Overwatch 2 Season 4: Release date, patch notes, Battle Pass, Mythic skin, and everything new
Here’s a look at everything you can expect from the fourth season of Overwatch 2.
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Overwatch 2’s seasonal model has revitalized Blizzard’s hero shooter with a steady stream of new content to enjoy and rewards to earn, and Season 4 is continuing that trend. The new season is now live, and it brings original gameplay content, a new support hero, a fresh Battle Pass, and other additions to players on Xbox, Windows PC, and every other platform Overwatch 2 is available on.
If you’re interested in checking out everything Season 4 has to offer, we’re here to help with all of the details. Here’s a comprehensive overview of everything that’s coming during the season, including events, Battle Pass rewards, balance changes, and more.
Overwatch 2 Season 4: Release date and launch time
Overwatch 2 Season 4 went live on April 11, 2023. At this time, Season 4’s Battle Pass replaced Season 3’s, and the new support hero Lifeweaver became available to unlock and use in Overwatch 2’s various game modes.
Specifically, Season 4 launched at11:00 a.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. ET. Accounting for Daylight Saving Time, this is usually when most Overwatch 2 patches — including the start of new seasons — are released.
Note that sinceOverwatch 2updates are global, Season 4 began earlier or later in the day in your region depending on which time zone you live in. In the table below, we’ve listed when the season went live in major time zone.
Overwatch 2 Season 4: Roadmap and events
Previous Overwatch 2 seasons have included a wide variety of both new and returning events, including Season 1’s Junkenstein’s Revenge: Wrath of the Bride, Season 2’s Winter Wonderland, and Season 3’s hilarious Valentine’s Day-themedLoverwatch dating sim. Season 4 is no different; in fact, it will feature more events than any season previous.
Below, we’ve listed each of these events, as well as when Blizzard says they’ll be available to enjoy during Season 4. We’ve also included all the details we know about each one, including gameplay offerings, rewards, and more.
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Thai New Year and ‘B.O.B. and Weave’
Season 4’s first event is Thai New Year, an affair that celebrates both the holiday and the arrival of Lifeweaver in Overwatch 2. While it’s active between April 11-25, all players can experience a special Arcade mode called “B.O.B. and Weave.” In this 3v3 Team Deathmatch mode, everyone plays as Lifeweaver and each team gets a B.O.B. that they can pull around the map with the Life Grip ability.
As they play, fans will be able to complete event challenges in order to earn rewards for Lifeweaver and other Thai New Year-themed items.
‘Twitch Makes Overwatch’ Talantis map
Aaron Keller gives an overview of the NEW MAP made with help from the community! 💜Here’s what Twitch Chat decided on:🌊 Underwater Map📌 Talon Headquarters🔱 Set in the ruins of AtlantisWe may see this map as an option in Custom Games in a future update 👀 pic.twitter.com/2Ol8GWHkKaDecember 22, 2022
Last December, Overwatch 2 Game Director Aaron Keller and Art Director Dion Rogers hosted a “Twitch Makes Overwatch” livestream in which the audience helped them design a new control map. Viewers decided on an underwater Talon base set in the ruins of Atlantis “complete with death pits, jump pads, and lots of giant fish.”
Overwatch 2’s developers have finished building this non-canon map, and to celebrate, it’s being made playable in the Arcade from April 25 to May 1.
Starwatch: Galactic Rescue
From May 9 until May 22, a “space opera PvP event” will be hosted on a reworked version of the Horizon Lunar Colony map. In it, you’ll be able to play as a number of different heroes and ally with the Watchers (Space Prince Lucio, Extraterrestrial Winston) or the Infinite Empire (Infinite Ace D.Va, Seer Mercy) as they go head-to-head.
The event’s mode is called Starwatch: Galactic Rescue, and you’ll “battle your way through new objectives (and surprises!)” while playing. Starwatch challenges will also be available during the event, and completing them will net you some free event rewards. Interestingly, a new comic will be released when the event goes live as well.
Battle for Olympus returns
Overwatch 2’s Battle for Olympus modefrom Season 2 is returning in Season 4, with the Greek mythology-themed version of Deathmatch slated to be available from May 23 to May 29. In Battle for Olympus, you can play as Ramattra, Roadhog, Reinhardt, Junker Queen, Pharah, Widowmaker, and Lucio, all of which have been empowered with the divine abilities of Greek gods. The mode will play exactly like it did in Season 2, although Blizzard is adding a new Team Deathmatch version of it for folks that want an alternative to the free-for-all ruleset.
Symmetra Challenge
Blizzard says some other events are coming later in Season 4, with one of them being called the “Symmetra Challenge.” It’s unclear what exactly this event will entail, though we know that by completing its challenges you’ll be able to earn the Gardening Symmetra Legendary skin and “other spring-tastic rewards.” The event is scheduled for May 30 to June 6.
Overwatch 2 Season 4: Battle Pass skins, rewards, and price
A new season means a new 80-tier Battle Pass for players to progress through, andSeason 4’s has a galactic space theme. Marketing for Season 4 directly stated that the Battle Pass has “out-of-this-world space opera cosmetics,” and this holds true when you look through its contents. Note that while the standard Battle Pass is free,the Premium Battle Pass costs 1,000Overwatch Coins, or $10 worth.
In addition to cosmetic rewards, Season 4’s Battle Pass also has Overwatch Credits available across both of its reward tracks. This currency can be used to unlock legacy items from the original Overwatch, and in Season 4, 1,500 are available on the Free track, while 500 can be earned from the Premium one.
Now that the season is here, we now know everything that’s on the Season 4 Battle Pass, including each reward, how far you have to progress in the Battle Pass to get them, and whether they’re available from the Free or Premium reward tracks. We’ve listed all of those details in the tables below.
Season 4 Battle Pass: Tier 1 — Tier 20
Season 4 Battle Pass: Tier 21 — Tier 40
Season 4 Battle Pass: Tier 41 — Tier 60
Season 4 Battle Pass: Tier 61 — Tier 80
Season 4 Mythic skin: Galactic Emperor Sigma
Overwatch 2 Season 4’s new Mythic skin is Galactic Emperor Sigma, an up-armored sci-fi outfit that makes the character look like the leader of a powerful intergalactic organization (probably the Infinite Empire from the Starwatch event, based on the name). You can view it in the image above.
Like previous Mythic skins, you can customize quite a bit about Galactic Emperor Sigma. Several options are available for the design of his Hypersphere weapons, helmet, and armor, and you can switch between three color schemes: gray/gold/purple, white/light gray/turquoise, and tan/black/red.
Other Overwatch 2 Season 4 skins
Between the contents of the Battle Pass, the Shop, and the various bundles that will be available to purchase throughout the season, there are atonof new skins that players can acquire in Season 4. We’ve included all the ones we spotted in the Season 4 trailer in the image gallery above.
While a sizable handful of these skins are available from the Season 4 Battle Pass, a large number of them are exclusive to the in-game Shop, and need to either be purchased directly or obtained as part of the updated version of the Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle that’s now available.
Overwatch 2 Season 4 new hero: Lifeweaver
Arguably the most exciting part of Season 4 is the arrival of Overwatch 2’s latest support hero, Lifeweaver. Note that since we’ve created aLifeweaver hero guidethat goes over all of the character’s abilities, lore, and more in-depth, we’ll keep things brief here.
Similar to Ana, Lifeweaver can both enhance allies and disrupt enemies with his abilities. Petal Platform allows him to throw down a platform that raises up whenever an ally or enemy steps on it, which can be used both to lift teammates to high ground and to nullify foes using ground-based abilities like Orisa’s Terra Surge. Life Grip, meanwhile, allows Lifeweaver to shield a teammate and rapidly pull them towards him. While its primary utility is saving allies stuck in dangerous positions, it can also be used to pull themintogroups of foes, giving it some synergy withOverwatch 2 heroeslike Reaper and Pharah that have powerful damage Ultimates. There’s also Rejuvenating Dash, a dodge-style move that also lightly heals Lifeweaver when used.
Lifeweaver can use his Thorn Volley attack to defend himself with streams of sharp projectiles, while chargeable Healing Blossom projectiles serve as the character’s primary source of healing. Lifeweaver can also heal teammates when he dies thanks to the Parting Gift passive that leaves behind a health pickup, though it’s important to note that enemies can snag it for themselves as well. Finally, Lifeweaver’s Ultimate, Tree of Life, allows him to create a large tree anywhere on the map that periodically burst heals nearby allies. The Tree of Life can also be used to block enemy damage, abilities, and players, making it a decently effective shield or area denial tool.
To unlock Lifeweaver permanently, you’ll need to purchase the Season 4 Premium Battle Pass or reach Tier 45 on the Free reward track of the Battle Pass. However, he’s also be playable for everyone for a limited time. If you’re on the fence about buying the Premium Battle Pass to get access to Lifeweaver instantly, try him out and see if you like him or not.
Overwatch 2 Season 4: Patch notes and balance changes
In addition to all of the content mentioned above, the Season 4 update also introducedOverwatch 2 hero changesand several other tweaks and improvements. These include some small nerfs to Sigma, Reinhardt, and Cassidy, the reversion of the controversial Mercy changes from Season 3, a sizable rework to Brigitte’s Rally Ultimate, and more.
Below, you’ll find the full Season 4 patch notes, taken directly from the official Overwatch 2 website.
OVERWATCH 2 SEASON FOUR
Fight for a better future in Season Four! Our newest Support hero Lifeweaver, who hails from Thailand and wields biolight, enters the fray. Take combat to the cosmos with the new Battle Pass featuring Mythic Space Conqueror Sigma, and earn free rewards in events happening throughout the season.
INTRODUCING LIFEWEAVER
Scientist, artist, and activist: Overwatch 2’s latest hero entwines the beauty of nature with the practicality of science. He dreams of healing the world.
LIFEWEAVER
Lifeweaver has been added to the line-up.
GENERAL UPDATES
This patch is a rebase and will require a large download for all platforms.
ACCESSIBILITY
Added a setting to select custom colors for health, armor, shields, and overhealth in health bars. Improved preview feature for custom color settings with different preview backgrounds.
STRANDED SPAWN SYSTEM
Regrouping with your team after getting stranded in a spawn room has never been easier! Spawn rooms that shut down due to capturing or losing an objective will now remain partially active for 7 seconds. While you still can’t change heroes in these spawn rooms, other new features have been activated. In these “stranded spawns,” the doors remain locked to the opposing team, the healing field remains active, and you can now use the Interact key to instantly teleport to the new active spawn room.
MATCHMAKING
Backfilling players in Unranked modes will now prioritize finding players closer to the skill level of the other players in the match. Minor optimizations for large groups improving matchmaking quality.
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
TOP 500 LEADERBOARD ELIGIBILITY
Players will now be required to win 25 Competitive matches before being eligible to enter the Top 500 leaderboard for a specific role, queue, or region.
Developer comments: Previously, we only required 25 games to be completed regardless of winning prior to becoming eligible for the Top 500 leaderboards; however, this change should help make sure that players are consistently pushing toward winning matches, which should help ensure the leaderboards have the best players in each region.
COMPETITIVE LEAVER PENALTY CHANGES
Matches left in different Competitive queues are still considered separate for purposes of determining the lengths of suspensions or receiving a seasonal ban from Competitive Play.
The start of a new Competitive season also no longer fully resets the severity of these suspensions and bans. This should hopefully prevent players from leaving Competitive games at the end of a season without facing meaningful consequences at the start of the next.
Matches left in Competitive Play will also have a more negative effect on a player’s Skill Tier and Division after a 5-win Competitive Update.
COMPETITIVE POINT REWARD CHANGES
The number of Competitive Points (CP) rewarded for a win in Competitive Play has been changed from 15 to 25.
The number of Competitive Points earned from seasonal challenges based on your final seasonal rank has also been updated. Games played after your last Competitive Update during a season will still count towards your final seasonal rank. You must still compete in the season’s Competitive Play Qualification challenge to receive bonus Competitive Points.
COMPETITIVE CHALLENGE TITLES
Seasonal Competitive titles earned from challenges now distinguish between whether they are earned in Open Queue or Role Queue. For example:
Developer Comments: The goal of these changes is to prevent confusion about a player’s rank from the previous season if they participate in multiple Competitive queues.
COMPETITIVE MATCH RANK
The initial loading screen that shows all the participants of Competitive matches will now show an icon at the top of the screen representing the average Skill Tier and Division of all players in that match. This should provide players with a better comparison of their own rank to other players in the match.
SEASONAL RANK DECAY REMOVED
Starting with Season Four, a player’s Competitive Play rank will no longer be reduced at the beginning of a season. Furthermore, the effects of this reduction of rank from previous seasons will also be removed. Depending on how many games they played during the previous season, most players will see their skill tier and division increase. A player’s skill tier and division at the beginning of Season 4 will now closely match the matchmaker’s estimate of your current skill.
Developer Comments: The previous seasonal rank decay was causing considerable confusion for players, who would see players in their Competitive games who did not appear to be of a similar rank. Often these players were actually of similar skill, but they had not played enough games during the season to compensate for the initial decay.
COMPETITIVE SKILL UPDATE AND PROGRESSION
Both the Competitive progress and Competitive update screens will now include information about a player’s losses and ties as well as their wins.
The Competitive Update screen will also now provide players with an indication of their current percentage progress within a skill division. This will hopefully make it more clear how the results of games played during the update affect a player’s Skill Tier and Division.
It is possible for players to have a positive win/loss record, but not go up a skill division because the progress occurs entirely within a single division. This new message will allow players to see that they did in fact make positive progress, just not enough to reach a new skill tier or division.
There is also a similar message with Competitive Updates for players who are Grandmaster 1, but not yet on the Top 500 leaderboard. This should provide those players with feedback about their progress towards earning a spot on the Top 500 leaderboard.
HERO UPDATES
TANK
REINHARDT
Developer Comment: Reinhardt has been overperforming after the recent increases to his offensive capabilities. Those changes have been playing well, so to adjust his overall power, we’re reducing his overall health through this armor reduction.
SIGMA
Developer Comment: Like Roadhog’s Chain Hook, Sigma’s Accretion and primary fire combo can be highly lethal and can feel like a guaranteed kill against 200 health targets. We’re reducing the damage slightly to require an additional volley of primary fire but are also increasing the stun duration to provide allies with more opportunity to follow up on successful impacts.
DAMAGE
CASSIDY
Developer Comment: Magnetic Grenade only requiring one additional primary fire shot after sticking to a target was too reliable to execute on, even though it only works at close range. We’re reducing the total damage on Magnetic Grenade, evenly split between the direct target damage and explosion. The reduced falloff-damage buff his primary fire received recently enables Cassidy to play from safer engagement ranges now, so we’re reducing his health back to 200.
SOMBRA
Developer Comment: We are expanding what Sombra’s EMP turns off to keep it consistent with how it affects other device-controlled ultimates.
SUPPORT
ANA
Developer Comments: We’ve been watching how effective Sleep Dart has been in 5v5 gameplay. It hasn’t been overly disruptive as a whole, but since it is significantly more reliable to land against Tank heroes due to their large hit boxes and even more valuable to do so with only one tank on the field, we’re reducing its maximum duration against those targets.
BRIGITTE
Developer Comments: Rally lost some of its power with the change from granting allies additional armor to temporary health, and overall took a relatively long time to build up its defensive benefits. This rework is intended to keep it as a defensive ultimate ability but with a more immediate impact due to gaining an increased armor health pool upfront and the enhanced barrier, which can be utilized to block for teammates while their temporary health builds or interrupt enemies with the stun.
MERCY
Developer Comment: The recent increase to Guardian Angel’s jump-cancel mobility still needs to be kept in check in some way, but while the last iteration was simple, it also had some unintended effects, such as not being ready to use GA again after flying in and using Resurrect. This revision provides more flexibility, and allows Mercy to opt into an additional 1.5 second cooldown when using the increased mobility from the jump/crouch cancel options or otherwise waiting for the base cooldown time.
The increased healing multiplier condition on Caduceus Staff was intended to help Mercy players feel more agency in trying to save critical-health allies and to add depth to the healing mechanic without changing the total time to heal to full health. However, the overall rebalance of the healing values received significant negative feedback, both from those playing as Mercy and those playing against it. There wasn’t a satisfying middle ground where we could reduce the potency of this effect while still having it feel impactful, so we’re reverting it.
MOIRA
Developer Comments: Being able to use Fade during her Coalescence ultimate gives Moira more playmaking ability by being able to reposition even more quickly and avoid potential threats with quick reactions. Due to the more spread-out playstyle of 5v5, we’re increasing the lingering heal duration from her primary fire, meaning it will heal more in total.
MAP UPDATES
GENERAL UPDATES
Map Pools have been disabled, all maps are now in rotation
NEW ARCADE MAP: TALANTIS
You designed it, we built it: an underwater Talon base with jump pads, pit traps, giant fish, and waterfalls.
Talantis will be playable for a limited time from April 25th through May 1st.
SEASON 4 MAP LIGHTING
WORKSHOP UPDATES
INTRODUCING WORKSHOP PROJECTILES
There are three new Workshop actions allowing you to create either a fully functioning projectile or a cosmetic projectile effect:
Additionally, there is a corresponding workshop extension that enables 19 projectile visual effects.
BUG FIXES
GENERAL
MAPS
HEROES
Overwatch 2 Season 4: Trailer
You can watch the trailer for Overwatch 2 Season 4 with the embed above. The trailer shows off much of what the new season has in store for players, including its cosmetics, events, and more.
Overwatch 2 is one of thebest Xbox gameson the market for fans of multiplayer shooters, and it’s available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PS5, and PS4. Season 4 is live, too, bringing both Lifeweaver and its new Battle Pass to players. If you’re a new player and want a head start on progression, consider getting the updated Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle. It includes Premium Battle Pass access, 20 instant Battle Pass levels, 2,000 Overwatch coins, and several Starwatch skins.
Overwatch 2: Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle
The $30 Overwatch 2: Ultimate Battle Pass Pack offers fans a variety of benefits that will allow them to get guaranteed access to a Premium Battle Pass track, 20 Battle Pass levels, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and during Season 4, Starwatch skins.
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Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he’s been an avid fan since childhood. He’s been writing for Team WC since the summer of 2017, and you’ll find him doing news, editorials, reviews, and general coverage on everything gaming, Xbox, and Windows PC. His favorite game of all time is probably NieR: Automata, though Elden Ring, Fallout: New Vegas, and Team Fortress 2 are in the running, too. When he’s not writing or gaming, there’s a good chance he’s either watching an interesting new movie or TV show or actually going outside for once.Follow him on X(Twitter).
