Overwatch 2 Season 16 patch notes add Stadium mode, Hero bans, Freja & more

A Overwatch 2 Director’s Take has revealed a number of changes we can expect going into Season 16, enough to give us a glimpse of their overall vision for the patch.

And, though there are a few perk changes and Freja buffs that have been revealed, there are also a number of more significant game-wide changes that were hinted at or outright revealed.

Here’s what we know so far about Overwatch 2 Season 16 and what you can expect from the full patch.

Overwatch 2 Season 16 patch notes

Stadium Mode arrives

Blizzard

The new third-person Stadium mode is coming this patch, providing a round-based experience where you get to build hero loadouts and play through a variety of modes in a best-of-7 format. Players earn Stadium Cash to spend between rounds to enhance their hero.

The mode is only launching with 17 playable characters, and it won’t have any perks. Additionally, your hero choice is locked in for the entire game and can’t be swapped. More heroes will be added in the future. Here’s the full list of heroes:

• Tank Heroes: D.Va, Junker Queen, Orisa, Reinhardt, and Zarya.
• Damage Heroes: Ashe, Cassidy, Genji, Mei, Reaper, and Soldier: 76.
• Support Heroes: Ana, Juno, Kiriko, Lucio, Mercy, and Moira.

How does Stadium Cash work?

Though Stadium Cash is earned in a variety of ways, the game also has ways of modifying how much you get. Additionally, every player gets at least some cash by default. Here’s how the money breaks down:

• Each player starts with 3,500 at the beginning of the match.
• Players earn more Stadium Cash by dealing damage, providing healing, and getting eliminations
  or assists.
• Players can earn bounties by eliminating or assisting with eliminating an opponent that has been
  performing well.
  • Every player starts with a value of 300 at the start of the match.
  • Every time a player gets an elimination or assist, their bounty value increases by 75 and can have a maximum value of 2,000.
  • Every time a player with more than 300 is eliminated, their bounty is reset to 300.
  • Every time a player with 300 or less is eliminated, their bounty value drops by 100.
  • Any player with a bounty of 750 or more is displayed in the gameplay HUD.
• The player on each team with the most Stadium Cash earned for the round receives a 1,000 cash
  bonus.
• A team that is significantly behind at the start of a round will have a bonus multiplier added to
  their earnings throughout that round

What can you spend Stadium Cash on?

Stadium Cash can increase either Max Health or be used to buy Items from the Armory:

Increased Max Health:

• For Damage and Support players every 500 total cash earned adds 1 additional max health at
• the end of the round and for the remainder of the match.
• For Tank players every 750 total cash earned adds 1 additional max health for the remainder of
  the match.
• Up to 300 additional health can be added on from Stadium Cash earnings.
• The initial 3,500 cash at the start of the round does not provide additional max health.

Armory Items and Powers

• Players can use Stadium Cash to buy Items that modify their weapons, abilities, and more.
  • Players can have up to six Items equipped at any time.
  • Players can sell previously obtained Items for equal value to the purchase price.
  • Items are organized into three categories, Weapon, Ability, and Survival.
  • Weapon Items typically modify the stats of weapons that have no cooldowns to use.
  • Ability Items typically modify the stats of abilities that are limited by a cooldown or ultimate
    charge.
  • Survival Items typically modify the stats of the Hero’s survival capabilities including max health,
    movement speed, and more.
  • Items are organized into Common, Rare, and Epic tiers. Common Items are the most affordable
    with Epic ones being the most exclusive.
  • Many Items are available to equip for all Heroes.
  • Each Hero will have exclusive Hero Items that specifically change the attributes of that Hero’s
    weapons, abilities, or passives.
• On round 1, 3, 5 and 7, players can equip Powers for transformative modifiers that enhance
  and change that Hero’s playstyle.
  • Powers cannot be removed once they are equipped.

On top of all this, Stadium will also have a rank system. You can read a full breakdown of how the ranks work differently from normal competitive here, or check out our best builds guide if you want a head start on the best possible options for each character.

Competitive Play Hero Bans

Hero bans are coming to any mode that can be queued for Competitive Play. This will allow you to ban heroes before the match even starts, though the system has some restrictions on how many heroes you can ban per role. It’s a bit more complex than a typical ban system.

Blizzard

You can read more details on hero banning here.

6v6 is sticking around

One of the biggest bits of information revealed in the Director’s Take that came before these patch notes is that 6v6 will be sticking around in both Competitive and Open Queue.

It’s not quite as popular as the core mode just yet, but it’s popular enough to be sticking around for at least the duration of Season 16. It’ll keep the open queue format to make sure queue times don’t end up as long as they did in Overwatch 1, but the OW team plans on keeping the mode around long-term.

Hero Changes

On top of Overwatch 2 getting so many fundamental changes in this patch, it’s also getting a huge list of hero changes. While they’re mostly focused on changing Perks, with many of them getting removed and replaced with entirely new ones. Not to mention Freja getting added this patch.

There are, however, some other small changes that may make a huge difference. For instance, Hanzo can now keep the charge on his bow after wall climbing. You can read the full list of changes here.