Overwatch’s July Console Patch Adds Competitive Play & More

After weeks of waiting, both PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One versions of Blizzard’s new hero-shooter, Overwatch, are set to receive the much anticipated Competitive Play mode in the very near future.

According to the studio, the update is set to go live on July 5th alongside a new patch that will tweak some of the heroes such as McCree and Widowmaker. Before you decide to jump into competitive play, however, it should be noted that you’ll have to be at least rank 25 to enter its queue.

For the full patch notes, read on:

HERO BALANCE CHANGES

McCree

  • Peacekeeper
    • Alternate Fire
      • Recovery time (i.e. the amount of time before McCree starts reloading) decreased from 0.75 seconds to 0.3 seconds
      • Bullet damage decreased from 70 to 45

Widowmaker

  • Widow’s Kiss
    • Alternate Fire (Scoped Shot)
      • Base damage decreased from 15 to 12
        • Note: Scoped shot damage multiplier remains unchanged
      • Headshot damage multiplier increased from 2x to 2.5x
      • Players must now wait for the unscoping animation to completely finish before scoping
  • Infra-Sight
    • Ultimate cost increased by 10%
    • When activating Infra-Sight, Widowmaker’s voice line will now be audible map-wide

GENERAL UPDATES

Gamepad Controls

  • Players can now swap the left and right sticks on a control pad
  • “Legacy” controls option has been added:
    • Left stick up/down moves forward/backward
    • Left stick left/right turns left/right
    • Right stick up/down aims up/down (these can be inverted)
    • Right stick left/right strafes left/right
    • Sticks can also be switched
  • Improved dead-zone controls, giving players increased accuracy during off-center and diagonal stick movement
  • Added an option to adjust Aim Assist strength (defaults to full strength)
  • Players can now configure the user interface display area (Go to Options > Video > Display Margin)

Miscellaneous

  • “Weapons” section added to the Hero Gallery
  • Added McCree as an AI hero in Practice vs. AI, Play vs. AI, and Custom Game modes
  • Disabled “Avoid This Player” functionality and removed option from the game UI

BUG FIXES

General

  • Fixed a bug preventing players from being able to leave as a group
  • Fixed a bug that would cause players’ weapons to auto-snap straight up or down when the crosshair was aimed between 85 and 90 degrees
  • Fixed a bug that caused players who backfilled and then completed a game to sometimes receive a loss on their Career Profile and not receive their XP bonus for backfilling
  • Fixed a bug that would move players toward the source of a knockback rather than away from it
  • Fixed a bug that caused Hearthstone-themed sprays to ignore localization
  • Fixed several framerate issues that could occur when cycling through the hero selection menu
  • Fixed a variety of issues with and made several improvements to ambient lighting
  • Made some improvements to how AI heroes respond to one another
  • Made a variety of performance and optimization improvements across the game

Maps

  • Players can no longer be resurrected in out-of-play areas on Ilios
  • Fixed an issue with collision on certain areas of Dorado not blocking line of sight

Heroes

  • Fixed a bug with the “Junkrat RIP-Tire Kills—Average” lifetime statistic
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy to gain Ultimate charge whenever damage boosting an ally who was attacking a barrier or Ice Wall
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on certain maps
  • Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause projectiles to hit Reinhardt instead of his Barrier Field
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Torbjörn to pick up Scrap while dead

Overwatch is available for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox one platforms.

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