On this day two years ago, Overwatch released to the public. To celebrate, the devs have opened the floodgates of content. Every skin, emote, spray and brawl from the past two years (in addition to some new content) will be available to collect and play for the next two weeks.

In the midst of all the festivities, some hero changes have been implemented. There have been some nerfs to Brigitte and Hanzo, the latter of which has been a cornerstone in the live meta. Additionally, Ana received a rework that should help her healing capabilities.

As always the transcribed patch notes can be seen below.

PATCH INTRODUCTION

Holy cats—it’s hard to believe it’s been almost two years since the release of Overwatch. As you might imagine, this patch is all about celebrating that milestone with the people in our community who made it possible. We’re marking the occasion with a ton of new content, including a new map (plus our first-ever Competitive FFA Deathmatch mode), but one of the most exciting parts for me personally is that for the first time ever, we’re making nearly every one of our past seasonal brawls available for play again at some point during the event in a sort of “greatest hits” marathon. I’m looking forward to teaming up with all of you for another round of Mei’s Yeti Hunt and Junkenstein’s Revenge. If you see someone on your team wearing a XX skin and spamming the XX emote, that’s probably me. Sorry in advance for zeroing you out at Lucioball. —Jeff Kaplan

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

New Seasonal Event: Overwatch Anniversary 2018

Celebrate Overwatch’s two-year anniversary with a new FFA (free-for-all) Deathmatch map—Petra—and more than 190 Anniversary items (60+ new for 2018), including eight legendary skins: Stealth Bastion, Shieldmaiden Brigitte, Formal Doomfist, Buccaneer Junkrat, Sherlock McCree, Forest Spirit Orisa, Magician Symmetra, and Cybjörn Torbjörn. Did you miss an item from a previous event? Throughout Overwatch Anniversary, you’ll be able to unlock items from past seasonal events with credits (and opening Anniversary Loot Boxes)!

Many of our past seasonal brawls will be available to play in the Arcade, and the brawl of the day will rotate throughout the event.

As a bonus this year, each Anniversary Loot Box can contain items from past seasonal events! You’ll also get one Legendary Anniversary Loot Box, with at least one guaranteed legendary item, just for logging in to the game during the event.

Thank you all so much for spending the last two years playing Overwatch with us, and we look forward to celebrating with you in-game!

New Map: Petra

A group of archaeologists have begun an excavation and preservation project among the ruins of Petra, a new FFA (free-for-all) Deathmatch map that puts all heroes on their own, facing off against one another until one hero scores enough eliminations to win the match. Take in Petra’s majestic views, from high vistas to twisting passageways and deep caverns. Travel along deadly cliffs, but be careful to not fall off! A dilapidated bridge stretches across the map, and the ground underneath it can crumble away into a lethal pit (with a little firepower). Hopping on a green jump pad will boost you up to Petra’s higher levels and unlock new strategic possibilities for you. . . .

New Competitive Play Mode: FFA Deathmatch

Petra and Château Guillard will also be available in an optional Competitive FFA Deathmatch mode with placement matches, skill rating, leaderboards, and the opportunity to earn competitive points.

HERO UPDATES

Ana

  • Biotic Rifle

    • Projectiles will now pass through allies with full health

    • Ammo increased from 10 to 14

Developer Comments: These changes should help Ana when she is trying to land clutch heals in the middle of a big fight. Allies that do not need healing will no longer potentially block shots meant for teammates that do need it. Increasing her magazine size makes it less likely that Ana will be forced into a reloading in the middle of an important fight.

Brigitte

  • Rally

    • Maximum armor per player reduced from 150 to 100

  • Shield Bash

    • Cooldown increased from 5 to 6 seconds

Developer Comments: Brigitte’s ultimate is very powerful, especially when it is placed on the entire team. This change will reduce the maximum armor value of Rally, but does not reduce the overall amount of armor given by the ability over its duration. This means when used in combat while her allies are taking damage, it should feel about the same, but the lingering effects of the armor should have less of an impact. Her Shield Bash is a very strong ability on a fairly short cooldown, making it difficult for her opponents to play around. Increasing this cooldown allows for more options when battling against her.

Hanzo

  • Storm Arrows

  • Damage reduced from 80 to 70

Developer Comments: Hanzo’s Storm Arrows are doing too much damage considering his other changes, such as Lunge and projectile speed. This damage reduction will give Hanzo’s enemies a more reasonable chance to react and fight against him while using Storm Arrows.

COMPETITIVE PLAY UPDATES

Rialto

  • Rialto is now available in Competitive Play

GAME BROWSER AND CUSTOM GAMES

General

  • Added Infinite Ultimate Duration and Scalable Ultimate Duration options for Moira’s Coalescence

FFA Deathmatch

  • Ana can now Nano Boost herself

BUG FIXES

General

  • Fixed a bug that caused players to repeatedly return to the Hero Select screen when backfilling into a match
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the sound wave visual effect from animating when previewing a voice line unlocked from a loot box
  • Fixed a bug that caused a visual error to display 0/0 unlocks on the main menu
  • Fixed a bug that caused Widowmaker to become stuck in a pillar in the Practice Range
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the Groups tab in the Social menu from dynamically refreshing
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented shields from blocking projectiles (e.g. Tracer’s Pulse Bomb and Junkrat’s Frag Launcher)
  • Fixed a bug that caused the camera to dip down for a frame when crouching and returning to an upright position

FFA Deathmatch

  • Fixed a bug that allowed groups to queue for Deathmatch
  • Fixed a bug that caused Sombra to be revealed to all enemies if targeted by Hanzo’s Sonic Arrow or Widowmaker’s Infra-sight while stealthed

Game Browser and Custom Game

  • Fixed a bug that caused Moira’s Coalescence’s animation to incorrectly loop when Ultimate Duration was set above 100%
  • Fixed a bug that caused Moira’s Coalescence SFX to stop playing after a couple of seconds when Ultimate Duration was set above 100%
  • Fixed a bug that caused players who were idle in Assault and Skirmish game modes to be flagged as inactive and removed from the match
  • Fixed a bug that prevented spawn resets and round start dialogue from playing when Random Heroes was enabled
  • Fixed a bug that caused the start of match dialogue to say “Capture the enemy flag” instead of “Fight” in Team Deathmatch
  • Fixed a bug that caused suicides to count as multiple deaths in Deathmatch when the Respawn as Random Hero option was enabled

Highlights

  • Fixed a bug that caused dialogue lines to get cut short at the end of highlights
  • Fixed a bug that caused placement indicators to appear red in Play of the Game playbacks and highlights when they were placed on valid ground

Heroes

  • Fixed a bug that caused Ana’s Biotic Rifle crosshair to disappear momentarily when scoping and unscoping
  • Fixed a bug causing Bastion’s Dune Buggy skin textures to stretch when waving hello
  • Fixed a bug that caused Brigitte to reapply Repair Pack on her previous target rather than her new target if she used Repair Pack immediately after the cooldown ended
  • Fixed a bug that caused Brigitte’s Shield Bash hitbox to be wider than her shield
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Brigitte’s Self Healing statistic from being tracked
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Doomfist’s hand from animating when using Hand Cannon immediately after Rocket Punch
  • Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s Lunge animation to follow the direction of the first jump after changing directions on a subsequent jump
  • Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s hands to float above his legs during his Meditate emote with certain skins equipped
  • Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s shins to appear malformed in his Heroic victory pose with his Scion skin
  • Fixed a bug that prevented players from modifying Hanzo’s Lunge ability cooldown time in Custom Games
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Hanzo’s reticle from constricting when using Storm Arrows
  • Fixed a bug that caused Lúcio’s Soundwave animation to play twice if he used his quick melee attack immediately afterward
  • Fixed a bug that caused the hammer on McCree’s golden weapon variant to be dull with his Scrooge skin equipped
  • Fixed a bug that caused McCree’s ankles to deform when he used his Take a Load Off emote
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes caused frozen targets to evade attacks
  • Fixed a bug that caused Mei’s Pajamei skin to exaggerate the curvature of her spine
  • Fixed a bug that caused Mei’s Endothermic Blaster visual effects to go through shields
  • Fixed a bug that caused Mercy’s wings to stretch out comically when waving hello while using Angelic Descent
  • Fixed a bug that caused Mercy to be placed too far towards the back of the hero line up
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Mercy’s healing and damage boosting beams from being visible the first time it’s used on a player after activating Valkyrie
  • Fixed a bug that caused the pumpkin in Orisa’s Pumpkin Head victory pose to persist after navigating away from it in the Hero Gallery
  • Fixed a bug that caused the player’s camera to zoom into Reinhardt’s Rocket Hammer when struck by it
  • Fixed a bug that caused Soldier: 76’s jacket collar to clip into his shoulder with his Classic skin equipped
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Sombra’s laser sight from tapering at its end with her Talon skin equipped
  • Fixed a bug that caused Symmetra’s hard-light prism visual effects to deform into a sphere on the Hero Select screen
  • Fixed a bug that caused Symmetra’s Teleporter and Shield Generator to self-destruct when placed against certain walls
  • Fixed a bug that caused Tracer’s Recall to appear jittery for spectators, in highlights, and in replays
  • Fixed a bug that made Torbjörn’s turret lose sync with his breathing animation in his Medal victory pose
  • Fixed a that caused Widowmaker’s crosshair to disappear for a moment when unscoping
  • Fixed a bug that caused Winston’s shoulder to dislocate after using an emote
  • Fixed a bug that caused Winston’s Jump Pack to stop short of its full distance when clearing ledges

Maps

  • Fixed a bug that caused projectiles shot at Attacker spawn room doors to slide upward
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the payload marker from appearing before the game started
  • Fixed a bug that caused players in the first Defender spawn room to make water splashing noises
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the payload thrusters from turning red when reversing
  • Fixed a bug that caused Genji’s Cyber-agility and Hanzo’s Wall Climb animations to loop and stutter when scaling walls
  • Fixed a bug that caused Doomfist to clip through the environment during his Combo highlight
  • Fixed an issue that allowed players to get a Play of the Game by killing gondoliers in Rialto
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the heal icon from displaying on with the first Defender spawn room
  • Fixed a bug that allowed defenders to see attacker spawn entrances