The never-ending battle between Overwatch players choosing five-vs-five or six-vs-six will rage on.
In a new Director’s Take blog today, game director Aaron Keller confirmed that Overwatch will continue to support both formats, but with a renewed focus on the classic six-vs-six, which the studio is “starting to think of it as a second among equals.”
“We always say that we want to make the game you all want to play and it’s obvious that we have folks who want different things,” Keller said, citing player surveys that were very split between the two options, as seen above. “Over the past few years, we’ve realized that there doesn’t have to be a ‘winner’ between five-vs-five and six-vs-six. The real competition should be in your matches, not between two modes that can coexist. You can play either one (many people actually play both!) and we’re going to support that choice.”
Personally? I’m a fan of six-vs-six, but that’s because I’m a tank main. Solo tanking is a pain compared to having a buddy on the frontline with you, and I can see that there are many who agree with me…but also many who don’t. Overwatch will continue to feature both, Keller says, and there won’t be any radical switches soon either, other than an additional six-vs-six queue.
“Six-vs-six has been slowly growing in popularity over the last few years; however, the five-vs-five version of Open Queue was popular too,” Keller said. “We’d like to learn how many people are playing Open Queue six-vs-six for the role flexibility and how many people are playing it for the team size. Running both modes at the same time should produce some good data points to show us where we ought to be putting more energy.”
Keller warned that adding the new queue (Role Queue six-vs-six) instead of replacing an old one may impact queue times, but it “should be better overall for our community.” He also said that the team theorizes that some matchmaking changes coming in season six “will keep queue times more manageable” alongside the new option.
“We’ll put more energy into balance patches for [six-vs-six] and we’ll continue to look for the right format that really gives our community the experience they’re looking for,” Keller said. “Whether that’s Open Queue, Role Queue, a combination of both, or a new format that we’ve yet to try out, we’re here to figure out what works best for you.”
