Overwatch 2 beta confirmed, potential cross-play and ping system teased

To celebrate Overwatch's fifth anniversary, the game's developers hosted an AMA on Reddit. They discussed the state of Overwatch, its sequel Overwatch 2, and the development roadmap for the future.

Overwatch's game director and its community manager joined the AMA panel, where fans had a field day asking them about Overwatch 2 and its developmental focus. The following are some of the main takeaways from the thread.

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Overwatch 2 developers confirm beta

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The now completed AMA saw thousands of fans posing their questions to the development team with some interesting outliers from the pool.

When asked about the possibility of a beta for Overwatch 2, technical director John Lafleur said,

"Almost certainly, yes. If I knew when, I couldn’t tell you. If I told you, I’d have to kill you. But (game director Aaron Keller) is our resident secret-leaker, so you might give him a try!"

The next topic of discussion was the addition of an Apex Legends-style ping system that seems to have been ported to almost every game in recent times. Developers said that,

"We’ve definitely considered this, In fact we have a prototype of it running internally right now. We don’t make a habit of promising things to players until they are actually announced and I’m not going to break that tradition right now (I’m sure I’ll blow it at some other point in this AMA), but it is something that we are excited about as a team and are working through issues currently.”

When asked about cross-play and cross-progression, the developers said that they had nothing to share at the moment but touched on their plan if the deliberation became a reality.

"We’re pretty excited about the possibilities of cross-play and cross-progression, but we don’t have anything to announce, today. However, given the additional complexities of cross-progression, it would probably make most sense to tackle cross-play, first and then explore progression as a potential add-on, if we go this route."

Overwatch 2 still hasn't received a definite release date, but it has been confirmed that the game will no longer be 6v6 as developers are opting for a more traditional 5v5.

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