, felt it would become too “loud”. 

“It’s always good to see what players get excited about when there are more wacky ideas such as Mirrorwatch or April Fool’s,” Dawson said of the game modes. “Some of those could become real down the line.”

Mirrorwatch was a limited-time game mode in Season 10 that reimagined Talon and Overwatch agents swapped and came with reimagined abilities that drastically changed how they played to fit their new story. 

It was a more serious version of the annual April Fool’s game mode that also reimagines Hero’s abilities, albeit for a gag rather than to fit a narrative theme.