The Overwatch 2 roadmap confirms hero 36 in December

Overwatch 2 is here, and with Season 1 in full swing, we have a pretty good idea of the next few months of the Overwatch 2 roadmap, up to and a bit beyond 2023.

Overwatch 2 will have seasons launching every nine weeks, and Blizzard aims to launch a new hero every other season. Three new heroes launched on October 4: Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko, the new support hero locked behind the Overwatch 2 battle pass. When Season 2 kicks off on December 6, an unannounced new tank hero will join the roster, as well. Here's what we know about the Overwatch 2 roadmap so far.

Overwatch 2 roadmap details

Right now, Overwatch 2 Season 1 is in full swing. There are a ton of new maps, the new game mode Push, and three new heroes to enjoy. The battle pass offers ample opportunity to get new skins and other cosmetics, and you'll still be able to progress along it when Season 2 kicks off. 

Blizzard aims to keep up a regular cadence of new content releases with these seasons. You'll typically get a new hero in one season, then a new map in the next, alternating throughout the year. The devs say that they're already working on heroes planned for a year-and-a-half into the future, with a tank and two supports planned for the first couple of seasons. We got a chance to see some of the future heroes, maps, and content coming down the pipe and all we can say is - they're really going to shake things up. 

But how many Overwatch 2 characters and roles will we ultimately get? "There's obviously a lot of production issues, like how fast we make heroes, be happy with them, and make sure they're something we really like," former Lead Hero Designer Geoff Goodman told press in a Q&A session. "But also, there's other questions like - let's look at ourselves 10 years from now. How big should the roster actually be?"

Goodman points to the massive rosters of fighting games and MOBAs as examples of genres that can handle massive rosters. "There's a lot of different games that do handle it in different ways. And I think a lot of that is just whatever feels right for the game."

Ultimately, Goodman suggests that the roster will continue to expand as long as people keep playing. "As long as people are playing the game and loving it and wanting new heroes, we're definitely down to make more. So if we end up in a situation and we have 150 heroes, and people are still jazzed to play and we feel like we can still make really cool heroes, then we'll keep going."

Unfortunately, Overwatch 2's launch was mired with issues as Overwatch 2 servers hit unexpected server errors as players face long queue times.