WhenOverwatchfirst launched, it pretty much let players run wild with team compositions. There were no restrictions in place at all, allowing players to use multiple of the same hero on one team and basically do whatever they want. Blizzard tweaked this over time, making it soOverwatchteamscould only have one of each hero and eventually introducing role queue in an attempt to combat griefing and better balance the game.
Overwatchrole queuemakes it so teams have to be even when it comes to class representation. In the originalOverwatchgame as it exists now, this means that two players are assigned to the Damage role, two are Tanks, and two are Support.Overwatch 2reduces the number of heroes per team from six to five, so it’s two Damage, one Tank, and two Support heroes instead, but the general concept remains the same.
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Overwatchrole queue has been divisive since its introduction, with some fans praising it for making matches fairer and less frustrating, and others criticizing it for potentially limiting any given team’s creativity. The big issue that many fans have with role queue, though, is that it has resulted in some incredibly long matchmaking times, and that problem has unfortunately carried over into theOverwatch 2beta.
It’s not uncommon for players to be waiting 10 minutes or longer to get into a game in theOverwatch 2PvP beta, and it seems Blizzard may be considering a huge change to fix the problem. As spotted by Dexerto, Blizzard has reportedly surveyed KoreanOverwatch 2players on what they think about role queue and open queue. The survey asks if players would rather have only role queue or only open queue, and the majority have picked open queue over role queue.
However, it’s unclear if open queue would really be effective withOverwatch 2’s new 5-vs-5 setup. The move to this setup hasforced Blizzard to buff Tanksand completely rework some of their kits. Having more than one Tank on any given team could throw the game’s balance completely out of whack, so it’s easy to see how open queue could be problematic if it’s implemented in the sequel.
Despite the results of the survey,Overwatch 2fans shouldn’t think that this means role queue or open queue are actually going away. However, it does show that Blizzard is at least toying with the possibility, and it will be interesting to see if the idea is revisited as the developer continues to toy withOverwatch 2’s balance.
