Overwatch 2 just launched its brand new season, and with it comes a whole host of new content, plus overall tweaks and improvements. As season 3 gets underway, players will want to get to grips with some of the new features, adjustments and balancing changes that are now in play in Overwatch 2.

The new season introduces the new Antarctic Peninsula as a playable Control map, plus new skins and a brand new Battle Pass for players to work through. For the first time, players will be able to earn credits in the Battle Pass, and there are a number of improvements made to enhance accessibility on a more general level.

You can check out some of the general season 3 patch notes for Overwatch 2 right here.

Overwatch 2 Season 3 Patch Notes

Drop into season three to explore the depths of the coolest new control map, Antarctic Peninsula. Compete in limited-time in-game events, such as Ultimate Valentine. Customize your heroes with new skins and cosmetics from the Battle Pass and weekly Shop drops. Now earn Credits in the Battle Pass that can be redeemed for over 250 cosmetics from the original Overwatch , and go premium to get exclusive rewards, such as Mythic Amaterasu Kiriko.

New Map: Antarctic Peninsula
Journey across the frozen Antarctic Peninsula. Discover the abandoned station where the Overwatch Ecopoint team once searched for the source of a dangerous anomaly threatening the world and explore the wreckage of the icebreaker ship that failed to rescue Mei-Ling Zhou and her friends.

New Feature: Streamer Protect
Players can now activate Streamer Protect options in-game settings. These options will provide players with ways to hide identifying information when livestreaming matches.

General Updates

Accessibility Improvements

• Improved Subtitles Options: text scalability, character portrait icons, speaker name, text color, background color, and subtitle preview in the options menu
• Added mouse cursor size setting for PC
• Added setting to select custom colors for Group and Alert colors in the UI. Preview feature added to preview custom colors in the accessibility options

Challenges

• Added challenges to unlock “Silhouette” player icons for all heroes
• Added tracking for each of the roles for the Weekly “Role Mastery” challenge
• Added Ramattra unlock challenges
• Partial progress through the season three Battle Pass is now carried over to the “Wins for Ramattra” challenge

Endorsements

• Players can now endorse the opposing team
• All players can now be endorsed in Free-For-All game modes

Game Report

• Players can view scoreboards from previous matches within the View Game Reports menu found in the History tab of the Career Profile

Mystery Heroes Changes

• Mystery heroes now limits each team to a maximum of three of each role.
• Example: You are Reinhardt in Mystery Heroes. Your team also includes Mercy, Ana, and Lucio. When you die, you cannot respawn as a Support hero because there are already three Support heroes on your team. You will either be respawned as a Damage or a Tank hero
• This new maximum role limit can be changed in Custom Games under Settings > Modes > All > Random Hero Role Limit Per Team. This setting only functions when the Respawn as Random Hero setting is enabled

Overwatch Credits are back

• Overwatch Credits, which were previously labeled “Legacy Credits” and were not earnable in Overwatch 2, can now once again be earned through progressing in the Season 3 Battle Pass
• All players can earn up to 1500 credits as free rewards, and another 500 credits are available as premium rewards in the Season 3 Battle Pass
• Credits can be spent in the Hero Gallery, which now contains nearly all seasonal Epic and Legendary-tier skins released prior to the launch of Overwatch 2. This includes many skins that were previously only available for purchase with Coins in the “Just for You” section of our Shop

Ping System Update

• Pressing Ability 1 or Ability 2 when the ping wheel is open and when these abilities are on cooldown now prints these cooldowns in chat
• Example: If Baptiste’s Immortality Field is on cooldown and you press the key/button to activate the ability while the Ping Wheel is open, the cooldown for the ability will be printed in chat

Competitive Play

Season 3 competitive play begins now! Here are some of the latest updates aimed at improving the competitive experience in Overwatch 2:

• Skill tiers and divisions will adjust after every 5 wins or 15 losses and ties (formally 7 wins or 20 losses and ties)
• Players can select the “View Competitive Progress” button from the Competitive menu to view their progress toward receiving a rank update

Workshop Updates

• Workshop Editor is back!

Workshop Moderation Tools

We added new menu options when reporting a player. Our goal is to give players more ways to report inappropriate behaviour so that we can take action in a timely manner. As a result, you can select the category and sub-category that best explain why you are reporting the player or their custom content. The major categories include:

• Inappropriate Communication
• Inappropriate Name
• Cheating
• Gameplay Sabotage
• Inappropriate Custom Content

Overwatch 2 is available free to play on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.