Overwatch 2 Hero Designer reveals Reaper rework update after testing new ability

Overwatch 2’s Lead Hero Designer Alec Dawson has shared a big update on Reaper’s planned rework in an interview with Twitch streamer ML7.

The Overwatch 2 community has been awaiting news on a reworker Reaper since the game’s release and while we haven’t seen anything in action just yet, the devs have been experimenting.

Since its release, we’ve seen quite a few reworks to existing heroes to varying extremes with Sombra and Pharah being the most recent characters to have their kits adjusted.

Reaper is one hero the devs have indicated plans to rework as well, with the goal of “modernizing” his kit, but according to Alec Dawson, the team has reevaluated some changes after testing them out.

Overwatch 2 dev reveals internal Reaper rework tests

Speaking with popular support streamer ML7, Dawson was asked about which hero reworks the team decided against and the dev revealed that Reaper’s rework had been a bit troublesome.

“I wouldn’t say decided against. Postponed or maybe reevaluated what we want to do, one in particular that comes to mind that we’re looking at right now is Reaper,” he said. “It’s about how big that set of changes is going to be one day or how small it’s going to be.”

According to Dawson, the devs have been playing around with changes to the Talon DPS hero including giving him a right-click secondary fire ability, but it just didn’t work out.

“It doesn’t necessarily really fit completely. We don’t want to add buttons just to add buttons. We’re looking at modernizing some of his other abilities like Shadow Step. How can we make that a more interesting ability?” he asked. “How can we bring that ability into the future?”

Dawson went on to say that at the end of the day, it’s possible that the only thing that gets changed is Shadow Step, but have it be extremely polished.

We still don’t know when a Reaper rework will eventually emerge from the shadows, but with the year still young, it’s certainly possible that we get this revamped hero in a patch sometime in 2024.