Overwatch 2 is finally set to introduce hero bans, something Game Director Aaron Keller says the team feels better about after seeing it in Marvel Rivals.
Hero bans are coming to Overwatch 2 Season 16 with a long-awaited map voting feature arriving after it. While it wasn’t the first game to introduce hero bans, it’s something the devs now believe was an “obvious” inclusion.
Marvel Rivals has taken over the hero shooter world and catapulted ahead of Overwatch in active players and Twitch viewers thanks to its intriguing 6v6 gameplay.
Although the game has its own controversial meta strategies, the ability to ban heroes lets Diamond and above teams actively balance the game on their own by removing problematic characters from matches.
This feature has been widely praised by Marvel Rivals players and while Overwatch has been hesitant to implement it in the past, because of users who widely opposed it – something Aaron Keller now regrets.
Marvel Rivals made Overwatch 2 devs “feel better” about hero bans
Speaking with Games Radar, Keller revealed that, two years ago, some members of the team had developed a hero ban prototype as a passion project.
“Ever since then, it’s gone off and on schedules. I think we had it on the schedule to do it for this year, for 2025, and there had always been some resistance to it,” he explained.
“Whether it’s no longer allowing a player to play the hero that they want to play, or feeling that a counter to a particular hero is now getting banned out, and one team might have an advantage over the other team because of that.”
These concerns have been echoed repeatedly by opponents of hero bans, believing that players who one-trick a certain character would be placed at a severe disadvantage if they’re unable to use their main.
However, supporters of hero bans have argued that the feature helps balance the game and keep things fresh. Ultimately, Keller believes Marvel Rivals made the team more on board and accept that it was the right choice.
“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this, but you see it come out in Marvel Rivals, you know? And you realize, those objections were valid, but they were given way too much credence,” he said. “It’s much more obvious to us now. And while we were planning on doing it anyways, we do feel a lot better about its release.”
That’s not the only benefit Keller sees in having a true competitor in Marvel Rivals. The Director also believes that MR will give the team a chance to show what they’re really capable of and make the most appealing game they can.
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