Overwatch 2's director knows its Steam score sucks, that's why it's taking risks

Being a multiplayer game in 2025 is hard. We've seen the rise and abrupt fall of games like Concord and XDefiant, and while Marvel Rivals blasted onto the scene in style, a game that once pulled in almost 650,000 players on Steam alone now sits at just over 101,500 - nothing to smirk at, sure, but a marked drop nonetheless. Despite being the OG hero shooter, Overwatch 2 hasn't been immune to struggle, with its Steam rating still sitting at a particularly harrowing 'mostly negative' 25%. But that's juxtaposed with Stadium's success, which many argue ushered in Overwatch 2's best era yet. How, then, does the team reconcile with the fact that its newest content is beloved by its community, but the game's Steam reputation is still in the proverbial toilet? I asked game director Aaron Keller at Gamescom 2025.

"It's something that I do think about a lot," he tells me. "Our active players are telling us 'hey, the game is in best in the best state that its either ever been in, or has been in for a really long time - you have to reconcile that with the reputation from a much broader gaming community.

"[That reputation] is one of the reasons we're taking bigger swings  - we're trying to break through some of that noise and let players who may have written Overwatch 2 off know that there's still really exciting things happening in this game. I think if the players who stopped playing a year ago or two years ago jumped in right now, they'd recognize that there is something very different about the game, and that it's come a really long way. I think that it has leveled up as a competitive FPS game: it's giving players more strategic choice inside of a match, and, if you look at Stadium, there's more ways to transform the way any hero plays."

Stadium certainly feels like Overwatch 2's biggest inflection point post-release, adding a whole new round-based, MOBA-esque game mode with perks that completely transform how heroes are played. It saw the game's Steam player count spike overnight (something no doubt mirrored on Battle.net and other platforms) breathing new life into what felt, at times, like a game that was on its last legs.

When I spoke to Keller ahead of Stadium's launch, he told me that this was part of Blizzard's aforementioned plans to "take big risks" and "bigger swings" with Overwatch. I ask, with the gift of hindsight, if the Stadium risk paid off, and whether or not its success has allowed for more innovation going forward.

"Our players will see more of that," Keller says with a smile. "With season 18 we're going to be doubling down. We're going to be releasing over 60 new perks so there's going to be at least one for every hero in the game. But it's not just about adding the new content; that's fun and it can help the game feel fresh, but it's about taking a lot of our players' feedback and implementing it. We're hitting some of the heroes whose perks didn't feel as valuable or useful. We're taking a system that I think had a really great launch and that produced a lot of excitement, and we're bringing it up to that next level to really make it sing."

Season 18 also marks what Keller calls the "1.0 release of Stadium," adding four more playable heroes, and finally introducing it into the quickplay pool. There are two additional maps, a brand new game mode (Payload Rush), and so much more - this really does feel like Stadium's final form.

But we've seen other Blizzard games make marked departures from their general formulas - World of Warcraft's battle royale mode, Plunderstorm, traded out the generic MMORPG action for fast-paced, frenetic PvP which, while met with a mixed response, was something I absolutely adored. I ask Keller if the team will every stray away from the core shooter experience and throw caution to the wind in the spirit of its sister title.

"The team is definitely willing to try new things and to see what sorts of experiences we can put into Overwatch. Right now we're focused on competitive PvP experiences, and we also need to make sure that [new] things that we do fit into the framework of the game. We do need to keep an identity." He does note, however, that with Stadium, the Arcade, and the base competitive modes, there is always the "danger of adding too much to the game," so it's a case of "simplifying the lineup a little" before the team commits to even more content.

That question is, of course, followed by a cheeky inquiry about PvE, inspired by the recent transfer of Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred's associate narrative designer Eleni Rivera to the Overwatch 2 team. Narrative? Overwatch? That's got to be PvE, I hear you cry. Sadly, it's not quite that simple.

"I love our narrative design team, and they do a lot across the entire project," he smiles. "Sometimes they're just helping us name things like perks and abilities, or even heroes and maps - even the signage on the maps! They do some heavy lifting for us. Where that could go in the future, well, we love our world. We're passionate about it, and I think that we've said that before, but I think what our players are looking for is more out of us. When I say that we love it and that we want to do more with it, I think it could come across as sounding a little inauthentic - the players have heard this before, y'know?

"Internally we have a place that we want to get to with it, and we have plans on how to do it, but we're not ready to talk about those yet. I know that it leaves our community in a tough spot to hear that same answer again, but I want to recognize that I'm not trying to give that same glossed-over treatment treatment that we've had before."

Overwatch 2 Season 18 is live right now, adding all of the aforementioned Stadium changes, as well as a slew of new perks. You can checkout the full rundown of the season here.

If "Stadium 1.0" is music to your ears, check out our lists of the best Overwatch 2 Stadium DPS build codes if you're a filthy damage main like me. Or, if you're looking to push your settings to the max, here's our guide to the best Overwatch 2 settings for both PC and Steam Deck.

Are you still playing Overwatch 2? If so, jump over to our Discord and tell us about which bits of Season 18 you're most excited about.