Overwatch 2’s most wanted Stadium feature won’t be added anytime soon

Blizzard is considering adding one of the most requested features to Overwatch 2’s Stadium mode, but it won’t be coming for a while.

It’s safe to say that Stadium has been a major success in Overwatch 2. The brand-new third-person mode arrived in Season 16, with many players jumping in right away to climb the ranks and experiment with crazy builds for each hero.

But as is the case with any big new addition, there are a handful of teething problems to be ironed out. One of the biggest problems that fans have noticed is that the mode is being dominated by specific heroes.

This has led to calls for the hero bans feature, which was added to Competitive in Season 16. But while the devs have revealed they’re open to this idea, it’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

OW2 devs “interested” in bringing hero bans to Stadium

In a Reddit AMA, the developers were asked if hero bans were being considered to try and avoid oppressive team compositions.

Test Analyst, Daniel Duffin, explained that it’s hard to add this kind of feature right now, since Stadium only has a small roster of just 17 heroes.

“Hero bans are still a new system in Overwatch, and we felt it would be too limiting with Stadium’s current roster,” he explained. “We may revisit Hero bans for Stadium in the future, when the cast is much larger.”

Blizzard

Senior Systems Designer, Connor Kou, then chimed in to add that the team is aware of how much the feature could benefit the mode, and they’re keen to introduce it eventually.

“We definitely know something like a hero draft could be a positive [addition] to Stadium. It has a lot of interesting implications for team compositions and the meta. It is something we’re interested to explore!”

So, it sounds promising that a banning feature will be added to Stadium once the number of available characters has increased. There is currently no exact timeline for when every hero will be added, but they’re set to come at a pretty steady rate.

New heroes, like Freja or the upcoming Aqua, will come in the mid-season update after they were first released. For example, Freja will be added in the mid-Season 16 patch.

Meanwhile, legacy characters that are currently missing, such as Bastion or Sigma, will roll out gradually over the coming seasons, but the speed and order depend on balancing.

So, while hero bans are being considered, it could be months or even years before we see them in Stadium.