Esports News
The new Season of Overwatch 2 is on the horizon as Season 8: Call of the Hunt launches on December 5. This will be one of the biggest updates yet, with a sizable 3.6GB patch pre-download already available. With the official launch of new hero Mauga, a new Battle Pass, and hero balance changes, there’s loads of fresh, new content for players to sink their teeth into.
While Blizzard is quite hush-hush about their updates before they’re released, here’s a brief glimpse into the Season 8 patch preview, as revealed in the official Director’s Take. Keep reading for all the changes coming to the popular FPS, including the patch release date, Mauga’s abilities, and all hero changes.
The new Overwatch 2 Season 8, The Call of the Hunt, will go live on Tuesday, December 5. The exact release times for the major servers are below.
As the new patch notes become live, Overwatch 2 matchmaking queues and live servers will be temporarily disabled to allow the changes to take effect. Players will have to install the updates for Overwatch 2 from the Battle.net launcher.
The last patch, Season 7, saw the release of Samoa, a best-of-three control map home to a busy urban metropolis, fiery volcano, and a tropical beach. As a native Samoan, long-anticipated Tank hero dual-wielding gunner Mauga will finally be released after his brief free taster weekend in November.
In case you missed it, here’s a brief rundown of Mauga’s abilities as he officially goes live on December 6. We expect he’ll emerge onto live-servers overpowered before Blizzard Entertainment balances him out to suit the current meta.
Aka “Gunny.”
Aka “Cha-Cha”
While many players wanted a winter wonderland-themed Season 8 Battle Pass in line with the holidays, Blizzard has shocked fans by revealing “Call of the Hunt” for Season 8, alongside the Batlle of the Beasts limited-time 4v4 PvPvE game mode. In this new game mode, players will be able to play Mauga for free as the only Tank available, alongside other beast-themed heroes. May the best hunter win!
Although it's missing some festive cheer, the Season 8 Battle Pass has plenty of animal-themed cosmetics for players to sink their teeth into, including the crown jewel, the Grand Beast Mythic Orisa skin. Widowmaker, Mauga, and Hanzo are also getting some love in the new Battle Pass.
As with every new Battle Pass, Blizzard likes to go all out for the new Season, so expect some wild sprays, voice lines, weapon charms, coming soon.
Starting from Season 8, whenever players swap to a different hero in-game, their retained Ultimate charge will be lowered to only 15% instead of the current 25% battery retention. This is to punish repeated hero-swapping.
Here are the early patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 8. Remember that these changes aren’t set in stone until they’re available on live servers.
Meteor Strike
Scatter Gun
Void Accelorator
Experimental Barrier
Tesla Cannon
Endothermic Blaster
EMP
Biotic Field
Overload
Pulse Pistols
Biotic Launcher (Primary Fire)
Whip Shot
Healing Ofuda
Protection Suzu
Valkyrie
That's all our information on the early patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 8 - we'll update this article if anything changes. We can’t wait to spring into action with Call of the Hunt and the new cosmetics to open our wallets for. Mauga is the first new hero since Illari launched, and we’re sure he’ll overrun the meta one giant footstep at a time.
Want more Overwatch 2 content? Check out our complete hero unlock guide, the ranking system, the best crosshairs, the rarest skins, and how to play crossplay!