Blizzard Celebrates Overwatch 2’s First Anniversary With New Hero Mastery Game Mode

Blizzard’s plans for celebrating the Overwatch 2 anniversary have been announced. The game was released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, and Switch in October last year. The game will include returning game modes for events, as well as new challenges and skins. It also includes a new mode of play called Hero Mastery. 

Anniversary celebrations will begin on the 19th of September. There are many updates, including hero changes, bug fixes and map modifications. Hero Mastery, which is mentioned above, will be the main celebration. Blizzard describes it as “a new, single-player game mode that allows players to test their skills with individual heroes on custom courses” and it’s available starting today. You can play each hero on up to three courses, with increasing difficulties. Hero Mastery is scored on time, healing, eliminating, and escorting. Each hero also has a stat tracker. 

Blizzard says players can collect all Mastery Emblems, but they’ll need to do so quickly because Hero Mastery is a limited-time event. The event also offers exclusive rewards. Tracer, Reinhardt and Mercy courses are now available. Courses on Sojourn and Winston will be added in the next few weeks. 

The anniversary celebration will be live September 19 and bring back modes such as Battle for Olympus and Catch-A-Mari. Mischief and magic and Starwatch are also returning. It will also bring a ping system update that makes it so that “owned entities (such as Torbjorn’s Turret, Symmetra’s Teleporter, or Illari’s Healing Pylong) now have a lower priority as ping targets than enemy heroes.” 

The update includes many changes for heroes such as Zarya and Junker Queen. It also makes a number of adjustments to the maps Dorado, New Junk City and Suravasa. Head to Blizzard’s patch notes blog post for a full breakdown of all the balance changes coming to the game’s heroes, maps, and more. 

Hero Mastery in Overwatch 2 is now available and will be celebrated on the 19th of September. 

Read while you wait for the party to begin. Game Informer’sAfter reading the Overwatch 2 reviews, you can read this news story on how Steam has made it possible to play Overwatch 2. Check out our hands-on impressions of Overwatch 2’s Invasion season after that.

Are you hopping into Hero Mastery? Tell us in the comments!